Thoughts from the Last Mile
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The Importance of Evaluation: Part 1
Last night my husband and I watched as Olympic speed skater Shani Davis won the gold. Unfortunately for us, we didn’t experience the thrill of surprise in his victory because NBC airs the program hours after it happens and we had read the news earlier in the day. My husband informed me that many frustrated [...]
Global Health Trends Heading Towards VR
Reliable delivery of medicines, vaccines, and health commodities at the last mile of the supply chain has been the focus of VillageReach since our inception. Earlier, we discussed the challenge of conveying our message and our work when the issues are complex, relatively unknown in the United States, and difficult to describe. We are happy to [...]
Social Media and NGOs: Thoughts from the Blogosphere
Previously, VillageReach held a discussion on the strategic balance between emotional donation appeals versus more systematic explanations of our work. NGOs such as Kiva have utilized the advent of the growing social media and net space to reach a wider audience through the vehicle of a recipient to lender connection. Are there unintended consequences that [...]
The Life You Can Save
Peter Singer’s new book, The Life You Can Save, has sparked a growing debate amongst VillageReach staff. In his chapter, Why Don’t We Give More, he writes about the power of an identifiable victim — as opposed to group or mass need. He describes Paul Slovic’s research that identifies two distinct ways that we process [...]
Arriving at the Last Mile in India’s City Slums …
With our focus on last-mile healthcare access for remote rural populations, it may sound like a contradiction to address the pressing challenge of improving access for urban populations. But in 2010 that’s exactly what we’ll be doing. In August and September we were in India to look at locations for a new vaccines distribution program, [...]
Global Health Supply Chain Summit
This week VillageReach President, Allen Wilcox, will be speaking at the 2nd Annual Global Health Supply Chain Summit. The theme of this years conference is “Bringing Government, NGOs, and Academia Together: What can be learned from the for-profit world?” We are excited to be included in this conference again this year- the theme alone could [...]
Notes from the Field: SMS in Malawi
A few weeks ago I traveled to Malawi to work on two projects that use SMS phone technology. One of these projects focuses on providing community health workers (CHW) with an easier and quicker way to communicate with their local hospital, supervisors, and fellow community health workers. I spent an afternoon with 18 of the [...]
VR News Round-up
We’re happy to say it’s been a busy month of September here at VR. While we haven’t had much time to write- others are writing about us! Over at the Discovery Channel, they cheekily suggest we should get involved in the US healthcare debate (thanks, but no thanks), while the author at the Scientific American [...]
VillageReach Named 2009 Tech Awards Laureate!
After yesterday’s announcement of Oasis Fund’s investment in VidaGas, VillageReach has even more good news to share: VillageReach has been recognized by the 2009 Tech Awards as a Laureate in the Health Awards category!
Each year, the Tech Awards recognizes 15 global innovators who apply technology to the most critical issues affecting the world. This year, [...]
VillageReach Announces Landmark Investment!
As the Social Capital Market Conference (SoCap) begins today in San Francisco, VillageReach is very excited to announce that Oasis Fund, a European investment fund, has committed a $1.375 million investment in VidaGas, the propane energy company owned by VillageReach and the Mozambique Foundation for Community Development (FDC). SoCap is full of social entrepreneurs, investors [...]