SOCIAL BUSINESS - IDEAS
Social Business has the goal to finish poverty or to achieve a social or ecological change by running a cost-covering business. It is a business and it should be running sustainable - but it is not profit-maximizing business. Making money only to make money is never the goal of a Social Business. A Social Business is solving problems of the people by business-means to become independent from charity and donations.
Our Social Businesses are - besides the microcredits:
Light for all - Kopeme Sun Energy
Kopeme “Light for all” has distributed 100 Solar-Lights to families living in rural areas.
Poor families are spending estimated 40 % of their income for kerosin to run a lamp, for wood or coal to cook and for batteries for other purposes. Very often the kerosin has a high prize and a very bad quality. With the substitution of petrollamps by solarlights paid by weekly rates at the same level like the kerosin before – around 1,50 Euro to 2,00 Euro per week.
The families have a very good social impact - after the lamp has been fully paid, they have reached energy-autonomy and can decide what to buy again with this money.
Other positive effects are: indoor-pollution is much smaller and this will have a positive impact on the health - situation. Also there is less danger of fire. And: these families are reducing their CO2-footprint (which is already with 0,2 to per head very much smaller than in Europe or US) - but nevertheless they reduce it by using solarlights.
The montage of the solarlights is done in Togo - Kopeme created a south-south-partnership with a togolese company that is providing the solarlights at a reasonable price and offering different services around the lights. They have already a big expertise - so that Kopeme buys the ready lamps there to distribute them among the borrowers and receive the pay-back on a weekly basis, just like a microcredit.
The Solarlights come along with a recharge-kit for Mobile-Phones so that the people save time and again money. Sometimes they have to walk long distances of up to 8 kilometers and more only to charge a mobil phone and again this is very costy. With the small solar-paneel of the light -- the mobil-phone can also be charged.
Bicycle - Social Business Kopeme Keke - is the idea to give out bicycles to people who have to go long distances in order to shorten the time by 4 - if you walk or if you take a bike - with a bike you are 4-times faster than by foot. Thus a bicycle makes a lot of sense for people who need to overcome distances to do their business or attend their school.
The system is the same like with the lamp - only it is not a substitution but an innovation, improvement of the life-situation. The bicycles are paid back in affordable rates by those who are using them and belong to Kopeme until the last rate has been paid.
CARAVANE OF HEALTH - a Social Business Health-care-System for the rural areas
The caravane of health arrives in the villages by car - with a team of different health-workers - the visited villages can join the caravane and pay a weekly fee or a yearly fee to become member. For members the consultation and first aid is free - and with those fees the caravane of health is sustainable after one year.
It started in 2010 with initial support because people in african villages do not have any healthcare - now they shall pay for health-care-prevention. To learn this, to take it serious it is very necessaire that the caravane of health shows up in the villages and shows its work. All village-people can buy medicaments with the caravane of health. If the health-workers find a case that is too serious for them, there is an agreement with the hospital in Vogan to bring the people there to give them access to medical treatment. This will of course have a big impact on the health-situation of the rural people.
The main target of this project are the customers of the Kopeme Bank who requested a program of health to help them to take care of themselves in a Community solidarity in order not to lose their credit by untreated diseases. The number of the applicants for this program of health is 20.000 people organized in traditional groups of saving and credit commonly called Adakavi. For lack of councils and preventions, these populations cause cases of very expensive diseases and not having financial possibilities to face the expenditure, even some banal diseases return to them fatal by not being treated.
