eHomemakers Malaysia

I'm a little embarrassed that until this past weekend, I hadn't read Muhammad Yunus' Banker to the Poor . It was one of those glaring gaps into my personal and professional development that, looking back, is completely inexplicable. I probably shouldn't even be admitting this in public but I suppose it's never too late to get with the program. When I have a few moments to myself these days, I often find myself thinking about current aid structures and imagining how things might be different with the introduction of microfinance. Just this morning on my run, I was listening to a This American Life collaboration with Planet Money about NGOs in Haiti. They tell the story of a local mango farmer who has the land and the water for one hundred mango trees but needs a small canal to expand her business and the mango exporter who wants to distribute plastic crates to mango farmers because better packing methods would double his and the farmers' income. The canal-b...

eHomemakers recently entered a competition called " Women | Tools | Technology: Building Opportunities & Economic Power " hosted by Ashoka's Changemakers (where I work). The project they pitched involves expanding mobile-banking services to rural women, which addresses a number of issues that this group faces: finding work, getting paid, and supporting themselves. Utilizing the specific mobile technology that eHomemakers describes in their entry, women will receive work orders from a coordinator and final payments for their work through their mobile phones. The entry also outlines the positive impacts and potential challenges of the project and I strongly encourage you to check it out and leave a comment. And, while you're on the site, take a moment to read a few of the 267 other great ideas sourced from all over the world about improving women's lives through technology. But back to eHomemakers. I really enjoyed watching the videos they included in...

My friend Zhu Jun and I have spent the past few weeks exploring his experiences as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Chad and I wanted to share the final post with the eHomemakers community. (If you'd like to read the full series, you can check it out on my blog .) While there are few business opportunities traditionally open to women in Chad, many have managed to carve out a niche for themselves selling food and drink. Here's Zhu Jun's take on things: The vast majority of women in Léré and rural Chad are bound by unspoken gender rules that limit the types of entrepreneurship women can engage in. This generally means entrepreneurship for women in Chad is limited to serving food and drink. In streets near transportation centers and well-traveled roads throughout the country, women and girls hawk snacks including fried bean fritters, Chadian doughnuts or beignets , beans and rice, seasonal fruits, palm nuts, grilled chicken, grilled or fried fish, and packs of water. Grown men ...

My full-time job these days is working for Ashoka's Changemakers , an international social enterprise organization that brings people together online to find solutions for different social issues. We host a number of different competitions and I just wanted to share two opportunities that the eHomemakers crowd might be particularly well suited for: Women | Tools | Technology: Building Opportunities & Economic Power This competition focuses on innovations that enable women to use the power of technology to expand their opportunities for economic advancement. Obviously, I immediately thought of eHomemakers but I'm sure there are other organizations and individuals in the community who have great ideas for this competition. The deadline is April 14. More... Leveraging Business for Social Change: Building the Field of Social Business Changemakers and Artemisia are looking at how social business initiatives can thrive and scale-up their impact on quality of life. You have...