August 19th, 2019
Today I’m packing to return to Peru, a country I’ve grown to love after my last visit over 2 years ago. But this time, I return as a researcher, as an advisor, and as a consultant. My entire life, I have understood implicit and explicit roles that women are expected and told to fill in their communities. Very few times, these roles are positions of power and change — in most corners of the world, women must actively seek out their roles of change and power instead of expecting them to be available without barriers. However, education, skills, financial independence, and local knowledge all must be acquired before there is a chance for the rise of women in communities internationally. It is often more difficult to connect women to these resources than it is for them to break into positions of power once these resources are at hand. For a few months, I have been examining this idea of women’s empowerment by working on a project with Sacred Valley Health, a public health NGO.
Their mission & vision is as follows:
Rural inhabitants of Peru’s Sacred Valley have access to quality health care services;
Partnerships with government and NGOs maximize access to resources;
Every community has at least one trained promotora de salud (community health worker);
Each promotora serves as an agent of change and health advocate for her community.
I will be working with Sacred Valley health to help the NGO change their business model to be more focused on sustainable income creation – for both the overhead expenses of the organization as well as the promatoras. I’ll be looking at the following key questions:
What does sustainable income generation look like for an NGO that currently depends on donations from the United States? What changes and innovations must be made to the business model?
How can women like promatoras de salud create income that is not dependent on an NGO? What are the barriers to this income generation?
As a C.K. Prahalad Fellow, I’m excited to explore this project which lays in the intersection of my interest in business and social impact: research has always been my passion, and being able to create solutions through interview based market research is very exciting!
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