Catalytic Communities (CatComm), our community partner in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, announced the launch of its new community empowering site www.CatComm.org. CatComm is a huge inspiration for us here at BRINQ, their insights in cultivating and capturing local innovations have been critical to us in our early years and their active work with communities generating solutions has taught us that stronger relationships lead to more viable innovations. In a world of people content with "asking the hard questions", Catalytic Communities is a refreshing example of an organization actually looking for the hard answers.

See the full Catalytic Communities Press Release

Frustrated with the poverty-stricken conditions in which the children of her community, Acarí, in the North Zone of Rio de Janeiro lived, Ivanilde Araújo Pinto began sharing her knowledge with them beneath a tree in the community. A piece of wood served as a blackboard and a chunk of charcoal as chalk. This was 20 years ago. Today the Little School of Love operates out of a community church and is proud of its notable accomplishment: not one of its kids, after 20 years of service by Ms. Pinto (50 children per year have been served), has returned to the streets.

Ms. Pinto’s example is not uncommon. Thousands of other community-driven efforts are succeeding in addressing local challenges in Rio de Janeiro and across the world. "These amazing people are out there and no one knows about them. As a result, they get very little support and have a hard time maintaining their efforts," explains Theresa Williamson, Executive Director of Catalytic Communities, "And the work of people like Ms. Pinto, if publicized, can inspire innumerable others to develop projects to better their own communities."

For this reason, since 2000, Williamson has been developing Catalytic Communities (CatComm), a not-for-profit to bring visibility to initiatives like Ms. Pinto’s and many others, around the world. Today CatComm is announcing the launch of its upgraded Website, www.catcomm.org, where visitors can consult, include, or search projects like the Little School of Love in its Community Solutions Database (CSD), which now features over 100 projects from 8 countries on 5 continents.

Catalytic Communities has also issued a fund raising challenge to its network of partners, volunteers and supporters.

"CatComm does all this with very little. Supporters have often told us it is one of the most efficient social investments around," CatComm Founder and Executive Director Theresa Williamson proudly announces. "In fact," she challenges, "if everyone who reads this line visits our Website and donates $10, then asks a friend to do the same, our 2006 budget would be cared for. That’s all it will take to empower and inspire hundreds of community solutions across the world in 2006."

We wish Catalytic Communities the best of luck! If you’re interested in supporting them you can click on the buttom to the right.

For more coverage of Catalytic Communities see:

• BRINQ - Side Effects - A Day in the Community
• BRINQ - Learning to Swim - Back in Brazil

 

After five months of intense work in communities in Kenya and Brazil we’ve got a long backlog of stories to share. Now that we’ve got a short breather we thought we’d post a few. This one from Kenya came up recently when we were asked via our colleague & mentor Stuart Hart, “Have you heard of these XAccess guys?”

Actually, yes we have!

In June the BoP Protocol team headed out to the shores of Lake Victoria in Kisumu, Kenya to visit with the XAccess and KickStart folks who were modifying an innovative bicycle for the local market. XAccess is the non-profit sister of XtraCycle, maker of the world’s first Sport Utility Bicycle, and KickStart, the NGO formerly known as ApproTEC, is a long time provider of enterprise enabling technologies to low-income communities. KickStart is helping XAccess to commercialize its bicycle in Kenya as the “Bigga Boda”, an upgrade to the existing “Boda Boda” bicycle taxis, so named from their early days on the border of Kenya and Uganda where the taxi riders cries of “Border! Border!” eventually morphed into the “Boda Boda” of today.

The lead designer for XAccess in Kisumu was none other than Ed Lucero, legendary kayaker and the world record holder for the longest vertical drop in a kayak (a jaw- and stomach-dropping 106 ft over Canada’s Alexandra Falls). Ed also happens to be an incredibly talented product designer and he described to us how the XAccess kit attaches to existing bicycles, creating a larger, more rugged space for heavier cargo of all sorts while still fitting into Kenya’s existing bicycle landscape and servicescape. Ed is designing a kit which Kenya’s bicycle fundi (craftsmen and repairmen) can use to attach the XAccess frame to local bicycles. The XAccess frame is made from locally available parts and can be modified for various types of bikes.

To cap off our visit, Ed and a colleague took us on a ride around Lake Victoria, where we became the envy of all the local bicycle taxi and cargo operators. “You want to be popular?” Ed said, “just ride one of these bikes around Kisumu and you’re sure to meet lots of new friends.” Common questions we were asked on our ride were “How soon can I get one?” Soon, the program is currently in a test market phase to produce and sell 50-100 bike kits. “How much will it cost?” Not sure, perhaps 3000-4000 Ksh ($40 - $50 US). “How many people can it carry?” Three on a downhill or a straightaway, and uphill depends on the size of your calves, though three people would be tough and heavy cargo like us wazungu, Westerners, could be even tougher.

After days of riding from site to site in the KickStart van, the leisurely pace of a bicycle was a delightful reminder of how much you miss when you just motor through. And fittingly enough when our van’s tires blew out the next day on the potholed roads out of Kisumu, how did we get to the local repairman?

On the back of a bicycle of course!

Click here for more on the XAccess project in Kenya.

Also see: Bambucicletas and Other Cycles of Innovation for past BRINQ coverage.

We’ve added a few new sections and pages here at BRINQ. The BRINQ Network: Friends, partners and mentors at BRINQ, there are a lot of great people and organizations who have helped make BRINQ possible and who continue to influence our work everyday. Come read about the organizations and individuals who help guide BRINQ, including Stuart Hart, Mark Milstein, Salim Mohamed, Alan Hassenfeld and many more! Discussion about BRINQ and the BoP: We’ve been getting a number of emails and calls about BRINQ and the BoP, so we started a discussion thread of our responses on the BRINQ Forums. Come take a look or chime in! [Edit: Forums are no longer available] BRINQ’s New Front Door: We’ve finally replaced our old front page with something a little more dynamic. Check it out! What’s Up Next - Updating the Base of the Pyramid Protocol: Patrick’s heading out this weekend to Racine, WI and the Wingspread Conference Center with the rest of the BoP Protocol Pilot team to report on their work in Kenya and to help design the next version of the Base of the Pyramid Protocol. A diverse set of forty professionals, business leaders, and social entrepreneurs will be participating in the intense 3-day workshop, including representatives from SC Johnson, Tetrapak, Dupont Solae, Natura, CARE, WRI, Carolina for Kibera, Ashoka and more.