Greetings,
Anitchka raised some questions (re-pasted here) about what drivers are needed to change behavior among low-income people in the bottom of the pyramid. The answers to those questions depend a lot on how you're engaging with the BOP and what skills and resources they already have. There are many excellent organizations in this group that have taken action and shown innovative ways of engaging with the BOP. What I can do is look at these questions from one perspective and one approach and discuss what is working for us.
The World Bank recently reported that there are three key variables that low-income people need to fight poverty. 1. economic opportunity 2. empowerment 3. security http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTPOVERTY/Resources/WDR/overview.pdf
This report supports the concept of market-based solutions to poverty alleviation.
Although it is somewhat difficult to define opportunity, empowerment and security and even more difficult to state what levels of each of these variables a person needs in order to rise from an oppressive, impoverishing situation, I've found that this study provides a useful framework for evaluating the way we engage with low-income/BOP individuals.
Our goal is to teach low-income individuals to become micro- entrepreneurs. We help low-income immersion Spanish tutors (other languages to come) become online tutors ("Low-Income Tutors Sell/Teach Online Lessons at http://www.SpeakShop.com"). We provide them with audio/videoconferencing tools and an open, global marketplace for selling their services. To ensure tutors have opportunity, empowerment and security, our approach is multi-pronged:
1. Education/Training - the website is easy to use and translated for the tutor, but training is still needed to ensure a level of proficiency and comfort before a tutor ever speaks with an actual customer. We also provide basic business and marketing training and advertising templates that tutors can customize. We've found that once tutors start controlling their wages and earning higher incomes by running their own online businesses, they become more entrepreneurial -- or, quite possibly, an entrepreneurial human instinct kicks in.
2. Empowerment - For their interaction with us, we ensure empowerment by making it possible for them to control their online business. They set their own rates and hours and they are held accountable for the quality of their work through public customer feedback. We also constantly seek feedback from tutors and keep very open lines of communication. We also support them when customer service issues arise. They gain empowerment by seeing the results of their efforts. When customers are happy, they sign up for more lessons, tell their friends about their tutor and tutors make more money.
3. Security - Normally, tutors are expendable, low-wage laborers hired on and let go based on the ebbs and flows of tourism. The current Hurricane aftermath in Guatemala illustrates the precariousness of depending on tourism for your living - natural disasters, poor weather, violent activity are just some factors that often destroy tourism. Tutors who teach online can reach thousands...millions...of people across borders. They can control their schedules and rates, which means they do not have to give up other jobs to ease into entrepreneurship. Also, we don't charge them, which eases concerns and barriers to participation.
4. Economic oportunity - The Internet democratizes access to economic opportunity. Millions of customers are suddenly available where there were none. It is very important to have a receptive market for the product or services you sell. Fortunately, tutors have a service that plenty of people want to buy: learning Spanish from a great teacher and having the opportunity to interact with a human being in another country. We provide the website, tools and marketing to ensure tutors have a ready ecommerce opportunity.
Saludos and thanks for the discussion,
Cindy
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October 12 '05, 9:10 How do we generate behavioral change in the BOP and all other agents engaged with it? Poste by: Anitchka Avdotya, Educacion Services Consultant
Dear all,
All new processes happening within the BOP have brought new challenges for our current economic models. One of these challenges is changing behaviors within the low-income communities and those who want to make business with them, serve them, or just approach them. What do you all think would be the main driver that could lead to a behavioral change of these communities, individuals, corporations, and other agents engaged in this process?
For the BOP, would the driver be education? If so, what do you recommend other organizations to do in order to make education and its delivery to communities in an effective manner and with a noticeable impact? Or would it be economic development? Would people change once they see their income increase?
For businesses, are we talking about profits only? Or are companies just trying to comply with some Corporate Social Responsibility? Or is there any hope that with new economic models and opportunities, businesses shift their way of engaging with the BOP?
What do you think? Thanks, Anitchka
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