The MicroConsignment Model: Bridging the “Last Mile” of Access to Products and Services for the Rural Poor ( Innovations Case Narrative : The MicroConsignment Model)
2010; The MIT Press; Volume: 5; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1162/itgg.2010.5.1.101
ISSN1558-2485
Autores Tópico(s)Innovation and Socioeconomic Development
ResumoUntil recently, Carolina Amesquita, the principal at La Escuela Ramona Jil primary school in Chimaltenango, Guatemala, lamented daily that her students were drinking contaminated water directly from the tap, often contracting gastrointestinal illnesses that kept them out of school.Others in the community were suffering too.Juana Ramirez, an expert weaver in the village of San Mateo, could no longer see well enough to sort her threads by color.Her productivity had plummeted, further stressing her already struggling family.While preparing meals over an open-pit fire in her home, as Guatemalan women have done for generations, Alva Rios was inhaling harmful smoke for hours each day.Julia Garcia was spending more and more of her family income on electricity bills, while Benito Ramirez had no electricity in his home and at night had to study by candlelight.These and similar problems confronting thousands of rural Guatemalans have now been solved through the hard work of two Guatemalan women.Yoly Acajabon and Clara Luz de Montezuma, local homemakers in their mid-40s, started their own enterprises in 2004 with no entrepreneurial experience or start-up capital.Working within the MicroConsignment Model (MCM), these extraordinary women are providing low-income villagers with essential products and services that help improve their health, nutrition, and economic situations-and they are earning incomes for their own families while doing so.La Escuela Ramona now owns a water-purification device.Juana Ramirez got a free eye exam and bought low-cost reading glasses.Alva Rios now cooks on a fuel-efficient stove with a chimney.Julia Garcia has installed energy-efficient light
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