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

“In my opinion, the weakest link in the chain now is the in-country distribution system. The costs of ignoring this key part of the health system can be extremely high.  A key reason for the poor performance of the in-country supply distribution system is the lack of an institutional and governance framework on how to organize in-country distribution.”

With keen insight, Professor Yadav articulates the challenges VillageReach faces daily in creating sustainable systems for the delivery of basic, life saving supplies. In addition to this article, Global Health Magazine posted a blog just a few days ago challenging various health system misconceptions.  The article challenges some widely held assumptions, many of which VillageReach has heard repeatedly over the years from potential donors and partners:

• Health systems can’t be measured.
• We don’t know what works to strengthen health systems.
• Strengthening health systems will be a money pit, an expensive, open-ended investment that won’t show measurable results.

Challenging these statements, the article cites the availability of measurable and proven methods within health systems, which can allow practitioners to make vital decisions. We were excited to see these acknowledgments, as a cornerstone of the methodology at VillageReach is the measurement and evaluation of our programs, and through our rigorous evaluation we have proven that health system strengthening programs can not only result in measurable impact but impact that tangibly saves lives.  We hope that these publications represent a shift of perspective within the world of Global Health towards a new view that will see “last mile” health delivery systems as a critical piece of the larger picture.

And VillageReach was there too.  Craig Nakagawa, our CFO, and Keely Stevenson, from Bamboo Finance, lead a great session on the just-announced investment in our Mozambique propane business, VidaGas. Titled “Anatomy of a Social Investment,” the session covered the development of the business, its impact on the health system it was created to serve, and Keely and Craig looked at future opportunities for social businesses in Sub Saharan Africa.

A couple of interesting takeaways from the session:

- the need for patient investors in social business ventures is key for both the initial development and long-term sustainability of these businesses.  In our case, VillageReach’s hybrid non-profit/social business model has proven to be very valuable.  Initial investment for VidaGas was supported by donor contributions, that otherwise would have been spent on the purchase of fuel and equipment that VidaGas sells to the market.  We see this approach as a winning formula for donors who are interested in achieving long-term impact for their contributions.

- Keely noted there are few base of the pyramid social ventures operating today.  Some businesses have been created that serve middle-income communities that then attempt to reach out to lower-income consumers, but this can be a challenge where profitability is a requirement.  Keely highlighted VidaGas’ market development approach as ideal, whereby we launched the company with the government health system as our initial anchor client, with some sales to lower-income communities also and then moved up-market to epand sales of the fuel to middle income consumers.

The investment has only just been announced, but we’re looking ahead to the future.  This week we’re meeting with a number of new investors to present a new proposal to broaden our base of household sales.  We’ve put together a comprehensive market development proposal that is intended to add new retailers for propane and stimulate greater interest from communities who have previously had to rely exclusively on charcoal for their cooking requirements.

Onward and upward.

Each year, the Tech Awards recognizes 15 global innovators who apply technology to the most critical issues affecting the world.  This year, VillageReach was selected from among hundreds of nominations representing 66 countries.  The Laureates are honored at a gala in San Jose in November.

VillageReach’s Management Information System (vrMIS) was recognized because of the significant impact it made in improving information and decision making in VillageReach’s Mozambique program.  Developing countries bear the greatest burden of infectious diseases, but they often have poor infrastructure to support critical public health programs.  VillageReach worked with the government of Mozambique to implement vrMIS which enabled health workers in the field to send and receive data in real time and as a result, empowered health workers to make the best possible decisions based on accurate and timely information.