Social Impact Examples
Some Examples of Social Impact and Entrepreneurship Projects Relevant to Ideal Village Focus Areas
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Our vision is a health worker for everyone, everywhere, every day.
http://lastmilehealth.org/
Around the world, one billion people lack access to healthcare because they live too far from a health facility. Today, we are more committed than ever before to bridging the gap between clinics and remote communities by deploying community health workers to bring primary health services to the doorsteps of people living far from care.
This doctor wants to make sure no patient is out of reach
Last Mile Health
I was meeting with Dr. Raj Panjabi, and he was showing me one of the backpacks created by Last Mile Health, the nonprofit he co-founded in Liberia. Raj reached into the bag and took out a vial of medicine to treat pneumonia. Next he pulled out rapid test kits for malaria and HIV. Then, rehydration salts for children with diarrhea. A measuring tape to screen kids for malnutrition. A thermometer to check for fevers. A blood pressure cuff. And so on. It was like watching a magician pull rabbits out of a hat.
Accelerating an Impact Industry: Lessons from Clean Cookstoves
Clean Cookstoves
The experience of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves in accelerating investment, collective action, profitability, and impact provides lessons for other impact industries attempting to do the same in base of the pyramid markets across the developing world.
Telemedicine networks improve healthcare in rural areas
GlobalHealth
Telemedicine is changing the way patients in rural and remote parts of the world can access medication and improve health. In Kenya, improved telecommunication infrastructure and adoption of mobile phones have enabled the rollout of several initiatives through telemedicine and are currently benefiting many.
Production of low-cost, biodegradable sanitary napkins in the village gives women much needed hygiene support
Jaydeep Mandal
A group of women in Khagra near Berhampur, West Bengal, were busy giving the final touches to an event that was going to mark a new beginning in their lives. It was the day they were starting the production of low-cost, biodegradable sanitary napkins in their village.Once the preparations were over they all eagerly waited for Sombodhi Ghosh and Jaydeep Mandal – founders of Aakar Innovations, a Gujarat-based social enterprise that aims to assist rural communities by promoting grassroots innovations – to arrive with the prized mini sanitary napkin-making machine that was going to enable them to use hygienic pads instead of unsterilized cloth during their menstrual periods.
Providing high quality renewable energy based products, solutions and servicing along with access to affordable finance to ensure democratic and adequate access to energy for all
Boond Solar
BOOND Engineering & Development Pvt. Ltd. is a Social Enterprise founded in 2010 promoting alternative energy in Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi NCR and other northern states of India. In our advent, we are trying to reach to remotest and most difficult geographies to not just provide energy access, but also embed solutions to various social issues. By the end of FY 2015 we implemented projects in various sectors with installed capacity of over 1500 KW, impacting more than 100,000 individuals and many small-scale enterprises.
Towards convergence of rural development initiatives -The M-odel Village Scheme (Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana)
Selco Foundation
Energy access has been identified as an integral component in rural development all over the world. Especially for developing countries, this translates into a great opportunity to tackle issues of poverty and climate change simultaneously using decentralized renewable energy (DRE) technologies. These technologies have already proved their mettle in terms of providing basic facilities of lighting, mobile charging and advanced livelihood opportunities. So the inclusion of these technologies becomes inevitable while devising various schemes in rural development. Unfortunately, such holistic design thinking was absent in many of our earlier schemes and policies where the clear role of DRE technologies was not recognized. SELCO Foundation has been advocating for an integrated approach in these schemes starting with National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) in Karnataka with regular interactions and close engagement with the Karnataka State Rural Livelihoods Promotion Society (KSRLPS).
The Alliance has an ambitious 10-year goal to foster the adoption of clean cookstoves and fuels in 100 million households by 2020.
Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves
The Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves is a public-private partnership hosted by the UN Foundation to save lives, improve livelihoods, empower women, and protect the environment by creating a thriving global market for clean and efficient household cooking solutions. The Alliance’s 100 by ‘20 goal calls for 100 million households to gain access to clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels by 2020. We are working with a strong network of public, private and non-profit partners to accelerate the production, deployment, and use of clean and efficient cookstoves and fuels in developing countries.
Thinking Outside the Box
ZubaBox is a shipping container converted into a solar-powered internet café or classroom for people in need living in remote areas — including refugee camps. The interior of the box can accommodate up to 11 individuals at a time and gives people in traditionally marginalized communities a sense of inclusion while widening their opportunities.
Srinivasan Services Trust
We work with communities and governments to empower India’s rural poor through awareness, skills and training programs. We do this by helping them find solutions that are sustainable, in areas ranging from economic development, infrastructure to healthcare and education. We encourage them to alter their attitudes and take ownership of changes that bring about lasting development. As a not-for-profit, we mobilize resources necessary for their transformation. Our programs work only with the reciprocal, sustained participation of our communities.
Development Alternatives
Development Alternatives (DA), the world's first social enterprise dedicated to sustainable development, is a research and action organisation striving to deliver socially equitable, environmentally sound and economically scalable development outcomes. DA’s green technology innovations for habitat, water, energy and waste management, which deliver basic needs and generate sustainable livelihoods, have reduced poverty and rejuvenated natural ecosystems in the most backward regions of India.
Wadhwani Initiative for Sustainable Healthcare
WISH Foundation works to scale up high-impact innovations to build an equitable healthcare system and make quality primary healthcare accessible and available to underserved populations in priority Indian states of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha seeking urgent redressal of their health problems
Earth Law Center works to transform the law to recognize, honor, and protect nature’s inherent rights to exist, thrive and evolve.
A Global Force of Advocates for the Rights of Nature
Just as people have fundamental rights, so too should nature.
Earth Law is the idea that ecosystems have the right to exist, thrive, and evolve—and that nature should be able to defend its rights in court. Earth Law Center creates new laws that recognize rights of nature. We partner with local and indigenous organizations. With your help, we can restore our natural environment to health and balance.
Water for People is an international non-profit working across 9 countries to bring safe water and sanitation to 4 million people.
Water for People
For us, it isn’t just about building wells, installing toilets, and setting up pumps. We’re looking to create long-lasting water and sanitation infrastructure by talking to local community members, governments, and business owners, to find out how they live and what they need to feel healthy, safe, empowered, and successful. We’re designing solutions based on long-term needs and long lives. We don’t want to be around forever, but we want these systems and services to last for generations to come.
Want to change the world, learn about new cultures, build relationships with incredible people, AND save lives and transform communities?
WaterisLife
person based on international airfares and in-country costs. Contact us if you are interested in organizing a team to fundraise and travel to make an awesome change in our world! Dust off your passport and be ready to dig into work to bring clean water, sanitation and hygiene solutions to so many in desperate need! Consider joining a WATERisLIFE Field Team and rock someone’s world – including your own.
CAWST teaches people how to get safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in their own homes, using simple, affordable technologies.
Centre for Affordable Water and Sanitation Technology (CAWST)
CAWST is a Canadian charity and licensed engineering firm. We address the global need for safe drinking water and sanitation by building local knowledge and skills on household solutions people can implement themselves. We were founded in 2001.
From 200ft to just 10ft! How IISc turned around the depleting water table
Boond Solar
The constantly depleting groundwater table in Bengaluru has been a matter of deep alarm. But within the heart of the City, at Indian Institute of Science (IISc), the story that has unfolded fills one with hope. A tiny two-acre man-made forest developed by a group of researchers has turned into a groundwater reservoir. The forest adjoining the Centre for Ecological Sciences (CES) has raised the water table to a depth of just 10 feet within the institute. Before the project began, it was 200 feet deep.
How India’s ‘smart villages’ are centralising solar power
City-dwellers tend to take electricity for granted, says Ashok Das, but for the roughly 200 million Indians living off-grid, access to power is a privilege, not a right. Mr Das says that makes them a fertile ground for experimenting with smarter ways of using energy that could help the rural poor leapfrog traditional power networks to a greener, community-led approach. “Changing consumer behaviour in a big city is a major problem,” he says. “It will take decades to build smart cities, but I can get thousands of smart villages done in that time.”
Sanitation First is a UK based charity providing GroSan toilets in the developing world.
If 90 school buses filled with under five’s were to crash every day, with no survivors, the world would take notice. But this is precisely what happens every single day because of poor water, sanitation and hygiene.” Sanjay Wijesekera, UNICEF.
Annapoorna Breakfast Programme
India is home to the largest number of children in the world. But unfortunately, not all our children have access to well-balanced and nutritious food. According to the Global Nutrition Report 2016, nearly 70 per cent of our school-going children are undernourished.
How do we solve such a deep-rooted problem that draws sustenance from the many social, economic and demographical challenges that face our country? One step at a time.
While the Government’s Mid-day meals and other initiatives have to a considerable extent addressed hunger in school-going children, a lot remains to be done in terms of meeting the nutrition gap. Breakfast, which research has shown has a lasting effect on the health of children, presented itself as a window of opportunity for us to make a difference.
Girls Who Code
to close the gender gap in technology
Girls Who Code was founded five years ago with the belief that computing skills are a critical path to security and prosperity in today’s job market. What began with 20 girls in the heart of New York City, Girls Who Code will reach 40,000 girls in all 50 U.S. states by the end of this year.
Kakatiya Sandbox
Building an Ecosystem that Nurtures Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Inspired by the Deshpande Foundation's Hubballi Sandbox, Mr. Raju Reddy (Sierra Atlantic) and Mr. Phanindra Sama (redbus.in) are supporting the Kakatiya Sandbox initiative to empower the districts of Nizamabad, Karimnagar, Medak, Sircilla, Siddipet, Kamareddy, Peddapally, Jagityal and Sangareddy in the state of Telangana. Applying a 'bottom up' approach to building scalable solutions, the Kakatiya Sandbox works to create an effective ecosystem where resources are put to use through entrepreneurship, innovation and sustainability.
The Sandbox will engage with not-for-profits, academics, non-governmental organizations and entrepreneurs to launch effective and scalable models of development. They will empower urban and rural youth with the leadership and skills necessary to manage their own social enterprises and become the change their community needs. Through the implementation of these programs, effective, scalable and relevant solutions will arise from within the communities of these three districts. In the very first year of setting up the Sandbox in Nizamabad, more than 150+ student projects have been implemented. In this short span of time 2 records - one Limca book of record and one Guinness World record have been achieved.