The spring edition of CARE’s Impact Magazine is out and all about Scale x Design!
Take a look at this special issue, which features an in-depth look at the Scale x Design Accelerator & Challenge, Cohort 1 spotlights, Chrysalis – the parent of both our Different Cup of Tea and Broadening gender teams, as well as other stories of Innovation at CARE.
Click the cover to read the new issue:
Congratulations to all our Scale X Design Accelerator teams on their inspiring pitches at last night’s Pitch Practice in Atlanta! And thanks to everyone who came out to Atlanta Tech Village to join us for our first-ever pitch event. We are thrilled to announce the 5 Scale X Design Challenge finalists who will compete in NYC on Thursday, January 26 at 7pm. Join us on Facebook Live next week!
CHAT!- Cambodia
Worldwide, young people are leaving their families and migrating to urban areas to seek work. While these workers are particularly vulnerable to abuse and exploitation, traditional NGO programs are ill-equipped to reach them. CHAT! harnesses the reality of young urban factory workers in Cambodia, integrating both entertainment and technology to provide cost-effective and high-impact heath education through a unique combination of hands-on training, relatable video dramas and mobile games.
Chomoka: Digitizing Village Savings and Loan Associations (VSLAs)- Tanzania
For the 2 billion adults without a bank account, Chomoka aims to take traditional village Savings and loans groups and bring them into the digital age with a user-friendly mobile application that provides a pathway to formal financial services by documenting users’ credit histories while streamlining and simplifying the transactions of informal savings groups.
Journeys of Transformation- Rwanda
When women gain the means to contribute financially to their household, it can upset long-held power dynamics within the family, often leading to conflict and even violence. Journeys of Transformation is a training program that empowers couples to improve communication, positively transform the balance of power between husbands and wives, and reduce the incidents of intimate partner violence.
Krishi Utsho- Bangladesh
While small family farms and plots feed the majority of the world’s population, there are few businesses that cater to their needs and constraints. Krishi Utsho (KU) is a micro-franchise network of small kiosks that sell agriculture inputs, supplies and services to these farmers, particularly women, in rural Bangladesh.
Mobile Application to Secure Tenure (MAST)- Tanzania
For the millions of Tanzanians who don’t have documentation proving they own their land, MAST is a mobile application that shortens the time, reduces the cost and simplifies the process for individuals to claim their land rights.
Sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) continues to be a significant issue facing women and girls in Sri Lanka. A large number of studies conducted on SGBV tend to evaluate the impact it has on victims/survivors. Having reviewed existing research conducted on SGBV in Sri Lanka, CARE Sri Lanka identified a gap in research: there was no study that examined the attitudes of male perpetrators of SGBV. Our groundbreaking study Broadening Gender: Why Masculinities Matter, conducted over three years in collaboration with Partners for Prevention, was born out of a need to fill this gap.
Twenty-four percent of the men surveyed admitted to using physical violence against their wives or partners, while 15% of men surveyed admitted to having committed rape, with the majority of cases involving the rape of a partner. The study also highlighted some disturbing findings, particularly in relation to men’s motivation for perpetrating violence, as well as in relation to the culture of impunity that leads to a cycle of violence. For example, 67% of men who reported perpetration of sexual violence said that they were motivated by sexual entitlement—their “right” to have sexual relations with women.
CARE Sri Lanka is instituting a multi-pronged approach to tackle SGBV that works with men and boys to address the attitudes of male perpetrators of SGBV. This approach includes implementing a key policy recommendation to address GBV within all state universities in Sri Lanka and working with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to pilot five Child and Women Development Units (CWDU) in five divisions in Sri Lanka. These units support state offices to prevent and respond to SGBV effectively.
Team members Vindhya Fernando and Ashika Gunasena will be representing their work with Broadening Gender at the upcoming Scale X Design Challenge!
Additional contributors to this effort includes:
Zainab Ilrahim, Program Advisor
Hashitha Abeywardana, Program Advisor
Jayanthi Kuru-Utumpala, Gender & Sexuality Specialist
The Scale X Design Challenge countdown has kicked into high gear for us at the Accelerator! While we are coordinating with participant teams from across the globe, making the logistical plans to get them to the event and nurturing the very best in development innovation, we also have some fantastic corporate sponsors providing financial support to make the Scale X Design Challenge truly a can’t miss event.
The Scale X Design Challenge is a way for our teams to show off all of the hard work and significant progress they have made in areas of development need. This is an opportunity to get unprecedented visibility for their work that they could not achieve in their home region. We have teams flying in from India, Ethiopia, the Balkans, and beyond to work with their peers in interactive workshops that will elevate their skills. Events surrounding the Challenge give teams the chance to connect to potential donors, business and specialized mentors, and global partners that will enable them to multiply their impact. The Scale X Design Challenge’s corporate sponsors gain high profile promotion and advertising during and surrounding the Challenge and ensure a lasting impact through all 15 of our participating teams.
Would you or your company like to join the likes of Delta in supporting the next group of change makers in their quest for scale? Check out our sponsorship brochure below for all of the perks and make sure to RSVP to the Scale X Design Challenge!
Before the Scale X Design Challenge in New York City, we are hosting the first stage of the SxD competition- Pitch Practice- in Atlanta, where CARE is headquartered. Register now to attend!
If you will be in Atlanta on January 19th, join us to help decide who advances to the final competition in New York!
In East Africa it is more common to see land marked as “not for sale,” rather than “for sale.” People put up these signs because it’s the main way for them to safeguard their property without formal land rights. If landowners don’t have proof of their property rights, they could fall victim to bad land transfers or even land grabbing.
The CARE team in Tanzania is working to make it easier for families to claim their land rights with our Mobile Applications to Secure Tenure (MAST) solution. MAST is an open source application used on smartphones to help individuals claim their land rights. The technology is inexpensive and 3 times faster than traditional GPS methods!
The CARE Scale by Design Accelerator and Challenge aims to showcase innovative programs like MAST. We spoke with team members Jane Mgone and Thabit Masoud about what it’s been like to participate in the Accelerator so far. How is it helping them tackle the biggest barriers to scaling the innovation?
“It’s really helping us to think through what it would look like to scale and how to design for scale,” Jane said.
While the Accelerator has pointed a spotlight on land issues in Tanzania, unfortunately, the funding for this small pilot in 3 villages has ended for CARE. Another organization is picking up the pilot but will only be reaching about 40 more villages, which remains just a scratch on the surface. How do we keep this promising innovation from the metaphorical graveyard of abandoned pilots?
Whitney Adams, Senior Advisor for Design and Innovation, reflects that this isn’t an uncommon story. “Unfortunately, organizations like CARE are constrained by available donor funding and sometimes promising innovations simply don’t have their next donor or path to scale lined up. The project has to end and staff move on to the next job. We hope the Accelerator will help teams think about the big picture from the beginning. How do we scale outside this one project? What would a realistic business model look like at scale?”
Instead of relying on donors or the public sector to pay for scale, the team is considering a business model to make MAST self-sustaining. Can the service be sold directly to landowners? Our current estimate puts the cost around $30 per plot. But what if we could get it down to $10 per plot? Would we have a customer and a sustainable innovation then?
Jane and Thabit have been sharing concepts and ideas learned throughout the Accelerator with their colleagues. What is the key thing they want you to know about what they’ve learned? “We really need to think outside the box, aside from doing traditional work.” Jane wants to know, “How can we have a greater impact? How can we do something that the people really want and need, something that can spread like wildfire throughout the world?”
