Grameen and Group Danone went into a joint venture to create a yogurt fortified with micro-nutrients to decrease malnutrition for the children of Bangladesh. The yogurt is produced with solar and bio gas energy and is served in environmentally friendly packaging. The first plant started production in Late 2006. The 10-year plan is to establish 50+ plants, create several hundred distribution jobs and self-degradable packaging.
Update on Grameen Danone
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Background
Nature has bestowed the blessing of abundant fresh water on Bangladesh, in the form of numerous groundwater resources that are not too deep and are therefore easy to exploit. Nearly 8 million wells were bored during the 1970s and 80s, which now give almost 90% of the population access to water. However, for essentially geological reasons, almost all of the groundwater has been found to be contaminated with arsenic, very often at levels that make it a heath hazard. At the beginning of the 1990s, hospitals in Bangladesh started reporting an alarming increase in the number of cases of arsenicosis. Today, more than 30 million Bangladeshis have fallen victim to chronic arsenic poisoning and some have even died.
Against this background, Grameen and Veolia Water have decided to join forces and combine their complementary skills to make clean and safe water accessible to villagers in the poorest parts of Bangladesh.
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 Grameen and BASF went into a joint venture because there are area’s in Bangladesh where there is a high risk of catching Malaria (58K newly infected in 2007). The product created is a mosquito net to protect against malaria, which that families would sleep under. Half a million nets have already been produced. The idea of the joint venture was to develop affordable products for the poor that could protect them from deadly diseases. Grameen BASF have also started the production of micronutrient sachets to sprinkle on food, which provides essential nutrients that are missing from the poors daily diets.
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Grameen GC Eye Care Hospital |
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 In 2001, GB established the Prevention of Cataract Blindness Project, which has now become the Grameen GC Eye Care Hospital in Bogra as a social business. A second Eye Care Hospital has now been built in Barisal, in southern Bangladesh, which began operating in April 2009.
Professor Muhammad Yunus and The Green Children opened
First Grameen Eye Hospital in Bangladesh on May 12, 2008
Structured as a Social Business Enterprise, Facility Can Potentially Grow To Perform 50,000 Examinations, 10,000 Cataract Operations Annually [At the inauguration of the
Grameen GC Eye Care Hospital]
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 Grameen Intel
Today information technology (IT) excludes 80% of the world population. We want to take IT to the lower income people to improve the lives of people in poverty.
Grameen Intel is tasked at looking at ways to assist the rural poor by examining their needs and finding appropriate solution using IT. We will provide packaged solution consisting of the hardware and software to provide access, information and training to an impoverished entrepreneur or local entity who can offer IT services, which in turn would have a social impact in the village community.
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Seven Principles of Social Business |
 | - Business objective will be to overcome poverty, or one or more problems (such as education, health, technology access, and environment) which threaten people and society; not profit maximization
- Financial and economic sustainability
- Investors get back their investment amount only. No dividend is given beyond investment money
- When investment amount is paid back, company profit stays with the company for expansion and improvement
- Environmentally conscious
- Workforce gets market wage with better working conditions
- ...do it with joy
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Extending the Success of the Principles of Microcredit to Health Care Delivery
Mission and Overview The Grameen Bank and other microcredit programs have proven that bottoms-up business models can enable the poor to lift themselves from poverty and are sustainable. The 2006 Nobel Peace Prize recognized the impact microcredit has had--and will continue to have--in enabling millions of families around the world to break the cycle of poverty once and for all. Many of the families of Grameen borrowers have gone from illiterate and poor to educated professionals in a single generation. In establishing Grameen Healthcare (GH), Grameen aims to extend the success microcredit to health care. The mission of GH is to establish sustainable best practices in a broad range of health care services for a broad market for the entire population but focusing on the poor and poorest. GH will enable the poor to be self sufficient in addressing their health care needs such that they can accept but not require outside assistance. This mission will be developed in a number of ways that complement one another: - GH will design and develop a bottoms up health care infrastructure that can take lessons from successful efforts around the world and improve upon them to deliver the highest quality health care, in an efficient and sustainable manner, primarily to the poorest of the poor
- To achieve these goals, GH will build on the network of existing Grameen Clinics which are already providing primary healthcare at the village level in various locations of Bangladesh.
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Social business is a cause-driven business. In a social business, the investors/owners can gradually recoup the money invested, but cannot take any dividend beyond that point. Purpose of the investment is purely to achieve one or more social objectives through the operation of the company, no personal gain is desired by the investors. The company must cover all costs and make profit, at the same time achieve the social objective, such as, healthcare for the poor, housing for the poor, financial services for the poor, nutrition for malnourished children, providing safe drinking water, introducing renewable energy, etc. in a business way.
The impact of the business on people or environment, rather the amount of profit made in a given period measures the success of social business. Sustainability of the company indicates that it is running as a business. The objective of the company is to achieve social goal/s.
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Social Business
