The Anti-Child Prostitution Campaign has galvanized a spectrum of citizen and opinion groups to first separately – and then jointly – support each of their main action items:
awareness building, lobbying, and activism. Enlisting a deliberate and far-reaching cross section of society has enabled the campaign to spread its reach deep and wide.
The first objective of spreading awareness of the state of, and issues around, child prostitution in Taiwan was realized by signing up a cadre of thought leaders from
educational and community groups like churches, educational institutions, and clubs. This grassroots band volunteered its talents in holding public events that ranged from
street plays to signature campaigns to fundraising. To meet the other goals, a law banning child prostitution was seen through to enactment by the lobbying efforts of power
groups – law enforcement bodies like the police and the judiciary, citizen sector organizations, professionals, academia, businesses, and the media. The role of the media was
a key actor at all stages of the campaign in drawing attention to the problem and in ensuring that voices were heard. Without spending even a cent, the campaign's media
strategy generated extensive coverage through carefully strategized public events, including high-profile debates in the legislature. Read more...
School to School is forging long-term strategic relationships between rich urban schools and rural schools where the former make an investment in their rural,
disadvantaged counterparts by donating year-end school notebooks, pencils, shoes, uniforms, and school bags. This recycling and distribution effort mobilizes educators,
children, and parents – stakeholders in the educational system – to invest goods that will ensure a better schooling for poor children, and also sensitizes the well-off to the
underprivileged state of their peers. In a country where rural schools are deficient in every basic amenity, children lack the incentive to attend school. The project is more
than about mobilizing school supplies; it also acts as the carrot to get children to school and enhance the learning experience. The model is highly cost-effective and enjoys
a wealth of citizen support: volunteers approach schools and collect materials; partnerships with rural governing bodies, the Indian army, local citizen sector organizations,
and others facilitate implementation; children and families donate their discards and help with sorting and collection; transport contractors offer huge discounts on
transportation; corporations are motivated to make in-kind and monetary donations; grain merchants donate jute bags for packaging, and so on. Read more...
The core of the idea is to redistribute products and services – in this case, books – to those who lack access. BorderlineBooks solicits donations of books that are not moving
from publishers and deploys an army of volunteers to distribute them to specific target groups, e.g., shelters, community centers, asylums. Further, it broadbases its reach
and is also empowering marginalized sections of society to become key links in the distribution chain by encouraging them (the receivers) to become distributors in their turn.
This doubles and triples outreach and helps project expansion to communities that otherwise might not have been accessible. The project's expansion plans within Europe include
relationship building and networking with different corporations in order to facilitate widespread book distribution – from transport companies to cart the books overseas, to
contacts in the local harbors to assist in the quick release of consignments. Read more...
The Social Purchasing Portal taps into the supply chain of business purchases by creating a strategic partnership with suppliers of quality goods and services – suppliers who,
for their part, also create social value. The suppliers identified for the model are those generating economic activities in marginalized geographic areas or providing
employment to marginalized communities. It is both scaleable and financially sustainable because: (a) it leverages existing business purchases instead of relying on special
pleading; and (b) it provides quality goods and services at competitive prices from viable suppliers who get to improve their market share. The growth in business, in turn,
increases employment among the target population. It thus engineers a significant shift from an intervention based on charity to a demand-based relationship. Read more...
The NalandaWay Short Film Festival competition is encouraging filmmakers to make short films that sensitize the general populace to issues related to underprivileged
children. The model hopes to create a large resource base of role models who will mentor disenfranchised children to achieve their potential. The model piggybacks on the
across-the-board, high popularity of this medium in India and has actively sought partnerships with various segments of "social capital" to offer pro bono help to ensure
the model?s success and scalability across the country. The film fraternity has volunteered expertise and equipment in helping the competition winners make cinema that
carries the message and action how-tos to the public. Gratis services in the form of partnerships with multiplexes will ensure free showings of the film and the use of
their premises for signing up on-the-spot volunteer mentors. Media and advertising agencies have been enlisted to develop advocacy campaigns to generate interest and
participation among all stakeholders. Corporate sponsorships and philanthropists have agreed to bear overhead costs. Read more...
The project develops the burgeoning market for organic products through the simple but effective method of linking potential urban consumers with rural producers of
such products. The model works by forging urban consumers into groups that commit themselves to the purchase of a certain quantity of organic products, weekly, for the
entire year. Having secured the demand, the project similarly forms groups of stakeholders – poor rural households – into production groups to supply the items to their
designated urban consumers. To facilitate the conversion of ordinary farms into organic ones and produce the required commodities, the project provides loans to such family
farms. Repayment takes place against payments made by the urban consumers, thus linking the two in a mutually beneficial alliance. The demand-driven nature of the model
ensures sustainability and viability, and scalability is ensured because the initial investment can be revolved to other groups of producers. The end result is a win-win
situation where urban consumers have access to healthful organic produce while the producers have a regular source of assured income. Read more...
The project cashes in on the limitless, inexpensive, and instant outreach of the Internet to disseminate e-cards that both raise public awareness about children's
problems and generate activism and funds for the organization. Volunteer stakeholders cognizant of the problems design the e-cards around issues and occasions. To
develop effective action-responses to the issues of children who require intervention for bettering their lives, the e-cards are sent off to targeted populations who
can offer their pro bono services – policy makers, lawyers, government departments, civil society groups. Recipients of e-cards also include the disenfranchised populations
about whom the project is raising awareness. The project imaginatively grows its volunteer base by encouraging e-card recipients to become e-card senders by either forwarding
their e-card or designing one themselves. Thus, fresh partnerships are forged with the target audience who now assist in targeting and working with other audiences and networks. Read more...
The Second-Hand Tools Project uses multiple resource-generation techniques in reaching its goal of opening up work avenues for unemployed South Africans. In-kind
donations of old tools are mobilized from individuals, wholesalers, retailers, international donors, and citizen sector organizations – tools that are then lent or sold at
discounted rates to the unemployed who pay membership fees to the organization for such privileges. Training of unemployed members in how to fix and work with tools at
"tools depots" is leased out to corporate partners; a skills program initiates them into how they can use tools either to get jobs or to start-up their own businesses;
and Tools Shacks run by volunteers retail the second-hand tools in poor townships. The project uses media outlets to mobilize citizens, an activity that serves the dual
function of advertising the project itself. Read more...
Although migrant remittances are an important source of revenue in many developing countries, it is an unstable source of livelihood. This project aims to create
sustainable sources of incomes for migrants by harnessing their remittances into productive enterprises in their place of origin. The project identifies viable
microenterprises through rigorous technical, market, and financial analysis in the home country and offers migrants a portfolio of investment opportunities. The migrant
has the option of deciding on the persons who will manage this enterprise, thus providing opportunities for gainful employment to friends and relatives. Alternatively,
a migrant has the option of returning and running the business directly. Several critical objectives are thus met in the process. The migrant is not at the mercy of
uncertain international labor markets but has a steady source of income through return on capital employed. Remittances that earlier would have gone into consumption are
now deployed productively. And, people in the home country have access to employment. In order to make all this happen, the project enlisted the support of community
partnerships that offered a range of services – from capital investment to in-kind contributions to technical and research inputs. Partnering organizations included local
and national government bodies, community-based organizations, the private sector, educational institutions, and migrant communities from all over the world. Read more...
NRV Clubs are leveraging ICT to reach out to and create a diaspora donor membership of expatriate Indians by nurturing in them a bond with their home. They are
encouraged to "give back" to the village of their origin by channeling their resources and expertise where they are most needed. The organization involves local
village communities in tracking their "expats" who are then offered opportunities to work with the organization to usher in rural transformation in their village
through virtual, professional, mentoring, and financial inputs. Beyond this, the clubs also reach out to a wider community of stakeholders by encouraging
its nonresidents to bring in more nonresident members, actively building on such relationships, and networking. In time, a club will hope to make its circle of
impact greater by drawing in nonresidents who are not necessarily from the same village but who are still interested in effecting social change in their country
of origin. Read more...
This is a self-help forum that brings together all players involved in mental health treatment - social security, the pharmaceutical industry, health professionals,
hospitals, health authorities, the patients – to advance transparency and empathy in the treatment process. Forming the base of the association, trained volunteers
engage other stakeholders, including doctors, as volunteers. The model seems to have turned around the prevailing situation for all concerned in the health industry:
the pharmas and medical associations receive valuable feedback from the patients and act upon this, while the patients get the right to information and have the added
assurance of receiving the correct treatment at the lowest possible cost. The forum estimates that to cover every community in their country (Spain), 16 associations
like theirs will be enough to handle the watchdog and effecting-change job. Read more...
The model generates employment for local youth and creates a tourist market for a region that has potential but is not currently exploited.
Mazury Stations are envisaged as comprehensive eco-tourism centers that will be managed by erstwhile-unemployed youth. These young people will be provided with
intensive training in the tourist trade, and will then be expected to give back to the project by helping in the extension and rebuilding of Stations, free of cost,
thus generating a multiplier effect. Trained youths have the option of working for the organization or independently, and also the chance to lease a station as independent
entrepreneurs. The model leverages government facilities by entering into strategic partnerships with them, such as getting the forest department to open up underdeveloped
parts of the national forest, or getting councils to pledge the granting of plots. Read more...
