Bartering Away Guinea Worm
Guinea worm causes excruciating pain and often leads patients to poverty, as they are incapable of working. Eradication of the disease, contracted through consumption of water contaminated with microscopic water fleas carrying infective larvae, requires a curative and preventive approach. In a region where government healthcare services are non-existent and private sector providers are absent, the residents of Karkomuge use traditional practices to treat the illness, but these are ineffective. There is a need for an approach combining education, prevention and treatment, while developing local capacity for long-term management of the disease.
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Focus of activity
Technology
Year the initiative began (yyyy)
2007
Positioning of your initiative on the mosaic diagram
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Complex, expensive medicine
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Center consumers in business model
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
Lack of service providers who understand and appreciate the cultural practices of the consumers.
Absence of monetary economy makes it difficult for consumers to buy existing technology.
Name Your Project
Bartering Away Guinea Worm
Describe Your Idea
Guinea worm causes excruciating pain and often leads patients to poverty, as they are incapable of working. Eradication of the disease, contracted through consumption of water contaminated with microscopic water fleas carrying infective larvae, requires a curative and preventive approach. In a region where government healthcare services are non-existent and private sector providers are absent, the residents of Karkomuge use traditional practices to treat the illness, but these are ineffective. There is a need for an approach combining education, prevention and treatment, while developing local capacity for long-term management of the disease.
Innovation
Define the innovation
Guinea worm causes excruciating pain and often leads patients to poverty, as they are incapable of working. Eradication of the disease, contracted through consumption of water contaminated with microscopic water fleas carrying infective larvae, requires a curative and preventive approach. In a region where government healthcare services are non-existent and private sector providers are absent, the residents of Karkomuge use traditional practices to treat the illness, but these are ineffective. There is a need for an approach combining education, prevention and treatment, while developing local capacity for long-term management of the disease.
Context for Disruption:
This project pilots a social-enterprise approach to creation of awareness, distribution of water filters and water treatment chemicals, and treatment of Guinea worm. The project adopts barter system of trade: It trains local entrepreneurs to deliver information, drinking filters, water treatment chemicals and Guinea worm treatment services to the community in exchange for Gum Arabic, a substance that is taken from acacia trees and used to make a number of products such as bubble gum, cosmetics, watercolor paint and shoe polish. This builds local private-sector led healthcare delivery system in a region where there is no private sector or public sector healthcare providers. The local providers will ensure that the community has information and equipment to enable them to identify, treat and prevent future infections. This project will reach 2,000 people with information, preventive and curative services.
Delivery Model
The Project utilizes a comprehensive approach to the management of the guinea worm problem. The project will provide, information, preventive and curative services to those infected and those at risk of being infected. This will be done by developing local capacity for the management of guinea worm problem. A number of strategies will be used;
• Provision of information/awareness – this will increase awareness about the worm and provide useful information about identification and management of the worm. Early detection is key to the eradication of the worm
• Design and production of filters and water sieves – water sieves and filters that are appropriate to the water containers and drinking habits of these indigenous people will be designed and mass produced using local artisans. The sieves will be appropriate for use under different circumstances so that the users are able to use them wherever they are faced with the need to drink water.
• Procure water treatment chemicals – These chemicals are those used for disinfecting ponds (temephos) and home use water (water-guard). These will be distributed to households for use, especially on water from ponds. This will increase quality of water and prevent other potential waterborne diseases.
• Build capacity of local entrepreneurs to distribute filters, sieves and chemicals in exchange for gum Arabic – Local traders will distribute the sieves, filters and chemicals through a social-marketing initiative. In exchange for the sieves, the traders receive gum Arabic from the community members. This is in recognition of the fact that the community still relies on barter trade for exchange.
• Provide clean water source and protect existing water pans – Building of two boreholes will ensure a continuous supply of clean water to the community. The project will also protect five existing water pans that are the key sources of guinea worm.
Key Operational Partnerships
Main Partner Organization: This project will be implemented in partnership with Kapoeta Development Initiative (KDI). KDI is a local Sudanese organization that is involved in improving service delivery in the areas of health, education, water and infrastructure. KDI was registered in 2005 as a local development agency immediately after the signing of the Comprehensive Peace agreement. Since registration, KDI has implemented a number of small scale health and education projects in Eastern Equatoria. They have been leading a consortium of local NGOs in construction of Primary Health care Facilities in Eastern equatorial. They have been leading a consortium of local NGOs in cleanliness and sanitation program in the project area, including construction of toilets. KDI have extensive knowledge of the project area and they speak the local dialect making it easy for communication of project idea to local community. KDI will also provide useful linkages to the local administration since they are recognized by the local administrators.
Impact
Financial Model
Being a new initiative, little revenue is expected to be generated during the first two years. However, the project will collect gum arabic from the communities in exchange for water filters, water chemicals and drinking filters. The gum will them be sold to generate revenue for the project.
It is expected that the revenue from sale of gum arabic will represent only 12% of total operating costs by the end of the second year. This revenue is expected to grow to about 60% by end of 4th year. Over the last two month, we have not earned any revenues from sale of gum. Thr project is still in its initial stages.
What is your annual operating budget?
210k
What are your current sources of revenue? (please list any sources that are foundation grants)
As mentioned before, this is a new project and the operating budget mentioned above represents a planned budget. At the moment EPS Program has invested $15,000 into the project. This has gone towards awareness creating and setting up operational base for the project. All this amount has been donated towards the project by EPS Program. We do not have any other sources of funds at the moment.
Effectiveness
This project is at the start-up phase. We have only started setting up the project base.
In the next two years, EPS program expects to reach 2,000 villagers with information, water filters, water sieves, water treatment chemicals and guinea worm treatment services during the project period.
Over the next 2 year, EPS program and partner will:
• Establish one village clinic in Karkomuge that will provide curative services to at least 200 Guinea worm infected persons from the community.
• At the moment the community uses water from ponds and pools hence increasing exposure to Guinea worm infection. The project will drill 2 boreholes in different location in Karkomuge to provide alternative source of water to pond and pool water. This will ensure available supply of guinea worm free clean water to at least 1,000 households.
• The project will also secure 5 water pans by fencing them to avoid contamination of water by those infected with guinea worms.
• Use the innovative distribution system to distribute at least 1,000 water filters and 1,000 water sieves to households in Karkomuge. This will reach at least 2,000 people. Other water treatment chemicals will also be distributed by the project.
• Train and build capacity of at least 20 members of the community to provide Guinea worm management services to the community. This capacity will ensure future sustainability of the project.
• Support at least 15 of these people to set up Guinea worm management enterprise. It is expected that this will lead to a multiplier effect over the project period to reach over 50 entrepreneurs. This will lead to development of a network of private sector service provides in the community.
• Create awareness about prevention, identification and basic treatment of guinea worm at household level to at least 2,000 people in the community.
Which element of the program proved itself most effective?
It is early days and we are yet to know how effective our approach will be.
Number of clients in the last year?
The project has only been up and running over the last 2 months. We have just started setting up the operational base for the project. We are making contacts in the community, but yet to start distribution of water filters.
What is the potential demand?
Karkomuge alone has a total of 5,200 households. Each household has approximately 8 people. All these people are exposed to guinea worm infection and are potential users of the technology.
Southern Sudan in general is a guinea worm endemic region. If this pilot project succeeds, then there will be scope to replicate it in other areas of South Sudan. However, replication will means making modifications to project approach to sit different regions.
Scaling up Strategy
Over the next three years;
- Reach at least 3,000 households with information, water filters, water sieves and water treatment chemicals. This will reduce guinea worm infection in the community. This is critical because we wish to bring an end to suffering of the people, before focusing on the commercial side of the project.
- Establish a viable gum arabic marketing channel that is reliable and profitable to the participants in the value chain. This is critical for sustainability of the project and also to open up the region to private sector and hence monetary economy.
- Build local capacity for the production of simple water sieves and water filters. This will ensure that the community can make their own filters even after the end of the project.
Stage of the initiative:
0
Expansion plan:
We envisage that by the end of the third year, the project will expand to another guinea worm endemic location within south Sudan.
Origin of the Initiative
I regularly travel into South Sudan as a development worker, working for other agencies. On this visit I was undertaking an assessment of possible income generating activities in the village of Karkomuge. While in the village, I saw a small baby (less than 15 months old) who had a string- like worm comming out of its abdomen. The small child was in great pain. I was so moved by the situation, I abandon my assignment in order to help the mother to take the child to the nearest hospital (280 km away). At the hospital, I was informed that there is nothing much that can be done except to allow the worm to come out of its own accord. I was told that if forced out the worm would mutate into several worms in the body the child. But the doctor explained that the only way to prevent infections by guinea worm is by drinking clean/filtered water. This set me out to find a solution for the problem.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
What are your two main challenges to finance the growth of your initiative
There are three main challenges to financing this initiative;
1. At the moment the region where this project is being implemented has no monetary system. The villagers/community still use barter trade. This has reduced the scope of this project considerably.
2. Few financiers are willing to put in resources into this project because many cannot relate to the difficult environment under which this project is implemented. There are few places in the world where barter system still exist. Secondly few people understand and have experienced guinea worm infection. These are issues that make it difficult to convinvce financiers about the seriousness of the situation.
3. Gum arabic is a forest product and the villagers do not know the value. Convincing the villagers to harvest the crop and exchange it for the water filter technology is a big challenge. Adoption of the water filter and water chemicals to prevent guinea worm also means a major beviour change and will take time to achieve.
How did you hear about this contest and what is your main incentive to participate?
I was invited to partcipate in this contest by John Young of Changemakers.net who had seen this project at the DevelopmentMarletplace 2007, World Bank. I was further encouraged by Tyler Ahn of Changemakers.net to participate.
The Story
Do you have an annual financial statement?
This project is only 2 months old. So far we have no annual statement for this project. However EPS Program as an organisation prepares annual statement. We have audited accounts for the year 2005/2006.
Do you currently have an annual financial statement that tracks profit/loss?
This project is less than a year old. It has not produced any annual financial statement.
Please describe the amount (and/or type) of funding you need to implement your initiative, at year 1 and at year 5.
Year 1: Main source of funds is donor/grant
Year 2: Main source is donor/grant
Year 3: Main source is donor/grant
Year 4: Main source is internally generated revenue
Year 5: Main source is internally generated revenue
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