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November 2010: The First Soluciones Comunitarias House!

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October 2010: Our Team Completes Feasibility Study and Needs Assessment in South Africa

Social Entrepreneur Corps Co-Founder Bucky Glickley and Guatemala Country Director Lydia Walker have just returned from South Africa, where they spent two weeks conducting a MicroConsignment feasibility study and needs assessment for potential expansion.

Bucky and Lydia focused their efforts on two distinct areas: the township of Khayelitsha in Cape Town and the Limpopo Province in the Eastern/Northern Cape. These regions afford us the unique opportunity to explore the potential to work in both urban and rural areas where there is great need for access to essential products and services and in turn for MCM impact. As well, opportunities to implement our unique consulting service, "Asesor Por Favor", amongst other initiatives, were successfully identified during the needs assessment visits. In particular, Bucky and Lydia also determined that there is great potential opportunity for a successful square foot gardening/rooftop gardening initiative in Khayelistha and many other townships, an initiative that Social Entrepreneur Corps interns focused heavily on this past summer in Guatemala and could be potentially replicated in South Africa in 2011.

Bucky and Lydia also visited several rural villages in the Limpopo Province with Women's Development Businesses, the second largest microcredit bank in South Africa. We are exploring the opportunity of working with them as a potential partner moving forward to help identify, train and support rural entrepreneurs in general business capacities as well as specific MicroConsignment training and implementation.

We are excited to begin training new entrepreneurs in the next several months and launch our first South Africa Social Entrepreneur Corps program in Summer 2011!

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October 2010: Social Entrepreneur Corps Featured in F&M's Weekly Newsletter

The Diplomat, Frankly & Marshall's weekly online newsletter, featured an article on Social Entrepreneur Corps on October 28, 2010. The piece chronicles the life-changing experiences of the F&M students who traveled to Ecuador and Nicaragua to participate in internships for credit with Social Entrepreneur Corps this summer. Click here to read the article!

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October 2010: Co-Founder Greg Van Kirk Meets with Muhammad Yunus about the MicroConsignment Model

On October 17th, Social Entrepreneur Corps Co-Founder Greg Van Kirk met with Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank and developer of microcredit, to discuss the MicroConsignment Model and its implementation in Bangladesh. Greg and Howard Weinstein of Solar Ear met with Yunus in Milan, Italy about the possibility of using the MicroConsignment Model to distribute low-cost solar hearing aids throughout Bangladesh.

This past summer, Social Entrepreneur Corps interns implemented a feasibility study of Solar Ear's low-cost solar hearing aids in Guatemala. We are very excited to be moving forward in our partnership with Solar Ear.

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August 2010: Co Founder, Greg Van Kirk is interviewed by CNNMoney about The MicroConsignment Model

Social Entrepreneur Corps Co Founder, Greg Van Kirk, was recently interviewed by CNNMoney reporter Poppy Harlow about our unique MicroConsignment Model. This interview was part of CNNMoney's ongoing "Conscious Capitalism" series. To view the interview click HERE. If this link does not work for some reason you can find the interview at the following URL:

http://money.cnn.com/video/news/2010/08/13/n_cc_microconsignment_model.cnnmoney/.

Summary of The MicroConsignment Model:
The MicroConsignment Model (MCM) delivers "first time" essential products and services at affordable prices to the rural poor for in the developing world through empowerment.  Through the MCM individuals who lack opportunity and experience, primarily young women and homemakers, can start their own ventures through “sweat equity” and earn profits within the first month. Through consignment rather than loans, MCM entrepreneurs can overcome high uncertainty and are trained, equipped and supported to provide solutions that were previously only addressed through donations.  They address the real needs, perceived needs and desires of populations through village campaigns in an appropriate way at the appropriate price.  They provide access to needed but previously unavailable products and services. MCM entrepreneurs “bridge the last mile” by providing solutions to health problems, save families money, help individuals increase their productivity, and help protect the environment;  all while earning incomes that were previously impossible.  They gain a sense of purpose and become role models and community leaders while helping other women acquire needed solutions to their problems in a dignified way that they vote for with their limited resources. MCM entrepreneurs offer solutions to the population at the “base of the pyramid”—in this case, the most vulnerable rural communities—by addressing the “what” (essential products and services), the “who” (rural villagers), and the “where” (rural villages).  They do so by creating a “how”: a highly scalable local distribution network that works to diagnose and address the myriad obstacles confronting these communities.

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August 2010: Social Entrepreneur Corps' sister organization, "Soluciones Comunitarias", has been selected as a WINNER in the Ashoka Changemakers' "Leveraging Business for Social Change" competition

Thanks to your vote, Social Entrepreneur Corps' sister organization Soluciones Comunitarias (SolCom), has been chosen as one of three WINNERS out of 448 submissions from 78 countries in the Ashoka Changemakers' and Artemisia "Leveraging Business for Social Change: "Building the Field of Social Business competition.  Six years ago this started with a question, "How do we create sustainable access to essential products and services in remote villages?". What a testament to the commitment of our team in Guatemala!

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