What We Are Doing

There’s a whole growing section of the mobile world that’s dedicated to improving the lives of people across the globe.”

Feelgood is committed to raising awareness and promoting social and environmental change through mobile phones and the role they play in bettering people’s lives. If you’ve seen the mobile phone just as a tool for talking, texting, surfing, or capturing cute pictures of your friends, then think again. Mobiles are being used to revolutionise health services, conservation strategies, humanitarian aid and alerts, education and so on in all quarters of the globe. There are over 3billion handsets circulating around the world, all of which can become a tool of social change. With mobile technology moving leaps into the future, it’s not long before everyone’s phone will be able to provide essential and vital services in even the most poor and the most remote parts of the world.

Feelgood is raising awareness of how mobiles are revolutionising communities worldwide. We are dedicated to promoting the projects that demonstrate direct benefit to the national and international communities. That’s why we bring you the latest reports on developments in mobile technology, mobile initiatives and mobile creativity.

At home, feelgood has pioneered several successful community recycling projects. We’ve teemed up with University College Hospital to donate money to Cancer Research, Design Against Crime to bring you security initiatives;UMU antivirus to develop and distribute exclusive antivirus packages that prevent your information and identity being stolen and sold on; and we also work closely with Max Schleser of filmmobile to create opportunities for you learn and try your hand at being a mobile film maker. Our monthly magazine features articles on the impact of mobile technology on the world,on our environment,and on our health and lifestyle,which you can also download from this website.

Feelgood Thinking Around the World

Favelas, Fones and Facilitating Change

There are currently 3.5 billion mobile phones in usage across the globe. This is an amazing number. So who’s using them? Well, the answer is: everyone. Ok, but what about people in remote areas, like parts of India, China, Brazil or parts of Africa that we might imagine have less access to the technology, less access to technology support (eg. communications masts), and no income to afford such an expensive item? Interestingly enough, mobile phones play a very important role in these communities, just not quite the one we might expect.

Earlier this year, Vodafone sponsored research into how exactly mobile phones were being used in Brazil’s favelas. Nearly 20% of Brazil’s population live in favelas- communities that have no heat, water, or electricity. Yet surprisingly, mobile phones were amongst the most commonplace items being sold on the communities’ “parallel market”.

The principle need addressed by mobiles in the favelas was for safety information. For example, when travelling back to the favela a mobile user who under normal circumstances would be unable to afford a call to the police to check for shootings, accidents, or even open battles between drug lords and police, would be sent text updates sent by a community led security information service. A shared phone was often accessed to warn children coming home from school not to enter their favela for a time via text message. These text messages sent out to groups of children using phones directly helped protect their lives and keep them out of danger.

The concept of phone sharing is very common in communities in developing countries across the world. The mobile phone is not a personal or leisure item, but a community tool used to warn, protect, even save lives from humanitarian dangers (like gang warfare), environmental disasters (storms, floods, etc.), disease outbreaks, and so on. Communities have cottoned on to the usefulness of phones and now so called ‘bottom of the pyramid’ users are the fastest growing mobile group to globally emerge.

The question to mobilizers of social change is: how can we realistically address and facilitate the mobile needs these communities face within the financial constraints they live with? The answer is simple: donating unwanted handsets.
There are, also, several network providers who are lowering the costs of security based text messages, but what needs to happen is for global awareness to create enough momentum to make security text alerts a reality for all groups living in areas of high conflict.

Vodafone recently signed a manifesto for mobilizing social change along with the U.N. Over the past few years they have been act in donating millions of dollars, as well as performing research into the most effective and sustainable ways mobiles can tackle security issues in conflict areas. This marks the beginning of a profound overhaul in the way mobile network providers are thinking about the next generation of mobile phone users and usages. Please have a look at the links below for more information on this new initiative.

www.vodafone.com/start/foundation/our_focus/disaster_relief/un_foundation.html

www.unfoundation.org/press-center/press-releases/2004/vodafone-group-foundation-unf-announce-
partnership.html

www.developingtelecoms.com/content/view/1169/100/


Feeling Good About Mobiles?

The page for news, update, and debate on mobile phones and health.

Health & Mobile Phones: The Basics

Recent research undertaken by the department of health shows that mobile phones do send out emissions that are less than ideal for the body’s absorption. International guidelines have been set to limit the rate of high frequency emissions a mobile phone can safely generate without causing damage to the body’s nervous system or cell structure, and we are pleased to report that ALL phones on the UK market comply with these regulations.
However, it is important to regulate your exposure to the waves that mobile phones generate. The waves that are emitted may cause you to experience a heat sensation in your ear. This sensation indicates that the radio waves sent out by the phone are being absorbed by your body at the point of contact. This absorption is known as the Specific Absorption Rate (SAR). You can check the SAR of each model handset here:
www.mobile-phones-uk.org.uk/sar.htm
The International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection have set a SAR limit of 2.0W/kg and most phones sold on the market have a SAR rate of under half that amount. However, it is important that you consider a handset’s SAR rate before you purchase it.

Feelgood knows that mobile phones have become an integral part of our daily lives. It’s therefore wise to learn how to use them to maximum efficiency without exposing yourself unduly to harmful waves. The Department of Health suggest you keep each phone call short- try not to spend hours at a time chatting away (even if your timeplan’s so good you can afford to do that!) You can check out their full leaflet here and health tips here:

www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_4123979

Feelgood is committed to bringing you the news on mobile phones and mobile health as and when it comes out. Check back on this page for updates on new mobile health debates, research undertaken on mobile health issues, best practice, and approved mobile health accessories. After all, it’s our world, let’s feelgood about it together.

Recycling

Feelgood believes that the best route to an improved and sustainable environmental solution lies in responsible reuse and repair of product. Even if a phone can’t be used anymore, its essential components can be safely stripped, collected and reused in production. We take recycling seriously because we know that mobile phones are amongst the greatest contributors to landfill waste. Electronic waste, and in particular mobile phones, can be extremely dangerous to the environment. The chemicals used to conduct the amount of energy needed to power a mobile phone are potentially harmful if they’re not disposed of properly when their life is over.
The problem with recycling is that simply enough people in the UK don’t do it. Feelgood decided that the best way to promote recycling in families is to raise the awareness about its benefits through children and young people, who can then tell their parents about it. So, we started our recycling awareness campaign in schools in the Hammersmith & Fulham area.
Last year, we teemed up with Groundwork, the charity that keeps London parks alive and flourishing! For every phone recycled through our Camberwell shop, we donate money directly to the parks’ improvement campaign- turning unwanted phones directly into cash for cycle paths, playgrounds and gardens. After all, it’s our world, let’s feelgood about it together.

WEEE Regulations

The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (or WEEE) Regulations are now U.K. law. All European member States including the U.K. have agreed to reduce the amount of WEEE that is being disposed of in landfill sites.
It is important that the amount of WEEE going sent to landfill sites is reduced because:
• Some WEEE can be re-used or recycled. The amount of landfill space available in the UK is decreasing. If we can keep WEEE out of landfill sites it means there is more landfill space available for non-recyclable waste.
• WEEE can contain hazardous substances. When left in landfill sites the hazardous substances in WEEE can pollute soil and contaminate water supplies. This contamination can damage human health and the environment.
Distributors of new Electric and Electronic Equipment (or EEE) have a part to play in reducing the amount of WEEE going into landfill sites.
Fonehouse Holdings Ltd are “doing our bit” under these regulations by offering our customers free take-back of their WEEE on a like-for-like basis when they buy a new Electrical or Electronic product.
For example, if a customer bought a new Mobile phone or charger from us we would take back their old phone or charger and prevent it going into a landfill site by disposing of it safely. Customers must return their old WEEE within 28 days of purchasing their new item.
Under the WEEE Regulations, all new electrical goods should now be marked with the crossed-out wheeled bin symbol shown below:

Goods are marked with this symbol to show that they were produced after 13th August 2005, and should be disposed of separately from normal household waste.

Partners

DAC:

Last year, fonehouse forged a partnership with Central St. Martin’s School of Art and Design’s ‘Design Against Crime’ department to develop and promote user effective products and strategies tackling mobile phone theft. Our partnership proved so successful that we were awarded a substantial grant to explore ways in which
DAC’s expert knowledge integrated into Fonehouse’s mobile
communications service provision within our ‘Feelgood’ initiatives.

ABOUT DAC

The Design Against Crime Research Centre (DAC) delivers practice-based socially responsive design research and solutions, with the aim of improving the quality of life by reducing the occurrence and fear of crime. DAC has extensive knowledge and collaborative networks in relation to security of mobile products including phones, bags and bicycles.

ABOUT THE GRANT

This Secondment into Knowledge (SiK) project delivered a feasibility study to assess how the following mobile security content/features could be integrated into
Feelgood by:
Registering feelgood customers’ mobile phones and other mobile
products, such as bicycles, laptops, and i-pods.
Registering Feelgood customers’ mobile products with ‘Immobilise
property register’ from their mobile phone.
Providing Feelgood information services to customers’ mobile phones.
Including, bicycle travel planning/ route finding info, secure cycle parking
info (tips on good locking practice and cycle parking locations in London),
as well as, incentives/information on recycling old/unwanted mobile phones.
Since investigating these areas feelgood have found new ways to connect our customers with improved security, including antivirus.

Groundwork

Groundwork supports communities in need, working with partners to
help improve the quality of people's lives, their prospects and potential
and the places where they live, work and play. Our vision is of a society
of sustainable communities which are vibrant, healthy and safe, which
respect the local and global environment and where individuals and
enterprise prosper. Each Groundwork Trust is a partnership of the public,
private and voluntary sectors with its own board of trustee. Groundwork UK exists to support the charitable objectives of the Federation of Groundwork Trusts and to lead promotion and development of the Federation.

In April 2007 we linked with Groundwork (www.groundwork.org.uk) to donate all money raised from recycling phones at our first recycling store on Walworth road to groundwork southwark & lambeth, (www.groundwork-sl.org.uk), the borough in london where the store is located. - Groundwork Southwark and Lambeth is an independent charity committed to improving the natural and built environment in the London Boroughs of Southwark and Lambeth.

All the money raised from the recycling programme at Walworth Road is going to support Burgess Park, one of the hidden treasures of Southwark. Bigger than St James Park, the Park rests between the Old Kent Road, the Aylesbury and Camberwell Road. It was first envisaged in the Abercrombie Plan, a strategy drawn up in 1943 to plan how London would emerge after the misery of the Second World War. The park has been gradually created over the years and is now 50 hectares in size. Back in the seventies, local residents were promised "Hyde Park for SE5". Burgess Park even has a lake, but it's not quite the serpentine. – Yet!

Local environmental charity Groundwork Southwark & Lambeth has been working hard for several years to raise money to protect and improve Burgess Park. New tennis courts and a new football pitch have been created along with a new eco-pavilion complete with green roof and photovoltaic cells. Currently plans are being drawn up for a new playground for local children. There are also plans, nearing completion, to transfer the ownership and management of the park to a new local trust. This will protect the park's borders once and for all and give local people a real say in how the park is run in the future.

CMR / Foneclub

Corporate Mobile Recycling is a company dedicated to providing a safe,
practical and reliable recycling proposition for large and small corporations, network operators, retailers and any individuals with mobile phones that are no longer used or required. CMR have many years experience in mobile reuse and recycling and have developed a number of innovative environmental schemes to encourage companies and individuals to get involved with mobile phone recycling.

CMR is another independent London-based company of a similar size to
fonehouse. They specialize in the reuse and recycling of mobiles, recycling 90,000 mobiles per month for charities, retailers and operators. They also actively support their local community through Camden Council's Green Fair at Regent's Park, including a free bag distribution to 80 schools in the Borough of Camden.

In June 2007 Fonehouse and CMR agreed on a twelve month programme of activity to promote mobile phone recycling and support local community projects. A major part of this campaign is the printing and distribution of 1,000,000 recycling bags, which will be used to promote recycling to Fonehouse customers and right across the Foneclub scheme aimed at 28,000 UK schools.

The purpose of Foneclub is to encourage schools, community groups and
charities and other organisations to run a recycling scheme to collect redundant or unwanted mobile phones and raise money with the minimum of effort and at no cost to them.

CMR's Foneclub website provides all of the materials required to run a mobile recycling scheme and raise vital funds. For example for schools these include:
     Pre written letters for parents and local businesses outlining the scheme
     Pre written press release
     Branded paper recycling bag for every household
     Branded and pre designed posters
     Free collection of phones
     Full access to foneclub website with additional advice, ideas and support materials
Foneclub Bag Distribution

Without advertising, branding or promoting CMR's current school scheme
distributes bags to approximately thirty schools and clubs per month which equates to 30 X 180 - 5,400 bags a month or 65,000 per year.

CMR under the umbrella of "feel good" plan to direct mail 28,000 schools twice per year. We predict that this effort running alongside PR and advertising activities will result in a tenfold increase in phones recycled and money raised for the respective schools.

Foneclub Launch - Design Mueum

The official launch of Foneclub took place at the Design Museum in London, 2-4pm on the 21 st September 2007. The launch showcased some unique mobile phone recycling art. The premise behind the art is that in addition to the community and recycling initiatives we also want our employees to 'feel good' about what we are doing. Many businesses in London have 'frustrated' (but highly trained and talented) artists, musicians and actors in their midst and as a result we want to help showcase this talent through the feel good initiative.

Obviously it also provides CMR and Fonehouse with the opportunity to attract further press interest with an interesting story around the combination of art and recycling.