Using your head
A charitable organization hopes its for-profit
subsidiary that makes motorcycle helmets can
reduce Vietnam's traffic-related deaths and change
the way charities do business
HANOI - In Vietnam, a country quickly adapting its old,
Soviet-style economy to the market, the rules of
business are still being written. So, too, are the rules of
philanthropy.
Changing habits and charities
- There are about 35 daily traffic-related deaths in Vietnam
- The death toll would drop if more motorcyclists wore helmets
- A charitable organization has set up a for-profit subsidiary to make low-cost helmets
- So far, about 23,000 helmets have gone to school-age children
A United States charitable foundation is tackling a very
Vietnamese problem--the staggering number of traffic
deaths caused by helmetless motorbikers plying the
country's chaotic streets--in an unusual way:
establishing a for-profit subsidiary to actually
manufacture low-cost helmets here.
That makes the four-year old charity called the Asia
Injury Prevention Foundation, or AIPF, run by a former
American business consultant, more than just your
average philanthropy out soliciting donations for bike
helmets or scaring up funds for public-education
campaigns.
A glance at the numbers suggests the Vietnamese
helmet business should be a no-brainer. Government
estimates put the number of traffic-related deaths in
Vietnam at nearly 35 a day; there are almost three times
as many injuries.
"It's the equivalent of a jumbo jet falling out of the sky
every nine or 10 days," says John Kilgour, an executive
with energy-provider BP Southeast Asia who lives in
Ho Chi Minh City.
But most Vietnamese bikers, who far outnumber
drivers of cars, say they find traditional helmets too hot
for Vietnam's stifling climate and just unnecessary.
Now, Kilgour and other Asian business people are
experimenting with a riff on the familiar models of
philanthropy to change those perceptions and reduce
the fatalities, which are rising in lockstep with Vietnam's
rapid economic growth and modernization. AIPF's
helmet subsidiary, Vietnam Safety Products and
Equipment--with backing from big corporate
donors--stamps out its specially designed, hot-weather
headgear from a spotless factory near Hanoi's airport.
It then sells the product in a few stores and
supermarkets. The retail cost? Usually about $10 a
helmet, a below-market price designed to encourage
people to wear the protective gear.
The company, commonly known by its brand name,
Protec, also donates thousands of helmets to
Vietnamese schoolchildren under a programme called
Helmets for Kids. Donor corporations agree to foot the
bill and cover the company's costs--and sometimes get
their names emblazoned on the back of the pint-sized
helmets.
AIPF's success so far is hard to measure, and the
privately held Protec won't reveal specific financials.
Anecdotally, it's still rare to see helmets on the streets.
And the charity will surely face problems raising more
money, with all philanthropies suffering from reduced
donations these days due to bad economic conditions.
But Protec should be able to plough any profits it
makes back into AIPF's core cause of providing
helmets and educating the masses and, someday,
perhaps even stop asking for donations.
"We've created a self-sustaining model here," says
Greig Craft, who founded AIPF and incorporated it in
the U.S. as a not-for-profit group. Protec "is an actual
business," he emphasizes, even though its goal isn't
enriching shareholders.
The energetic and bespectacled Craft, well-known in
Hanoi's burgeoning expatriate business community,
remains the president of AIPF and sits on Protec's
board. His operational chief is Do Tu Anh, a former
business partner of Craft's who oversees Protec and
serves as the executive director of AIPF.
Business people like BP's Kilgour and Dan McHugh,
an international shipping executive and AIPF board
member, say AIPF's set-up makes the charity more
efficient. It can be "very, very difficult to move the
needle" and get things done on a not-for-profit board,
says McHugh, an executive vice-president with APL,
part of Singapore shipping outfit Neptune Orient Lines,
which does business in Vietnam.
But AIPF was able to make the decision to build the
Protec factory very quickly, he says, and get the plant
constructed in less than a year.
McHugh says he is comfortable there are no conflicts of
interest in the relationship between AIPF and Protec, a
U.S. company that pays taxes in Vietnam. Indeed,
some other U.S. not-for-profit organizations own
profit-making companies, though they sometimes
receive extra scrutiny from donors. The concern is
usually that "things are being done in the best interests
of the recipients of the [charity's] services," and not
those who could profit from the business, says Daniel
Borochoff, president of the watchdog American
Institute of Philanthropy in Chicago.
Craft, who says he has retired from his consulting
business, says Protec's sole mission is increasing helmet
use in Vietnam and raising awareness about road
safety. But "to really modify the behaviour of an entire
nation is an expensive proposition," he says.
It is a cause Craft takes personally. Driving in a car
from downtown Hanoi to the Protec plant in the Noi
Bai industrial park, he spies a woman driving a
motorbike with a small child perched on her lap.
Neither was helmeted. "You just want to reach out the
window and shake them," he says.
Craft also believes Vietnam's dismal record in road
safety is holding it back economically. The huge number
of accidents places a big burden on the country's
public-health system, he says, and propagates poverty
when heads of households are killed, or maimed and
left unable to work.
But the helmet cause was rough going at first. Craft's
charity initially discovered that few Vietnamese wanted
to wear large, traditional motorcycle helmets, which
they referred to as "rice-cookers," because of the
country's intense heat. Those helmets can also impair
vision and hearing--a bad thing on Vietnam's roads,
where most drivers signal movement by honking.
AIPF then began importing smaller, hot-weather
helmets from overseas, but those proved too expensive
for the Vietnamese market. Many also didn't fit
properly, Craft says. Then came the idea for the Protec
factory. In the first eight months since it opened in May,
the plant has churned out about 35,000 helmets. About
23,000 of those have gone to schools.
Hip helmets
So far in Vietnam, there doesn't appear to be much
grousing from other bike-helmet manufacturers about
Protec's low-cost product, or the company's link to
philanthropy. That may be because helmet buyers in
Vietnam remain scant right now.
But Protec is doing its best to distinguish itself from the
competition: It is trying to make helmets more
fashionable by churning out models in bright colours,
including some with rainbow stripes and others with
pink dots on a lime-green background. "We want the
stewardesses on Vietnam Airlines wearing them. We
want the models," says Craft.
That may be a tall order. But AIPF has at least taken
steps toward building a new model of philanthropy, and
one Craft hopes can be adopted by other nations in the
region.
By Rebecca Buckman & Margot Cohen - The Far Eastern Economic Review - March 27, 2003.
Want a job in this factory ? Wear a motobike helmet
Chu Anh Tho manages the 65 workers at the Vietnam
Safety Products and Equipment factory, the company
owned by the Asia Injury Prevention Foundation, or
AIPF, that stamps out much-needed motorbike helmets
for this bike-crazy country. But that doesn't mean he's
got an easy task convincing anyone--even his wife--to
actually wear the company's products.
In Vietnam, "it's not fashionable" to wear a helmet, says
Chu, who admits that even he often rode helmetless
before he took the job at the factory last year. His wife,
he says somewhat sheepishly, will only wear protective
headgear if it matches her motorbike. (Her current
favourite colour combo is silver.)
Chu has an easier time taking charge at the factory,
known as Protec for the brand of helmets it products.
On one recent Saturday, scores of Protec workers clad
in bright blue and red uniforms were busy with various
tasks, from cutting small holes in new, royal-blue plastic
helmets--later to be covered in black mesh--to
stamping out the black bottom shells that will be fitted
onto the helmets later. A layer of expanded polystyrene
beads under the plastic provides most of the protection
to wearers.
Two workers in a small paint shop were busy using a
machine to carefully paint the logo of oil company
BP--a major AIPF supporter--onto the backs of
scores of forest-green helmets. The gear will be
donated to children at a Vietnamese school. There is
even an $80,000 helmet-testing lab, where 26-year old
Le Hong Hanh uses special equipment to test
everything from the strength of helmets' chin straps to
the gear's ability to withstand side-impact collisions. Le
says she now wears a helmet when she rides her
motorbike--in fact, helmet use is mandatory for all the
employees at the factory, who earn about $40-50 a
month.
The cheap labour, and lower distribution costs tied to
having the factory near downtown Hanoi--instead of
outside Vietnam--allow AIPF to charge below-market
costs for the helmets, which are extremely light and
small. Right now, says AIPF President Greig Craft,
"we're covering our costs."
By Rebecca Buckman - The Far Eastern Economic Review - March 27, 2003.
|