Donate Your Old/Broken Cell Phone and Save Lives

I recently stumbled upon one of the most brilliant and “outside the box” ideas I have ever seen to help people in developing countries. 

Basically, by using recycled cell phones to create a kind of “911″ text message service, a med student from Stanford has revolutionized a hospital in rural Malawi. In just 6 months of using this new program 150 patients received emergency care, community health workers saved 1,000 hours of travel time which they used to visit more patients, the number of people being treated for Tuberculosis doubled, and the hospital saved $3500 worth of fuel, which was used to purchase medication. 

Instead of explaining it here (which would take me way to long to write, and you way to long to read)…Watch this 2 minutes video to hear the story:

Here’s how the logistics work: when your old (and even broken!) phone is received by the recycling center, it is given a value. They use this value to purchase appropriate, usable cell phones for community health workers at the medical clinics. The average donated phone in the US will allow them to purchase 2-3 cell phones for clinics and give 50 families access to emergency medical care, health information, transport services, and clinic resources.

Oh, and did I mention that they even pay for postage??? What an awesome, totally free way to provide medical care to people who need it!!! My one and half year old may be sad to lose “her” cell phone (my old one that broke), but she’ll get over it in about 11.7 seconds and someone is Malawai will appreciate much more than she did!

Click HERE to learn more, find step-by-step instructions on how to donate you’re old phone and print off the free postage label.