Ethan started the day by completing the 17 mile mountain bike leg in just over 1 hour. At Rattlesnake Lake, Ethan passed the vaccine vial to Allen, who then carried it nearly 50 miles by road bike. Allen finished his ride in just over 2.5 hours and met up with Nick and John at Luke McRedmond Park in Redmond. Nick and John carried the vaccine vial 12 miles along the Sammamish Slough in a tandem kayak. They finished at the northern tip of Lake Washington in 2 hours and 11 minutes. John passed the vial to Jess and she ran with it just over 13 miles along the Burke Gillman trail. She finished at Gasworks Park after 2 hours and 10 minutes and then passed the vial to Ryan. Ryan carried the vial the remaining distance to Golden Gardens Park where his teammates were waiting to cheer him on over the finish line.

Team VillageReach Last Milers raised nearly $2,000 to support their efforts. All donations received go directly to support the health system strengthening work of VillageReach in rural Africa. VillageReach would like to thank the generous contributions from family and friends as well as from our sponsors: Getty Images, Fairhaven Health, Sound Mind and Body, and Red Door.

We completed three Big Events in Namicopo and one in Namutequiliua. In terms of the turnout and reaction from the audience, the results were fantastic. People were glued to the Theatre Group’s performance that effectively demonstrated the difference between using charcoal and LPG, and the music definitely got people up on their feet! Attendance was well over 200 people and included a lot of children. Although they don’t have the direct purchasing power, children are an important part of our marketing campaign as they can spread the message about our product very effectively. Not to mention they’re more open to using new technology as well and will form our future customer base.

Although we can say that our first few Big Events were successes based on attendance and entertainment, there is significant room for improvement. One of the biggest issues that we have to the address for our next Big Event is how do we convert the audience’s interest and knowledge of LPG into actual sales? Of course it’s nice to base our success based on the number of smiles and applause, but our bottom line (no pun intended) is to sell LPG. We did have a number of kits available to be sold at the events but we didn’t sell as many as we’d hoped. Perhaps we were all too focused with running the event according to the plan, but our next event must be able to capitalize on potential sales.

Fortunately, we are planning on running another 21 Big Events over the next 3 months so there are plenty of opportunities for improvement. As I mentioned in an earlier post, this is a learning experience for all of us and hopefully we will have a refined and effective format for Big Events by the end of this project. Please post your comments and suggestions on how we can improve our future events!

Peter Nakamura
Project Administrator

-Peter Nakamura is currently based in Nampula, Mozambique to coordinate a project funded by USAID to help individual households gain access to propane.

One of our goals with the USAID-VidaGas project is to develop a business model and toolkit that can be replicated for other BoP products around the world (not just LPG!). We’re using this opportunity with VidaGas to find out how one can successfully learn about and reach clients at the BoP level. LPG, as a new technology with significant benefits, provides us with a great product to find out how we can design an effective BoP model.

We begin with surveys among households to get a better idea of their current fuel usage situation, the perception of LPG, and to identify certain areas of the bairro (or neighborhood) that would be more open and financially capable of purchasing LPG. This is an important step in our marketing campaign as it gives us a better idea of the types of market segments that exist within the bairro. Not everyone is a potential LPG customer and our job is to sift through this diverse market to identify those that fit our client profile.

We follow the surveys with promotional events such as local demonstration of around 10-20 attendees and Big Events of over 200 attendees to further spread the word about LPG and VidaGas. Not only do these events allow us to demonstrate the benefits of using LPG but they also provide an opportunity to answer any question or concerns about LPG. (Often time’s people think that using LPG is very dangerous, too expensive, or difficult to use.) These events also initiate word of mouth among households which is a crucial aspect in the BoP market as traditional mediums of advertisements often do not reach these households. Our final step is follow-ups among households that attended the demonstrations and Big Events. We want to find out whether or not they decided to purchase an LPG kit, and why they made that specific decision. It also gives us an opportunity to make another pitch to use LPG as people often attend the event but forget about it soon afterward.

Throughout the steps shown above, one of our main goals is to learn. As mentioned earlier, the “poor” are not simply the “poor” but conscientious consumers who want to get the best deal whether it be in price, quality, brand image, or accessibility. Eventually all this learning will help us develop a robust yet flexible model and toolkit that we can apply to other BoP products!

Peter Nakamura, Project Administrator

After our Promoters and Animators became knowledgeable and comfortable with using LPG, we conducted a household survey within the bairro. The objective of the survey was to get a better sense of the income situation among the households and their interest/willingness to purchase an LPG stove. A week of surveying provided us with 200 completed surveys!

After completing the surveys (which are currently being tabulated and analyzed), our next task was to send our Animators into the bairros to conduct a demonstration on how to use a basic VidaGas LPG kit. We asked each Animator to find at least 10 people to attend the demonstration and to show the basics on how to use a LPG stove. It was also an opportunity to answer any questions or concerns about LPG as people here often have limited (if any) knowledge of liquid propane gas. I followed one of our Animators (Cecelia) and Promoters (Marino) to one of their demonstration locations which was located at one of the secondary schools in the bairro.

The turnout was quite impressive, and the teachers at the school showed quite a bit of interest in LPG. A wild card in all of this was the vast number of students that also attended this particular demonstration, as they can bring the word about gas to their parents. Now this is viral marketing!

Suffice to say, March has definitely been an exciting month. April should also bring much of the same excitement as we will be hosting our first few “Big Events” in the bairro with music, skits, food, and – of course – LPG! The objective, through the event, is to create even more awareness and interest in LPG/VidaGas, and hopefully some new customers. We also plan on moving into new bairros during April and so adventure continues!

Peter Nakamura, Project Administrator

In order to increase the demand and awareness of LPG among households, we will be launching a social marketing campaign tailored to the realities on the field. From personal demonstrations of around 10 people to big events where we expect over 200 people to attend, we will be testing different methods to stimulate demand and awareness. In the end, our goal is to be able to learn from this experience and create a social marketing model and toolkit which we will be able to implement in other developing countries and with a variety of product (whether that be bed nets or batteries).

Check in regularly for updates on our progress.

Peter Nakamura, Project Administrator

We ’re launching with our thoughts on the “Innovation Pile-up.” Chris Elias, the Executive Director of PATH, coined this phrase to describe the coming challenge facing public health systems around the world as years of medical research and development, particularly for vaccines, come to fruition.

When VillageReach started working in Mozambique in 2001, we found there was no system for distributing medical supplies beyond the provincial level … a situation that’s unfortunately the norm in most developing countries.

The Mozambique system was chaotic and under-resourced in 2001. Since then, the world has begun to invest heavily in new medical products, such as vaccines, to address the huge disease burden affecting developing countries. Governments, international organizations, and private charities have spent trillions of dollars in research and development of new products. But new opportunities bring new challenges. The new vaccines just starting to become available are much more expensive and are physically, much larger.

For example, polio is a basic vaccine administered around the world today. Twenty doses of polio fit in a vial about the size of your little finger. At 13 cents per dose, the vial is worth only a few dollars. A twenty-dose, polio vial doesn’t take up much room in the refrigerator, and if the distribution system ruins a few vials, or has a few leaks in it, then the loss is not huge.

In contrast, one new vaccine to prevent rotavirus, a stomach bacteria that kills thousands of children every year, costs $5 and is the size of your fist. The HPV cervical cancer vaccine is expected to be priced between $50 and $100 per dose in developing countries. The malaria and HIV vaccines, which we hope are coming soon, are also likely to be very expensive. Current distribution systems are overwhelmed now; the new products will swamp them.

Unless we invest in improving the ability of developing countries to handle these new products, trillions of dollars of investment will be wasted and, more importantly, children in those countries will once again, be passed by. While we can get excited about new product developments, and rightly so, we can’t forget that our job is not done, until drops are in mouths, and needles are in arms.