Few weeks ago I had the opportunity to
attend an event program organized by SPRING, an accelerator program
supporting viable innovations that can transform the lives of adolescent girls
aged 10-19 living in in 9 different countries, including Nepal.
Given the inequalities and levels of
oppression faced by girls across the world, the level of scale that SPRING
wants to achieve is necessarily ambitious: 200,000 girls will benefit from
existing and new products and services by 2019.
A
consortium of leading development agencies has come together to support such
ambitious and as well innovative undertaking that promises to offer a new,
market led approach to empower and support girls.
With
funding provided by UKAID,
USAID, Nike Foundation and the Australian Government‘s Department of Foreign
Affairs and Trade, SPRING has the mission of “transforming
the lives of adolescent girls by creating sustainable markets for
life-enhancing products and services.”
Here you will find an overview of the companies
selected by SPRING: they received not only financial investment but also gained
a wealth of expertise and technical knowledge. While both types of support are
indispensible, the latter can truly make the difference is helping tremendously
with scaling up their products and services after successfully completing a
testing and prototyping phase.
Jeevan Bikas Sumaj (JBS) offers
a diversified array of micro financial products targeting the most
disadvantaged segments of the population. With support of SPRING, JBS has designed
new innovative saving programs for girls that will have their levels of skills
and confidence enhanced because their parents are being engaged and persuaded
to invest on them.
Kalpavrishka Greater Goods (KGG)
is active in Tarai and it is creating a network of women entrepreneurs who on
their own managing over 200 sales agents in 11 districts selling solar lights.
With the support of SPRING, KGG is diversifying its offerings with new products
specifically targeting the needs of girls and young women. By training and
employing women as sellers, KGG is creating a truly grassroots based network of
small entrepreneurs able to offer affordable products targeting the unmet needs
of local girls.
Paritran is
a social business aiming to train women in self-defense techniques that are so
important in minimizing the risks of gender violence in the country. Paritran’
courses are much more than simply learning about self-defense: they directly
contribute to strengthen the levels of confidence and mental strengths of girls
and young women. Thanks to SPRING, thousands of girls and young women in
multiple settings like schools, fitness centers and companies/organizations have
found a platform to become stronger physically and mentally. In this way
Paritran is supporting, in a commercially viable way and definitely from a new
angle, the process of self-empowerment of girls and young women.
Rooster Logic
is innovating in the way data is collected throughout the country. Few years
ago it came out with REMO, an innovative digital collection system that
leverages mobile phones’ technologies. As beneficiary of SPRING Accelerator, EMO’s
outreach is vastly expanding thanks to the mobilization of a network of young
women that will collect data across the country. The ambition is to be able to
set up a localized and yet reliable data collection system to support businesses
and not for profit organizations.
R&D Innovations
is running a chain of organic farming shops, directly working with local
farmers. Now they are setting up model Agro Centers throughout the country by
promoting new practices and techniques that will greatly promote better and
smarter farming. As result, girls from rural parts of the country who are
spending a considerable amount in of their time in the fields will be able to
be more productive and give more time to their studies.
Shreenagar Agro Farm
is a leading agro business company working with farmers through feed and seed
production and other essential key services. It got selected by SPRING to
promote the consumption among girls and young adolescents of eggs thanks to its
Sunaulo Eggs
line that is available in local retailers. Very importantly Shreenagar Agro
Farm has launched an awareness campaign encouraging girls to consume more eggs
whose nutrient effects are still vastly underappreciated.
SmartPaani is offering
since 2011 an innovative portfolio of sustainable water management solutions
from wastewater treatment water filtration and very revolutionary a system of
rainwater harvesting. Now with SPRING on board, SmartPaani received support to
offer more of its products keeping in mind the special needs of girls and for
this purpose, it is working specifically work with schools by offering new
technologies to drastically improve their learning conditions. Also in this
case, the company is carrying out an awareness outreach effort to make sure
local communities understand the importance of sanitation and hygiene.
All these companies underwent a very
scrupulous selection process carried out by the SPRING team and as you noticed,
they are already out there in the market, working hard to reach scale and more
market shares.
You will notice that here we are not
talking of startups companies. SPRING supports commercial ideas already based
on a proven business model.
While you do not need to be big in order
to be selected, you have to prove that your business model already works and,
provided the right support is extended, you can expended it to benefit a large
number of underserved girls and young women.
Luna Shrestha Thakur, the SPRING Country
Manager in Nepal, believes that there is a huge potential in developing
marketable solutions that can make the difference and improve the living
conditions of girls and young women.
Initiatives like SPRING while they are
still trailblazers, they can truly change the business eco-system and make a
huge difference in making emerging nations more inclusive.
Hopefully one day, putting girls at the
center of a business model, will be something for granted.
The
application for the next cohort of organizations will open on October 1st.
In the meantime, you can get in touch on info@springaccelerator.org. For more information please visit http://www.springaccelerator.org/
The
author is the Co-Founder of ENGAGE, a not for profit partnering with youths
with disabilities. He can be reached at simone_engage@yahoo.com
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