| Poverty Eradication Partnership Strategies (PEPS) Where "7 Stages Sustainability" is a universal, long-term, holistic process, PEPS are locally adaptable program templates to help communities address specific issues. We hope the below project overviews inspire your involvement with EW as well as creative use in your own community. Please stay in touch and let us know your thoughts, if you'd like assistance, or what PEPS work for you!
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Micro-grants for Social Entrepreneurs Local change-makers create lasting social impact Investing in local knowledge, talents and other sustainable resources, EW Micro-grants unleash the potential of grass-roots social entrepreneurs to address critical global issues in their communities. How it works: EW offers extraordinarily dedicated individuals, institutions, or local service committees with $200-500usd to invest in income generating and other long-term social benefit projects. At the grass-roots level, grantees have a great responsibility to produce tangible results out of this opportunity. Empowerment Works provides a flexible, locally adaptive framework and the appropriate guidance so grantees maintain project ownership and accountability. |
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Evolution: EW made its first micro-grant for social entrepreneurs in March 2006 in the Amazon village of Abenastone, Suriname. With just 300usd a local man with only partial use of his arms started a chicken cooperative employing other handicapped citizens. In January 2007, EW delivered this project to the slums of Nairobi Kenya, empowering volunteer teachers to create a youth business practicum at Amani Children's Center enabling their students to develop businesses to pay for books, shoes and other basic needs. |
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Community Trusts for Orphans and Vulnerable Children (OVCs) Revolving income generation start-up fund In February 2007, building on its 2002 school scholarship support program, EW asked local citizens in rural Zimbabwe what they could do to meet the needs of vulnerable orphans. Building on its Micro-grants for Social Entrepreneurs pilot project, EW launched a revolving income generation start-up fund in three villages.As the funds were dedicated to local solutions for AIDS orphans, it was named EW Community Trusts for Orphans and Vulnerable Children. |
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How it works: With grants starting at 200usd, women's groups, teachers, church leaders, and grandmothers work together to build and manage locally based income generation projects optimizing unique local skills and natural resources. The first community trusts were invested in local economic opportunities ranging from community gardens, soap making, uniform sewing to cow trading-- all raising funds and food for vulnerable orphans in the rural Chivu district. |
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| Beyond Fair Trade™ Global Brand & Marketing Partners Promoting economic opportunities that value & protect local heritage With the right access to markets and design savvy, income from Beyond Fair Trade™ products can create jobs and support local programs. Using their local resources, cultural arts and specialized talents our grass-roots partners create beautiful music, handmade fabrics and other crafts. Following its founding program model of T&J Designs in Zimbabwe and recent launch of EW Music fair trade label in Senegal, EW has developed the Beyond Fair Trade™ brand and partner-based marketing system, linking local projects with fair-trade groups and private sector distributors. Opportunity: While isolated village-based efforts are unable to gain the critical mass needed for brand recognition, collaborative, corporate sponsored cause-based marketing campaign (RED)® has become the 7th largest donor to the Global Fund in its first year of operation. While a tremendous success in the delivery of AIDS treatment, it created no jobs for impoverished beneficiaries - which would address a primary cause of the AIDS pandemic. Imagine if those products, and the massive distribution networks of the companies involved used products or elements, (such as fabrics) and created jobs for the beneficiary groups themselves? Action Strategy: With the aim of creating economic self-sufficiency, thousands of non-profits struggle to market self-help crafts from their programs, however we are called to realize that our economic role, expertise nor capacity is not in marketing. By linking local projects with fair-trade groups and community conscious businesses, Beyond Fair Trade™ seeks to integrate the private sector distribution capacity to build access to markets for products that value and protect indigenous heritage. Criteria/ How it works: Sponsoring businesses apply their expertise in marketing and sustainable product development while collaborating non-profits monitor local impacts where the products are made. With the benefit of pro-bono marketing support, the price points are kept fair, allowing for 10-20% of gross sales support grass-roots health, educational and environmental programs in the communities where products are made. |
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Global Impact: Working together with businesses, artisans and non-profit stakeholders, the Beyond Fair Trade™ global brand will reverse this inequity, and advance the sustainable integration of our world economy. |
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| EW Music: Ethnomusicology Recordings Program * A Beyond Fair Trade™ Product! Musical heritage is vital to local communities, both culturally and economically. EW Music supports the arts and creates small independent economies on the one hand; on the other, we give people in the West the opportunity to buy authentic fair-trade recordings that keep traditional heritage alive. How
EW Music Works:
EW-Music
offers African musicians the opportunity to record their music
for free. We issue each recorded artist with a professionally
mixed Master CD for reproduction and a simple cassette cover
with their picture and name. The musicians hold all rights
to their recordings for the African market; they can freely
duplicate, promote and sell their work. EW-Music does not
look for established artists. On the contrary, we offer our
services to the many bands, choirs and individuals who play
music to a high standard in remote areas and who have no means
to record their work. Therefore, almost all the music we record
is traditional. We are interested in collaborating with skilled
musicians on their terms, in representing their art form to
the best of our ability as musicians and in learning about
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| Evolution: In the Casamance region of Senegal, West Africa the local Diola culture and the vital eco-systems they cherish are at risk. EW Music is the foundation of a multi-sector strategy to reverse desertification, combat malaria and assure food security by advancing economic opportunities that value indigenous heritage. Through EW Music, indigenous people lend their voices, talent and cultural assets to raise awareness and funds for locally-based solutions. |
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| Village-Direct Carbon Offsets - Climate Response Initiative While 75% of emissions causing climate change come from cities, those most vulnerable live in rural areas. In the face of globalization, global warming, and the spread of HIV/AIDS in the developing world, the carbon credit industry offers economic opportunities for people who need them most. Purpose: Village Direct Carbon Offsets (VCDO) seeks to prevent desertification, build food security and create sustainable livelihoods through tapping a collaborative network of programs into the world-wide trading platform supporting community-based ecological restoration programs. Empowerment Works is reaching out to climate change experts and organizations to establish implementation criteria and help measure the carbon impact benefit of locally tailored agro-forestry initiatives. |
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| VCDO program advisor/ pilot initiative: Dr. Suad Sulaiman, Sudan - local ecologist and community health expert/ Sudanese Environmental Conservation Society (SECS). EW seeks private, public and international voluntary groups to share in VDCO development. |
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| New Life Access Pass - Health Education Project Empowering those most at risk to stop HIV/AIDS and take control of their health Originally launched in 2002 in Zimbabwe, the New Life Access Pass is a collaboration between artists, community centers and health education groups engaging those most affected by the spread of AIDS to fight it on the front lines. How it works: With EW’s encouragement and minimal transportation financing, homeless youth, peer educators from "Streets Ahead" community center & artists from local craft markets were trained in health awareness outreach through DESERET International's Education for Life" course. Together, they led a voluntary HIV testing & counseling movement in their communities advocating SAFE-SEX-OR-NO-SEX & guiding people to FREE HIV testing. |
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Evolution: Based on this pilot project, EW is now reaching out to high-risk communities in South Africa, where EW program director, Dr. Juliana Dahl is working to save lives where we can in KwaZulu-Natal providence, where 50% of pregnant women are living with HIV/AIDS. Our aim is to prevent the anticipated doubling of orphans here in the next 5 years, the same way it has in Zimbabwe over the past 5 years. |
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