By Patrick Donohue, August 2005 “In Nairobi, stay away from the shanty towns, especially at night.” The door closes, Kibera opens, and East Africa’s largest shantytown swallows us into the night. It’s dark near Edwin’s place, a sight sapping blackness that is darker with the knowledge of the trenches and trips that lie ahead, a misstep can send you rolling down make shift steps to soak in the flowing runoff, Kibera’s sewage system. Edwin can see well enough in the dark and navigates the pitfalls without hesitation; I make a joke about mzungu eyes and then switch on my torch. I notice as we walk that the only other people using torches are the mzee, the old men or women. We walk through small alleys and walkways, passing row after row of mud houses with radios blaring, stray light seeping through cracks around the doors and below the roofs. I can’t shake the feeling that I’m walking across somebody’s front porch but I soon realize that’s exactly what we’re doing. The passing people are dark African shadows; it’s a surreal experience and I fancifully imagine that I can slip by without notice, achieving that anonymity I find impossible during the day. A mzungu in the dark, does he finally become a mtu, a person? To the young children I’m just a another mzungu, a white person, but the kids old enough to have seen kung-fu movies will shout out “Chinese”, “Jackie Chan”, or that distinctive “hi-ya” cry, matched with chopping hands and a comically fierce look. Onush, my colleague Erik’s host, later tells me that the children are probably afraid of me, fearing that I’ll open up some karate on them if they’re not careful. My fleeting hopes that my sun-browning skin will help me escape notice are dashed when I learn that some older Kenyans think I might be Indian, the much maligned minority of Kenya, disliked because they’re said to run all the businesses and pay Kenyans little. It’s too hard to stop and explain that I represent the Vietnamese-Irish people, a difficult mixture to appreciate in a land where your tribe is supposed to explain so much about you. For all that I wear my winter hat - not so much for the cool night, which for the bundled-up Kenyans is a biting cold - no, I wear my winter hat to hide my hair, too long to ever be mistaken as Kenyan. I think it might be working, the children aren’t shouting their mzungu bird call, their sing-song “how are you?”, and there are no sudden looks; but perhaps the night just offers a different pace and people keep their notice to themselves. Edwin jokes that people are probably too surprised to say anything. What would a mzungu be doing in Kibera after dark?

* * *

[Download the full “Kibera Nights” (PDF) here]

The above is the beginning of a story I wrote almost a year ago, about the time I spent living and working in Kibera, a slum in Nairobi Kenya that is considered by some to be one of the world’s most dangerous slums. I was there as part of the BoP Protocol pilot test in Kenya. Kibera is the slum that Fernando Meirelles’ film the The Constant Gardner is set in and also was featured in Sarah McLachlan’s video World on Fire. Enjoy! - Patrick

To the casual observer, it may seem like we haven’t doing much with toys lately here at BRINQ! However, though we HAVE been pretty busy, we’ve had our eyes at everywhere for new toys and innovations at all things play. Everywhere being Brazil, Kenya, the U.S., and of course the Internet.

Here are a few of the toys we’ve come across in the Base of the Pyramid.

	Toys Cars Kids love cars, and they love to play with model cars the world over. Most of the cars we saw were made with scavenged metal wire for the frame, rubber bands for the joints, and cut up sandals for the wheels. A long metal rod with a steering wheel on the end (attached to an axel on the front wheels) allows kids to race their cars around the streets, including lots of popular makes and models: Corvettes, Land Rovers, Jeep, VW Bugs and more. See also the Gallery at Stome.net, Jungle Photos, StreetPlay.com for more.
	Animated wireframe figures We came across wireframe push toys on our first trip out to the Rift Valley in Kenya, then later encountered them throughout Kibera and the other slums of Nairobi. Similar to the wireframe care except with moving parts, rotating wheels on the bottom cause the figure on top to move, a bird to flap its wings, and man to ride its horse. Often the wire would be wrapped in bright thread to give the figure a costume. Check out a number of these toys at ToyResearch on Blogspot.
	BottleCap Toys We ecountered lots of bottlecaps during our time in Kenya, especially the days we spent sorting trash with the Kibera Youth Self Help Group. We also came across a few bottlecap toys, some fishing line or wire and you can make snakes, action figures, and more. Check out FolkArtPlus and WorldPlay.org for more examples.
	Soccer/Football Soccer is one of the most loved sports in the Base of the Pyramid. Every kid dreams of being the next Pele or David Beckham, drafted to play for their favorite English Premier League team like Manchester United or Arsenal. Soccer balls are expensive though, so most kids have come up with an ingenious solution using a commonly donated item… condoms! Wrap a blown up condom in a plastic bag and lots of string, and you’re on your way to the Premiere league! Check out the film “The Ball” at DayZero.co.za
	Anything with a wheel An old bicycle inner tube, a barrel wheel, or even a wheel off a car… if it’s round and rollable kids will play with it! Often we’d see kids in Kenya running behind a rolling tire, pushing it along with a tap of a stick while being chased by other kids. An easy to make toy and mobile too.

Another story about one of the BoP Protocol Pilot’s most important partners: Carolina for Kibera (CFK) last week was honored as one of Time Magazine’s “Heroes of Global Health” and Acting President Kim Chapman was featured at the Global Health Conference in New York. CFK is an incredible community-based organization in Kibera: one of the world’s largest slums on the outskirts of Nairobi Kenya. The organization’s programs target issues of ethnic violence, health care, safe spaces for girls, and environmental sanitation and income generation. All their work follows a common theme of participatory development and the organization’s operations in Kenya are run by Kiberans. CFK and its staff were critical to the Base of the Pyramid Protocol Pilot in Kenya and the resulting pilot venture between SC Johnson and the local community groups continues to be advised by CFK staff. Congratulations to everyone at CFK and keep up the great work! Carolina for Kibera Resources:

• Carolina for Kibera - web site at the University of North Carolina
• Interview with Kim Chapman - the News & Observer
• Heroes of the 2005 Global Health Summit - including Kim Chapman and Carolina for Kibera
• BRINQ Photos from Kenya & Kibera - including many photos of Carolina for Kibera staff, activities, and partners
• Base of the Samosa - an article on BRINQ.com and the World Resources NextBillion.net about the BoP and CFK

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.

There’s nothing like a room full of blank stares to tell you that you have just used the wrong word, nobody there knows what you’re talking about and you need to adapt, but what do you do when that word is at the heart of what you do? When that glazed-eye-inducing offender is printed all over your business cards? Erik, Kabi, Edwin and I are in a meeting hall in Kibera, a shanty town in Nairobi, Kenya which, with an estimated one million people, is one of Africa’s, if not the world’s, largest slums. We’re running the second of four community engagement workshops in which we are preparing local community groups, entrepreneurs and social enterprises, on how to best approach and prepare for a partnership with multinational companies; in this case, how to partner with our main corporate sponsor, SC Johnson. This is what we do, we bring people from diverse backgrounds and with diverse resources together, “a creative collision of world views”, to create new market opportunities for multinationals and locally grown businesses for poor communities via a process of “mutual value creation”. Buzz phrase laden work, yes, but it’s actually all been going quite well so far, except that now our community partners are stuck on our name. Behind us, on a brown flip chart taped to the wall, is drawn a large three sided figure, a triangle really, with the words “Base of the Pyramid” written on top, or BoP for short. That’s us. A brave hand ventures forth, “Do you mean like a samosa?” For those not in the know, a samosa is a triangle shaped pastry of Indian or Persian origin, stuffed with a delightful filling of meat or vegetables. You can find samosas being fried and sold fresh on the mud tracks, pathways, and streets of Kibera; one of the tasty treats will set you back only about 5 shillings (7 cents). “Yes!” we say with a smile, thankful for a local translation, “The pyramid is like a samosa! The rich people are up top, that’s where most companies traditionally focus, but down below here in the base are some 4 billion people, a whole world that’s been…” There’s another hand up in the air now. “Tafadhali”, we prompt, “please.” “Why should people at the top of the samosa get everything,” one man asks, “when all the meat is at the bottom?” There are a few murmurs of agreement from the crowd, so the man continues, “And why a samosa? A chapati would be better, that way everyone is the same!” This time there are cheers. A chapati is a flat round fried bread, kind of like an Indian version of a Mexican tortilla, and like samosas, chapatis can be found fresh and hot all throughout Kibera. I love chapati, but I’m too much of a free market fan to buy into the idea of it as a symbol of world commerce, nor do I think it’s an accurate representation of how the world really is. Another man speaks up, “Can’t we just turn the samosa upside down?” “Upside down?” “Yes,” he explains, “turn it upside down, then all the rich people are on the bottom and we can force them up to the top!” **** “I’ve been wondering,” Salim Mohamed asks me one day, “What do you think of the phrase, Base of the Pyramid?” The question is asked in a way that doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence in the chosen descriptor for our work. Salim is the program manager for Carolina for Kibera (CFK), an incredible organization in Kibera whose offices we’ve been using as our base camp and which has acted as our gateway into the community. Salim’s question about the BoP comes in the middle of a conversation about the G8 meeting in Scotland and the resulting attention the Western media is pouring on Africa. Most often mentioned in the news are the calls for the doubling of donor aid to Africa and the unconditional cancellation of 100% of Africa’s debt. Also covered by the media are the Live 8 concerts, a massive series of shows throughout the Western world designed to “raise awareness” about poverty in Africa. They’re tied in somehow with the “Make Poverty History” campaign, of which Salim is also skeptical, “Haven’t we already spent 50 years making poverty part of our history?” Salim asks, “and what is poverty any ways? Is it just one person having more money than someone else, how can you get rid of that?” True, Salim is intimately familiar with the problems of poverty in his community, CFK’s four major programs grasp and wrestle with such issues in Kibera directly, every day, but there’s the difference, the direct contact, feeling the texture of poverty, living amongst it, working with it. Think of the Japanese martial art Jujitsu, where you engage with your opponent, body to body, skin to skin, tying your motion to his motion, until flip, you shift, you turn, and you channel your opponent’s force in a new direction, a new way. Now think instead of just dropping a nuclear bomb on your foe. Which has the worse effect? Sure your opponent may be dead, but how much worse was the curse than the cure? As Salim and many others here have helped us learn, painfully at times, the problem with the term Base of the Pyramid is that it is an income base classification, you can use it to segment your population, to find underserved markets or opportunities, but the dangerous tendency is that by selecting a group by income, you then define them solely by income. You fall into the trap of defining them based on what they lack, rather than what they have, and it’s what they have that can be built upon. “My God,” we hear so often, “how can these people get by on less than a dollar a day?” It’s a fair question, an important one even, but it needs to be asked in a way where you expect, and are willing to accept, an answer, i.e. this is how they do it. It’s too quick to say that a dollar a day is too little, and even quicker to just say that the answer is more dollars sent from afar, or even more dollars generated locally. Look at Taka ni Pato (trash is cash), a program run by CFK in Kibera and funded by the Ford Foundation. The project enables youth self help groups in Kibera to turn the community’s trash into a source of income, yet CFK has quickly learned that too much cash flowing too quickly could kill the very groups they are seeking to uplift, the groups that are now providing a much needed service to the community. Just because a group has increased income, perhaps for the first time any income at all, doesn’t mean that the group is ready to do something productive with that income. Are they mature enough to handle it? Do they have the transparency necessary to keep money issues from tearing the group apart? Do they have plans for tomorrow so they don’t spend it frivolously today? As Ibrahim Sakuda of Faulu Kenya reminds us, “As more income comes in, groups need time and help to broaden their vision beyond what they currently do.” Raising income is critical in the Base of the Pyramid, but here in Kenya we’re discovering that income alone won’t create the change we seek: to improve the quality of people’s lives and to create sustainable markets for economic growth. There are other issues that need to be wrestled with, intimately, closely, patiently, while we also seek to raise incomes. Base of the Pyramid may be an income based classification, it may be how we describe what we do, but it need not be our sole focus, we don’t need to be defined by what we call our work, because rich or poor, who really wants to be defined just by how much money you make? Besides, if we define our pyramid differently, say on strength of community, on how many of your neighbors you know, or on the size of children’s smiles, who might be in the Base of the Samosa then? Additional Resources: The Base of the Pyramid Protocol The BoP Protocol Pilot in Kenya Carolina for Kibera Faulu Kenya

Well, we’ve been on the ground in Kenya for over a month now, field testing the Base of the Pyramid Protocol, a process to engage local communities in creating new business opportunities. More about the Protocol and the Pilot respectively can be seen at http://www.bop-protocol.org/ http://www.BRINQ.com/kenya/ There’s so many stories to tell, about our homestays in the BoP, Carolina for Kibera, the Kibera Youth Self Help Group, our days as trash collectors, washers, compost sifters, the fire which destroyed at least 10 homes and took one young life close to my host Edwin’s homes, his heroics that night and my helplessness, Edwin’s birthday, “Dr.” Salim Mohammed, managing director of Carolina for Kibera, Kenyans’ lukewarm reactions to the G8 and Live 8 concerts, and more. Really, more to come soon, but here are some photos from our first several weeks in Kenya, all photos are by bwana Justin, with many more of my own and Justin’s to come. Photos include visits in Kibera, one of Africa’s largest shantytowns, visits with KickStart (the NGO formerly known as ApproTEC) and SC Johnson in Kisumu, Thika, and Nairobi, and more. Sample Photos and gallery links below: BoP Protocol Pilot in Kenya, Set 1 Bop Protocol Pilot in Kenya, Set 2

There’s a texture to life that we miss in our discussions of poverty, our arm chair strategies in the U.S. on microfinance, disruptive innovation, and entrepreneurship. The BoP Protocol Pilot team has been been in Kenya for almost a month now, visiting a number of homes and organizations throughout western Kenya, from rural farms to urban slums. This article is the first in a series of installments about the texture of life we’ve been experiencing. Note, names and details are sometimes changed, all the stories are true. Mitumba “Cha bure ni bure” - free things are worthless -Professor Lelo, Egerton University, Njoro, Kenya One month before heading to Kenya I stopped by the Salvation Army to drop off a trash bag full of old shirts, pants, and shoes. Everything I donated was in good shape, it would certainly help some less fortunate soul, I thought, perhaps provide even a little bit of fashion too. Last week, sitting in Paulette’s front room, in her rented mud hut in Kibera, I found out where my discarded fashion may have ended up, in the many stalls and kiosks lining the streets of Kenya, as mitumba, donated goods for sale. Quality goods for a cheap price. A good thing, right? Perhaps not so good for Paulette’s husband, a Nairobi shoemaker whose market collapsed under him when a flood of cheaper, higher quality shoes hit the market. These days his business scrapes by on the occasional shoe repair. Kenyans, we have found, are remarkably well dressed, no matter what their station in life. Early in the morning a sea of well-groomed Kiberans walk up Kibera Drive, past the Nakomat and YaYa Center (shopping malls in Nairobi), on their way out to look for jobs in the city. Some walk more two hours each way, uncertain if work is there for them or not. I have yet to learn the trick of how to keep my shoes as clean as Kiberans do, how they resist the ever present dust and mud is a mystery to me. Paulette’s husband makes the migration every morning to his little shop space in the city, one cobbler among many: all of whom likely wear the very mitumba which undermine their livelihoods. Well dressed and without work. Paulette speaks with a subdued resignation, her days are filled with preparation and waiting. Preparing breakfast for her three children (if there was food left from the night before), preparing the children for school, buying and fetching water from the local water taps in Kibera (illegal hookups to city’s water supply), washing clothes on laundry days, waiting for the children to return for lunch, and always, waiting for her husband to return on a good day with a 100 shillings (about $1), hoping he brings enough back to buy food for dinner: maize and greens. On the hot days, waiting in the house can become unbearable, the stench of the overflowing latrine outside her door becomes overpowering. Latrines are sometimes cleaned by Kibera’s absentee landlords, by the better ones, though if the tenants are deliquent or refuse to pay rent, even the better ones let the latrines overflow. And even if you do pay rent, perhaps your neighbor does not, and the land lord doesn’t send in the cleaning crews. The day we visited Paulette was a mild one, a waft would only come by with the breeze. Paulette is a member of women’s savings group in Kibera. I remember reading about such groups while in the U.S., women would pool there money, giving 10 or 20 cents a day, each getting a chance to take loans from the pot, money which they would use to buy tools or resources to better their lives. What did Paulette use her turn at the pot for? “Food,” she said, “when my husband comes home with no money for the day, you can’t let the children go hungry, you just can’t. They can’t sleep if their belly is not full. So I take out a loan.” You don’t use the money for capital, for any income generating opportunities? “I don’t have any skills, ” Paulette declared, “I’m trying to learn tailoring, but there are so many tailors already in Kibera.” What if your husband can’t bring home money, and you can’t take out a loan? “We fight,” Paulette said, “but then I learn to keep quiet and cry a lot.” The best time of year is around Christmas, when everyone is preparing to head to their family homes outside of Nairobi, and everybody is spending money to look their best, which includes buying and repairing shoes. Paulette and her family often head to their birthhome in Western Kenya, and she saves up for a special meal for the children: fried chicken and chips. She smiles a little when recounting the memory, but then she adds, “But it’s a good time of the year for the thieves too.”

Well, it’s been a busy three weeks in Kenya, with the Base of the Pyramid Protocol Pilot team bouncing around western Kenya. If anyone doubted poorer communities had local geniuses or heroes, you should come spend some time in the parts of Kenya few outsiders ever see… we can’t seem to turn a corner without bumping into amazing people. So much is being done locally, yet so many challenges still exist. Among the heroes is our local partner in Nairobi, Carolina for Kibera (CFK), a local community based organization in Kibera: at one million strong, Kibera is one of Africa’s largest slums. CFK was started by a 22 year graduate of the University of North Carolina (and U.S. Marine) and a former orphan & Nairobi “slum dweller” (one of the most amazing men I’ve ever met). Started as a sports organization, CFK capitalizes on the football fervor of Kenya to encourage youths to take part in their community. To register a team in the Kibera soccer leagues, youths need to earn points through community service, programs which include local trash cleanups (badly needed), trash for cash programs, and other programs. CFK also runs the Kibera-based Tabitha Medical Clinic (started with a $26 grant) and Binti Pamoja, a reproductive and women’s rights peer group. The organization has mobilized some 5000 children and continues to grow, somehow navigating around the tricky political and ethnic issues which plague Kibera to create a stronger community. Oh and yes, there are many great toys to be found in Kibera. You should see the eyes of a grown Kenyan man when he recalls the wireframe rally car he built and raced as a child. So, check back later for more stories about the toys of Kenya. Patrick

And so it begins… In just two days ways we arrive in Kenya, to begin the pilot test of the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Protocol. So you may be wondering, with Sheri Willoughby busy consulting on another BoP project for Johnson and Johnson, and Patrick and the BoP Protocol team in Africa, will the the Workshop get pretty empty? Actually, it may get more crowded than ever in here! I can’t tell you how eager we are to invite some smiling new faces in here. Toys to discover, games to learn, stories to share, dreams to awake. Stay tuned for regular updates from the field. And please, wish us luck and learning. Create often, play always. -your friends at BRINQ.

Regular BRINQ readers may have noticed a lack of posting the last couple of weeks, this is because we’ve been working overtime getting ready for the Base of the Pyramid (BoP) Protocol pilot in Kenya, where we’ll be hitting the ground in just two weeks. For a quick summary of the Protocol, it answers the following question: “How can the multinational collaborate with the poor to enable new businesses and discover innovation?” The past two months have been an intense period of training in participatory techniques and immersing ourselves in the details of our corporate and NGO sponsors and partners, which include SC Johnson, ApproTEC and host of others. We’ve got a pretty impressive group of folks heading over there, intelligent with diverse experiences, but hungry for new perspectives and ideas. Much of our prep work involves understanding our own cultural accents, assumptions, and goals as well as becoming comfortable with the idea that our ignorance as much as our expertise has value and that some uncertainty just can’t be planned for. Some questions we’re already dealing with include:

• Creating local capacity vs. playing development tourist
• Best use of online resources for chronicling, communication, and idea sharing
• How to establish an in-country base camp and open idea bank, where to locate, what it looks like, when to do it, how to give it permanence
• Managing corporate/non-corporate partnerships (MNCs, NGOs, governments, universities), how to build trust
• Seeking out fringe stakeholders, how to hear the unheard, how to even find them
• Unlocking organizational viewpoints: “granting a license to imagine”, getting “experts”, both local and foreign, comfortable with assuming ignorance to create new ideas
• Translation vs. Learning vs. Creation – e.g. not just understanding Kenyans, not just becoming more Kenyan, but creating something uniquely Kenyan and American (more than the two alone)

In August we’ll be holding two idea generation workshops, one in the Nakuru district of Kenya, and one in the Kibera slums near Nairobi, bringing in folks from all walks of life, many of whom we’ll have contacted or worked with in the months before. Those ideas will then go through a business development process in the Fall for our sponsors. In October, we’ll run another workshop for the Protocol itself (here in the U.S.), folding in the pilot experiences and filling it in with more life stories and tips. All in all a very exciting time here at BRINQ! You can guarantee that we’ll be looking for innovations and toys to blog about in Kenya, so stay tuned! Additional Links and Resources: BoP Protocol Pilot Project Page - BRINQ.com - the latest info on the pilot, plans, and team The Base of the Pyramid Protocol - bop-protocol.org - the Draft and history of the protocol is available Protocol Principles - don’t have time to read the whole Protocol? Start with the Principles.

How can the multinational company become the driver of an inclusive capitalism?

That’s the critical question the Base of the Pyramid Protocol seeks to answer. Developed by Stuart Hart and the Base of the Pyramid Learning Lab, the BOP Protocol Project is a collaborative effort to develop guidelines and business models for successful Base of the Pyramid ventures, enabling them to meet the needs of the world’s 4 billion poorest people while discovering huge new growth and innovation opportunities.

The Vision: to create inclusive, mutually beneficial business processes through which the private sector and local communities build economic, social and environmental value.

The protocol is a best-practices methodology to discover new business opportunities, create sustainable growth, and incubate disruptive innovations; the theory goes that by following the protocol’s three iterative and repeating steps (see image right), a company will discover the answers to capturing and delivering value in BOP markets.

The first draft of the protocol was developed by a diverse group of academics and practitioners and will have its first field test this summer in Kenya, through a joint project between the BOP Lab, SC Johnson, and Approtec. The target community? Kenya’s pyrethrum farmers, who struggle with a global decline for their crop of natural pesticide. A series of follow up tests and organizations are also in the works and the BOP Protocol will be released with an open source development model (The protocol will eventually be available at www.bop-protocol.org).

BRINQ will be involved in field-testing the protocol, either in the initial Kenya field trial or potential follow-ups in Latin America. We are currently taking part in the protocol draft review.

Additional Links and Resources:

• BOP Protocol Presentation (PPT)- Stuart Hart (Cornell) & Scott Johnson (SC Johnson) at WRI’s Eradicating Poverty through Profit conference in December, 2004
• Capitalism at the Crossroads - Stuart Hart’s new book on "The Unlimited Business Opportunities in Solving the World’s Most Difficult Problems"
• Base of the Pyramid Resource Center - the BOP Resource Center has more information from the draft of the BOP Protocol

Photos from the field trial site in Kenya:

Past "How to Change the World" articles:
The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid — The Model T Trap — Going Beyond Networking

A doll made of rolled-up white material has a special meaning in Belarus. Some 40 years ago, the country experienced an epidemic of scarlet fever. In one of the villages, almost all the children died. But there was one little girl whose grandmother had made an “Aleysa” doll for her and placed it on the child’s heart, saying it would save her life, and her life was spared. A similar “Alesya” doll, made by 12-year-old Elena of Belarus, appears in a special exhibit of toys created by CCF children around the world. The collection, currently in the lobby of CCF’s Richmond headquarters, features about 250 toys, each with its own story. Plans are underway to exhibit the toys in children’s museums around the U.S. Dr. John Schultz, CCF president, found the inspiration for the exhibit while visiting Kenya in May 2000 during the famine. After witnessing tremendous human suffering, he watched, amazed, as a group of children sailed hand-made toy boats on Lake Turkana. “I was expecting to see children and their families either begging, or sitting idly by the side of the road waiting for their fate,” he said. “But I was struck by the fact that they were having a childhood, in spite of the famine and emergency at hand.” He admired one boys’ boat, which was made of a rubber flip-flop, twigs and plastic bags. The child presented him with the boat, and CCF’s collection began. Like the flip-flop boat, most of the toys in the collection are made from discarded items, which were given new life in the hands of the children. A construction site provided the raw materials for a Zambian boy, who created a miniature 10-speed bike from tiny, elaborately twisted wires. An 11-year-old boy in Brazil turned two sardine cans into a car and a trailer. One child made an oil delivery truck out of discarded materials after admiring the real trucks that sometimes passed by his town. Nalubuga, age 11, lives with her family in a poorly constructed shack in Uganda. But she calls the dollhouse she made out of banana leaf fiber and cardboard her “dream house”. That special toy sums up the hope of all the children, indicating how the toy exhibit captures not only the children’s inventiveness–but also their dreams. Copyright 2004. Christian Children’s Fund. All Rights Reserved. – This story was submitted by the Christian Children’s Fund