Social Entrepreneur Corps: Stories From The Field

Regional Coordinator, Andrew Hass, writes about a recent record-breaking campaign with Visual Entrepreneurs...

Social Entrepreneur Corps Volunteer, Alice Wei, writes about a recent campaign tour through the western highlands of Guatemala with Vision Entrepreneur Isabella Cedillo Lopez...

Record-breaking Vision Campaign inspires Vision Entrepreneurs and American Volunteers alike …

In the rural Guatemalan town of Nahualá, vision care is a rare privilege, out of reach for most townspeople for both physical and financial reasons. Residents of Nahualá, and those from thousands of other small villages in Guatemala, lack economical access to even the most basic products, including quality eyeglasses. Lacking the ability to weave, read, and see up close, many lose their productivity and confidence.

Meanwhile, massive obstacles like corruption, bureaucracy, and discrimination prevent thousands of enterprising Guatemalans from starting small businesses. The Scojo Foundation breaks down many of these barriers to entry by providing training and consigning reading glasses. Even with the Scojo opportunity, however, business is always business: there are good days and there are bad days.

I had been working for several months with Maria Hernandez Vasquez and Francisca Chavajay, both from San Juan La Laguna, on Guatemala's picturesque Lake Atitlan. Their sales figures had been low recently, and so even after some motivating discussions and suggestions, when we arrived in Nahualá one Sunday morning in January, I nor they were expecting spectacular sales - certainly nothing above the 10 or so pairs of glasses they usually sell.

But Nahualá held an unexpected surprise: a little extra marketing (via radio announcements) had made a difference, and Maria and Francisca arrived to find over 80 people - many with very serious vision problems - waiting just for them.

With over 80 people in line for the services of only two women, the potentially chaotic situation could have fallen apart very quickly. But Francisca and Maria, as well as some U.S. volunteers taking part in the Social Entrepreneur Corps program, pulled together and operated with the characteristics that embody successful businesses: with specialization, positive attitudes, and plenty of patience. The final tallies: 77 pairs of glasses sold, a regional record, and over 20 people referred to a clinic with serious problems like blindness, cataracts, and glaucoma. For a few hours of work, Maria and Francisca had netted almost $60 each - as much as the average Guatemalan makes in a month.

Ultimately, Scojo and Community Enterprise Solutions provide just the first steps to simultaneously do good socially and do well financially. Equipped with the basics, the individual entrepreneurs supply the rest. During scarce sales periods, one needs confidence and determination. During the pandemonium of a spectacular campaign like Nahualá, one needs intelligence and vision to effectively collaborate. “Visionary Social Entrepreneurship” means finding and nurturing these traits and ensuring that, during both high times and low times, one's character determines business and social success.

Andrew Hass
Social Entrepreneur Corps participant 2006
Regional Coordinator, CE Solutions

Vision Entrepreneur and Social Entrepreneur Corps Volunteer take their show on the road...

Isabel Cedillo Lopez, veteran vision entrepreneur, and I, a Social Entrepreneur Corp volunteer, kicked off our nine-day tour on February 20, 2007. Equipped with a suitcase full of reading glasses, eye drops, optical charts, flyers, and a banner, we ventured out into the crevices of rural Guatemala – a land where there is neither electricity nor phone signal. Stoves meant a pile of wood and stone. Beds meant a pile of wooden boards. House meant a wooden shack. Here, roads were meant to be traveled by horses and humans rather than automobiles. And here we went to provide quality eye care and products to people with very little.

The tour was slated for four rural villages: Union 31 de Mayo, La Taña, Napolé, and Parroquía. To generate buzz for the campaigns, we went to each village to speak with the mayors, talk to the people, and post the marketing materials. In the village of La Taña, we got the people talking , starting with the little ones. After giving a presentation to the village school, the children chanted the date and time of the campaign.

At another village, the marketing tactic of choice was local radio announcements. Here, the local radio station was comprised of several cassette tapes, a few microphones, and a radio transmitter. The cassette tape player would play the tapes and the music would feed into the microphone. Although the technology was several decades old, the people listened to this station loyally. It was a marketing miracle.

Once the buzz was going in each village, we went out to one village after another after another after another. Working as a team, Isabel and I conducted free eye exams and consultations. We o ffered the poor access to unbelievably inexpensive eye glasses ($5 instead of at least $50) and eye drops . We also w rote up medical referrals for patients that needed surgery to the clinic Visualiza. (Visualiza offers discounted and free eye surgeries to patients with limited resources . ) In the course of this tour, o ver 200 people were served and 80 pairs of glasses were sold.

The people couldn't get enough of the campaigns. Masses of people awaited us in the morning before we even set up the equipment. Some tried to make separate appointments. In the last village we visited, we worked nonstop from 7am to 5:30pm. Even so, we received a late night visit from a family that trekked 2 hours for an eye exam because they heard about the vision entrepreneurs.

While the tour was nothing short of an adrenaline rush, we did have one day of down time, which we used to teach computer lessons to village r s. I n the small village of Union 31 de Mayo where no electricity or roads exist , a group of Spaniards came and blessed the people with a laptop ( run by an electric generator ) as well as an Internet connection. After the departure of the Spaniards, the computer remained dormant for months because the people did not know how to use it…until the vision entrepreneurs came. For a total of 4 hours, the people learned how to turn on and shut down the laptop, check and send email, and search for information on the Internet (specifically the prices for coffee and cardamom). Through the use email, the local radio station DJ was invited to a national conference, which he is heading off to in the beginning of March.

The eye glass campaigns were a smashing hit! The villages want them back not just for themselves but for neighboring villages as well. An encore tour may be right around the corner…