Unmarked Streets distributes products of social impact – through a network of empowered local women.

Problema

A typical Guatemalan family living in poverty has a house that is the size of a small bedroom in the US. In that small space, the family sleeps, eats, cooks, studies, and lives. Usually, the women or children will spend their day collecting firewood from the surrounding areas, and use it to cook every meal over what is called a "three stone fire". A three stone fire is where a pot is balanced on top of three stones with a fire built underneath it. This form of cooking is extremely inefficient, as a large amount of heat from the fire escapes into the air. This means that in order to keep the fire hot you need to use a large amount of firewood, which also creates a lot of smoke. Globally, nearly two million people die every year from exposure to smoke from cooking over open fires. In Guatemala, the leading cause of death for children under five is respiratory illnesses, which has been linked to cooking on open fires in the home. In addition to the health hazards, cooking over an open fire causes substantial environmental damage. The loss of trees which are chopped down for firewood has led to rampant deforestation in Guatemala, damaging the ecosystem and causing landslides. In a country where six months out of the year is a rainy season, landslides are a constant threat to the country`s infrastructure, doing damage to bridges, roads, and wiping out schools and homes. Globally, Guatemala has the fourth highest risk of death related to landslides, according to a UN report.

Solución

Unmarked Streets is currently working in Guatemala to organize a team of women to sell clean burning cook stoves in local communities. The team will sell small, portable stoves which use heat efficiently, greatly reducing the amount of firewood needed to cook and therefore also reducing the amount of smoke generated by the fire. The stoves improve the respiratory health for the women cooking as well as other family living in the house, and also reduce deforestation in the surrounding community. The product we are offering, clean burning cook stoves, offers a cohesive strategy to achieving social change. The stove creates tangible social benefits for Customer: Improves the respiratory health for the woman cooking, as well as for her family/children who live in the house in which food is being prepared over an open fire. Selling Team: This initiative not only creates jobs for the team of local women, but also provides them with valuable sales and business training, and know that they are improving their own communities. Local Community: The more efficient use of firewood reduces deforestation in the surrounding area. Deforestation not only damages the local environment, but also makes the area more susceptible to landslides, which frequently do damage to roads, buildings, and homes. Global Community:Improved cooking technology improves air quality for everyone, and reduces the impact of global warming.

Ejemplo

We choose technologies and tools that meet at least one of our charitable objectives: 1) Improving public health 2) Protecting the environment and 3) Furthering education. These three components drive the cycle of poverty, trapping entire communities in economic gridlock, keeping people from participating in the workforce and supporting their families. We build a network of women who complete an entrepreneurship training program. They learn sales, budgeting, basic financial statements, expense reporting, but they also build important skills likeleadership, community engagement, self-esteem, and the tools to maintain strong inter-personal relationships. Our program goes a step beyond aid/rehabilitation programs – by providing women with sustainable jobs and the tools to succeed in business. It also goes one step beyond microfinance programs: by providing the emotional support and a focus on interpersonal skills: we focus on building the whole person, not just a paycheck.