Dezeen Magazine

Kit Yamoyo by ColaLife and PI Global

This aid kit is designed to nestle between Coca-Cola bottles to bring medicine to remote locations through the drinks company's vast distribution channels.

Kit Yamoyo by Cola Life and PI Global

Above: image by Guy Godfree

The Kit Yamoyo is the idea of British aid worker Simon Berry, who realised while working in Zambia in the 1980s that Coca-Cola was available in even the most rural villages, yet simple medicines were not.

Kit Yamoyo by Cola Life and PI Global

After Berry set up the ColaLife charity in 2011 to put the idea into action, design consultancy PI Global offered its services and came up with a robust container small enough to occupy the unused space between Coca-Cola bottles inside crates.

Kit Yamoyo by Cola Life and PI Global

The AidPod, as it's named, is currently available as an anti-diarrhoea kit containing oral rehydration sachets, zinc supplements and soap, but ColaLife believes it could be used to get tablets, condoms or other products to remote areas if the pilot project in Zambia is successful.

Kit Yamoyo by Cola Life and PI Global

The AidPods are designed to benefit independent rural retailers by allowing them to make a profit on their resale. In the last six months, over 20,000 kits have been bought by retailers in Zambia to be sold at just under a dollar each.

Kit Yamoyo by Cola Life and PI Global

Kit Yamoyo recently won the product design category of the Designs of the Year award, given annually by the Design Museum in London. The overall winner is due to be announced tonight.

Other category winners included a folding wheel for wheelchairs and a government website designed to be as intuitive and simple as possible, as designer Ben Terrett explained to Dezeen in a filmed interview earlier this year.

Kit Yamoyo by Cola Life

The winner of the inaugural Designs of the Year Award was Yves Behar's One Laptop Per Child project to bring computers to children in the developing world – see all news about Designs of the Year.

We've featured a few other products designed to tackle health issues in developing countries, including a single-use disposable toilet and a bicycle-powered electronic waste recycler.

Images are by Simon Berry except where stated.