Archive for February, 2011

The Unreasonable Institute brings together 25 entrepreneurs with mentors and impact investors to help them jump start their enterprises. This year, 45 finalists were selected and final acceptance to the institute was based on an online fund-raising platform. Over the next two days, Beyond Profit brings you interviews with two of the enterprises that made it in.

BioSense Technologies’ pilot project, the ToucHb, is a non-invasive way to test for anaemia, which affects two billion people and accounts for one million deaths per year. Testing for anaemia is usually invasive, expensive, time-consuming and requires medical know-how. BioSense is trying to change all this to bring anaemia screening to poor areas. Beyond Profit talked to Abhiraman Viswambharan. » Continue reading “Unreasonable Interviews: BioSense Technologies”

All eyes are on the Middle East. Just last month, protests broke out across Egypt against the 30-year presidency of Hosni Mubarak. He resigned from his post on February 11th. Egypt’s proverbial tip of the iceberg resulted from the so-called “Jasmine Revolution” in Tunisia, where after 23 years, President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali was forced out of office after street protests erupted against his leadership. These events, as well as further evidence of political and social dissatisfaction throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, may very well change the Arab world. » Continue reading “Egypt Inspiration”

This post is part of our ongoing partnership with GOOD Magazine. Post by Alex Goldmark of GOOD Magazine.

Ram Rati is a 40-year-old female mechanic in India. If you think that sounds impressive, it is, but that’s not the half of it. Rati was married off at 11 years old and escaped at 13. She spent the next 15 years grinding wheat for a living. An admirable story of perseverance all too common in her native India, but the real achievement comes next.

Rati is now a hero in her village, in part because she’s now using her mechanic’s know-how to fix broken wells and increase the availability of clean water. She has also become and advocate for other women in her conservative region of rural northern India, encouraging them to remove their veils, send their girls to school and, for some of them, to become mechanics, too. » Continue reading “Water, Wells and One Wonderful Woman”

This story originally appeared in our February 24, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.

A sector of affordable private schools is emerging in the developing world. But how can investors take part?

The affordable private school movement—made up of private schools where monthly student fees are less than US$12 (INR600)—is gaining momentum worldwide and providing low-income families the ability to choose where to send their children to school.

“Our experience has been that the low-income families are very concerned about the education of their children,” said Debasish Mitter, the Portfolio Director of education in India for the Michael and Susan Dell Foundation. “These families are making the choice to send their kids to low-cost private schools.” » Continue reading “Private Education for the Poor”

This story originally appeared in our February 24, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.

In India, one in three children cannot read fluently. Suzanne Singh from Pratham Books talks about the vision to give every child in India a book.

How did Pratham Books start?
SS: Pratham Books (PB) was set up in 2004 as part of the Read India movement. There are a number of NGOs working with children in India to improve basic literacy skills, but as more children become readers, there is need for good content. There were few publishing sources willing to supply affordable content and in multiple Indian languages. PB was established as a not-for-profit public charitable trust to reach children whom the market ordinarily would not and, therefore, to democratize the joy of reading. In the last 6 years, we have published over 215 titles in up to 11 languages and have spread the joy of reading to over 15 million children. » Continue reading “A Book for Every Child”

This story originally appeared in our February 24, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.

We look at five barriers to education for girls and the social enterprises working to remove them.

Menstruation

Although it’s not an easy-to-talk about subject anywhere in the world, females in the developing world miss up to 50 days of work or school per year because they do not have access to sanitary pads. The alternatives—mud, bark, leaves—are a health hazard. Sustainable Health Enterprises, founded by Elizabeth Scharpf will manufacture sanitary pads from banana-tree fibers in Rwanda. » Continue reading “No Girls Allowed”

This story originally appeared in our February 24, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.

By the Numbers

Gray Matters Capital recently assessed affordable private schools in Hyderabad. The results, which provide a glimpse into this growing sector, will be published in a report this month.

29%

Percentage of school leaders who are female

83%

Percentage of schools that have female toilets » Continue reading “Data: Empower Through Education”

This story originally appeared in our February 24, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.

Anil Kumar, a school dropout from village Gora Bazar in Uttar Pradesh, went from being a labor earning less than INR 2,000 per month to become a supervisor earning INR 10,000 per month.

By Santosh Parulekar

In the early morning hours of April 27, 2009, five students woke up the head of Pipal Tree Ventures’ training center in Uttar Pradesh by banging on his door. Just days earlier, the students were given jobs at a reputed construction company in Chennai. The boys had returned. They did not want to work in Chennai.

I remembered one of the boys. Just 10 days back, I shook hands with Anil Kumar and wished him good luck for his first job. I had been impressed by the spark in the boy. My trainers told me that he was from a poor family and lives in a hut in the Gora Bazar village. » Continue reading “Journey of a School Dropout to a Supervisor”

This story originally appeared in our February 24, 2011 e-magazine. Click here to subscribe.

In Mumbai, public-private partnerships may be one of the best solutions to addressing the city’s public education needs.

Mumbai claims a 97% enrollment rate of all primary school-aged children in private and public schools. Despite such a high rate, 40% of children attend private schools because of perceptions that private education is superior to public education.

Poor families cannot afford to put their children through the private education system. The public education system then caters to the most marginalized children, where the incentive to attend school is based on the availability of lunch. However, these children have low reading levels where approximately 45-50% cannot read or write a paragraph. » Continue reading “Partners in Public Education”