No Child, Woman or Refugee Left Behind

[Taang Sianpu]

The following is a shared post with the social enterprise alliance blog.

After talking with Mike Del Ponte of Sparkseed and his mention of Leila Chirayath Janah, founder of Samasource, I had to explore further.

In his words, “I think Samasource represents so much of what is exciting about social entrepreneurship: leveraging technology and earned income strategies, connecting innovative ideas with the people who will benefit, and entrepreneurial principles.” I had heard good things about Samasource, but had yet to take a closer look at the work-sourcing organization. After watching a video of Leila at TEDx Silicon Valley, I saw what a quick-witted and smart entrepreneur she was — a true social innovator.

In their own words, “Samasource enables marginalized people, from refugees in Kenya to women in rural Pakistan, to receive life-changing work opportunities via the Internet. The core of this concept is microwork – little bits of labor that can be performed anytime and anywhere that add up to a real livelihood for our partners. In parallel, we enable socially responsible companies, small businesses, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs in the US to contribute to economic development by buying services from our workforce at fair prices.”

Samasource, meaning equally sourced, created their model by performing three steps:

1. Service Partners, locally-owned small businesses, non-profits, and groups of home-based workers, are screened and selected from the poorest parts of the world. Service Partners must satisfy stringent social impact and quality criteria that verify their contribution to economic development and their capacity to deliver good work.
2. Service Partners are provided with free business training, using live sample projects, web-based tools, and site visits.
3. Samasource markets their Service Partners’ services to paying clients through a website and sales team. Our clients range from low-income entrepreneurs in Jersey City to mid-sized nonprofits, such as Benetech, and technology startups.

I believe that Leila is spot-on when she says refugees don’t need more charity. What they need most is a decent way to earn a living. I’m looking forward to learning more about the successes and failures of microwork and work-sourcing. And most of all, I can’t wait to hear Leila speak at the 2010 Social Enterprise Summit.

http://www.socialearth.org/no-child-woman-or-refugee-left-behind-2