Thursday, April 26, 2007

Scojo Update



There was a story about Scojo over at nextbillion the other day detailing Scojo's teaming up PSI, Population Services International. The five year agreement will couple two winners of FastCompany's Social Capitalist Awards. It is not clear from the article if the arrangement will keep the microfranchise model, the Scojo Vision Entrepreneurs, or if PSI will simply offer reading glasses as part of their product line. Either way it will bring vision care to rural Africa in an efficient and widespread manner.

2 comments:

Miche said...

This is wonderful! A good friend of mine at Sunglass Hut International (a subdivision of Luxotica) heads up their New England region's Gift of Sight program.

Teaming up with another Luxotica company, Lenscrafters, they go around in a truck volunteering their time to give glasses to anyone who can't afford them.

I think these kinds of endeavors are just spectacular... no pun intended ;)

Miche
http://www.audeamus.com

David Stoker said...

I think the real beauty of this whole movement (social enterprise, microfranchising, etc) is that it doesn't rely on 'volunteering' or 'giving' away things to poor people. It is so much more sustainable, built upon incentives for all parties, and provides dignity and work instead of dependency.