Voda pushes phone recycling

Peter Gabriel, left and John Robertson.

Vodafone has joined in a campaign to send unwanted mobile phones to developing countries. Phones 4 Africa hopes to increase the number of handsets that are reused by encouraging thousands of people in Britain to recycle their mobiles. Vodafone has teamed up with Fonebak, a specialist company in recycling and distributing used phones in the developing world, to launch the campaign, while prime minister Tony Blair and singer Peter Gabriel have shown their support.

Blair said: 'Phones 4 Africa is a great idea. It means people in Britain can help thousands of people in Africa use ordinary mobile phones to break out of poverty.' Gabriel joined Vodafone Enterprise Business Unit director Kyle Whitehill and MP John Robertson last week in Westminster to launch the campaign.

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Musician Peter Gabriel, who launched the 'Phones 4 Africa' campaign in Parliament this week, said:

"Phones 4 Africa is a brilliant idea. Mobiles have been adopted faster in the developing world than in the developed world. They have the capability for improving lives.

""In 2 years mobile phones will have the same capacity as laptops have at the moment and they will transform education in remote locations. I work with the Mandela Foundation which worked with coffee growers in Zimbabwe who were being ripped off by middle men. As soon as they had mobile phones they were able to get commodity prices directly from the Chicago Exchange. This transformed their local economy.

"We have developed a hub on the internet to which anyone can upload images using their mobile phone or video. We believe this has the potential to transform human rights campaigning because when individuals have footage it is easier to get transmission of it. Also it's harder for those who are doing it to deny it. This is the Human Rights Video Hub, part of www.witness.org which I set up."