Social Enterprise

Live Well, CARE’s health social enterprise in Zambia, was born out of the USAID funded PRISM project in partnership with Population Services International, better known as PSI. You may have read about Live Well’s CEO Charles Kalonga since he’s currently participating in an external accelerator which Scale X Design previously announced. Recently Charles connected with PSI to provide content for their current issue of Impact magazine which focuses on making markets work as a critical component to sustainable development. As a part of the issue, they wrote this piece on 4 Social Enterprises You Should Know About which included Live Well. Here are the answers Charles provided about Live Well.

(1) Who is the market failing? Rural and under-served communities are impacted by the limited availability of health products and services.

(2) How is the market failing? Only half of all rural families live within 5 kilometers of a health facility.^[1] The average rural family is 8 kilometers away, though distances can reach up to 50 kilometers.^[2] An inconsistent supply chain means that health facilities often do not have products available for communities. Thus, while free health care and free health products are technically available at any Government of Zambia facility, there are significant barriers for the population to receive these goods & services.

(3) Where do you work in the market? Live Well seeks to establish sustainable operations that will reliably provide rural and peri-urban Zambians with access to quality health products and will supplement livelihoods in a country where roughly 75% of the population earns less than USD $1.25 a day, almost 8% of children die before age 5, and only 11% of children aged 6 – 23 months are fed appropriately.[3]

(4) How do you plan to implement your vision for success/growth/scale? Through the creation of a sustainable supply chain, Live Well will reach under-served communities in Zambia with necessary health products. A team of Community Health Entrepreneurs will sell these products door to door, generating supplemental income for themselves while promoting health in their communities. As the enterprise grows, it will realize economies of scale and greater efficiencies in operations to turn a profit and become sustainable.

(5) Why should we highlight Live Well at this juncture in time as a leading emerging social enterprise? What key milestones of success has Live Well achieved? Live Well is still a nascent enterprise in Zambia (soft-launch in Nov 2015), but in a very short time it has trained over 300 Community Health Entrepreneurs and is operating in over 10 rural and peri-urban communities. It offers target consumers a broad basket of over 25 products which includes over the counter medications, nutritional products, contraceptives, hygiene products, solar lamps and cook stoves will be added this year. Live Well has benefitted from a unique partnership between Barclays Bank and GSK in Zambia. The partnership has not only resulted in the initial funding to start the social enterprise but both companies have provided business support to guide and build the capacity of Live Well.

[1] African Development Bank, African Development Fund, Republic of Zambia: Multi-sector Country Gender Profile (2006).

[2] Id.

[3] World Bank, Zambia Poverty Assessment: Stagnant Poverty and Inequality in a Natural Resource-Based Economy (2012); Central Statistical Office, Republic of Zambia, Zambia Demographic and Health Survey, 2013 – 2014 (2015), available at https://dhsprogram.com/pubs/pdf/FR304/FR304.pdf.

What is the Community Score Card©? It is an innovative approach that brings together community members, service providers and government officials to identify barriers to effective, high-quality service delivery and develop a shared plan for improvement. Watch this video to learn more!

Meet the Team

THUMBIKO MSISKA | Project Manager | CARE Malawi

Thumbiko Msiska is a Project Manager with CARE Malawi, and for the last several years he has overseen the implementation and evaluation of CARE’s Community Score Card, as social accountability approach, in improving reproductive health services in Ntcheu, Malawi. Thumbiko was on the team that invented CARE’s Community Score Card in 2002, and today is supporting the design and establishment of a social enterprise consultancy for catalyzing the reach and impact of the approach. Thumbiko has 15 years’ experience in designing, managing, implementing and evaluating health and livelihood development programs in Malawi, and in working at community, district and national levels. Thumbiko has represented CARE’s social accountability and health work at a number of international conferences and is a co-author on several corresponding publications. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Health from the University of Malawi and is finalizing his Master of Public Health with the same University.

KRISS CHINKHOTA | Project Coordinator | CARE Malawi

Over the past several years, Kriss has supported the day-to-day implementation and evaluation of the Community Score Card in Ntcheu, Malawi for improving the delivery of quality health services. Kriss has also provided capacity building and training on the CSC to other organizations within Malawi and CARE Mozambique, and sharing CSC experiences at Asia governance meeting in Nepal. Going forward, Kriss will be on the Consulting Roster providing CSC capacity building, training and design support to clients. Kriss will also be supporting the R&D Lab, including overseeing the day-to-day execution of the first model the team will be testing: linking the CSC process and evidence from the local level to district and national level advocacy initiatives. Kriss has worked with CARE International in different portfolios since 2008; and has over10 years’ experience in programs monitoring, learning, evaluation and data management ranging from tools development to collection, processing and analysis. Previously, Kriss has worked with Maimwana Research Project, Save the Children, Health Foundation Consortium, and Maikhanda. He holds a Bachelor of Health Systems Management, Exploits University obtained in 2016, a Diploma in Information processing obtained from the Polytechnic, University of Malawi in 2004 and Monitoring and Evaluation Certificate from the University of Cape Town obtained in 2008.

CAROLYN GRANT | Technical Specialist, Sexual, Reproductive and Maternal Health |CARE USA

Carolyn provides programmatic and technical support to advance the work of CARE’s Global Sexual, Reproductive and Maternal Health team across a variety of projects and initiatives. Carolyn supports the team’s SRMH and governance programming, including overseeing the start-up of a social enterprise consultancy for catalyzing the reach and impact of CARE’s Community Score Card. Carolyn is the team’s technical lead for adolescent sexual, reproductive health (ASRH), advising on the design, implementation and evaluation of ASRH interventions across our programs and representing CARE’s ASRH work in external forums. Carolyn also supports the documentation and sharing of evidence and learning from a large maternal and child health project in Bihar, India. Prior, Carolyn served in short term assignments supporting CARE’s work in the areas of grant stewardship, and policy and advocacy. Before joining CARE, she worked at a public relations firm in Washington, DC where she was responsible for all aspects of implementing a public diplomacy campaign for a foreign government. Carolyn also has experience working with FHI 360’s Gender Center on human trafficking issues. She holds a Masters in International Affairs from George Washington University and a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

SENIOR BUSINESS MANAGER | To be hired