“Sustainable Health Care By Natural Home Therapy and Equal Working Environment For People With Disabilities.
Example: Walk us through a specific example(s) of how this solution makes a difference; include its primary activities.
Tran
Thi Trung Thuan
Thien Tam PLC.
84 8 3899 0529
236/12/4 Dien Bien Phu Street, ward 17 Binh Thanh District
, HC
, HC
Less than a year
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Operating for less than a year
Excluding people in the intellectual class, normal workers in Vietnam are seldom aware of protecting environment and their health.
Although lifestyle, foods and environment affect directly to people’s health, however this is not understood completely. When getting sick, people will immediately take medicines which are bought at drugs stores. If the problem becomes serious, they will go to health centers or hospitals. This habit will cost so much for individuals and society health-care. Poor persons cannot afford treatment fees, some of them have to wait to die. Their families then fell in disaster of broke. This is one of the reasons why the health-care system faces with problem of overload.
Policies of health insurance cannot really approach to each poor person. There are still many people in misery when getting sick.
People's perceptions should be changed about the illness. Illness caused by lifestyle, foods and environment. People can proactively prevent it. Also, they need to have facilities at home.
We launch products which were developed from herbal traditional pot for helping people to have health care facilities in modern life, as well as protecting them from pollution and provide them satisfied fragrance for respiration.
We would like to care about low-income people’s health and spread these health care and treatment methods of qigong exercises through our herbal sauna services by reusing scraps from Pillow & Leaves products.
Our herbal anti-pollution mask could prevent from respiration diseases for passengers in the jam traffic. Respiration is where enter of any threaten dangers to human. Our herbal heat pad can effective arrest or reduce the cold, fever, pain, ... bring sound sleep and relaxation after using.
One day, my maid got very high fever and fell in state of delirium at late mid-night; I had to use some herbs in our garden to make an herbal boiled pot to stop her high fever without medication. After the fever, she fell in paralyzed situation, but with only a handful of herbs with salt, she was rapidly recovered. This makes me strongly believe in great value of aroma therapy. I’ve learned more and known that some normal kinds of leaves have wonderful effects: some of them can help people easy to breath, relieve asthma, can be an antibiotics or deodorant, insects resistance. I found a combination of leaves with pleasant aroma brings relaxation to sleep.
Another time, an American pharmacist used my herbal heat pad while he had sore back. After applying, he was amazed about the product: how could it help his back upright, no longer pain and brought him a sound sleep. He would like me to provide him some herbal heat pads for his family. This was my first income from herbal heat pads and I had donated this money to victims of Agent Orange.
Since then, I’d wondered myself why I didn’t do anything to help vulnerable people. I learned that disabled people will become inability people only when they have no chance of working. The society must care for them as a responsibility rather than charity. I decided not to donate to them, but tried to give them an equal working environment with all respects. Besides, I wish to aware to people that Qigong rememo, a very efficient method of health care that people in the world can learn this online and cure themselves and others.
Currently, the project is on the start-up phase. However, our products have been accepted by Traditional Medicine Institute of Ho Chi Minh City, Hachi Hachi system (a chain of retail stores) and some drugstores.
Sales after 6 months:
• Herbal anti-pollution masks 2502 units
• Herbal heat pad 198 units
• Aroma sachets 2550 units
• Pillow relaxation 45 units
People with disabilities (including down syndrome persons) are having jobs from the products:
• Office staff 3 persons
• embroiderers 5 persons
101-1,000
101- 1,000
1. Push herbal heat pads and herbal masks as our two main products to gain market share
2. Gain 1000 new customers for both heat pads and masks products
Selecting and investing in the “best” materials and production process, Creating and implementing a plan for advertising campaign which is
Using social network to spread the products’ info out wider.
Giving a certain discount for customers who introduce their friends/ family… to buy the products
1. Push aroma sachet into the wider market while keeping herbal heat pads and masks as the “cash cows”
2. First setting up premises for traditional sauna service
Drawing a new marketing campaign for aroma sachets products while still keep pumping some advertising for herbal heat pads and masks.
Approaching hotels and Events Company to market the aroma sachets.
Setting up license for sauna activities, renting, buying equipment and looking for deaf and blind people in Center of disable people, training new method of massage of Qigongrememo.
1. The product of Pillow and Leaves will be defined by Thien Tam’s brand.
2. The scent of flowers will be used suitably with other demands.
3. The products will be ready for exporting to Europe and Japan.
4. Reusing the scraps of herbs into low price sauna services bringing job to the deaf and blinds.
5. Spreading
Currently, there are three problems could prevent us to the success.
1.The products of Pillow and Leaves are based on aroma therapy, a new method has not been under any Vietnam quality test procedure yet. However, our products contain medicinal herbs - a mixture of herbs which are very common and can be easily recognized as well as accepted by any experts of botanic. Therefore, we would claim the quality standard of Thien Tam and got the certificate according to
their advices.
2.The materials are quite common, therefore products’ shape may be imitated easily by competitors. However, we have special formulas which prevent others to copy our “quality”
3. At the moment, for traditional sauna and massage service, it is a sensitive field and quite difficult to get a license to operate. Because of that reason, we may open it as a center of health care & recovery by traditional steam bath.
We currently have several partners who have been cooperating and supporting us in implementing Hand in Hand project:
1. “Gia Dinh Special School” is the first partner of us. This school is opened to educate disable intellectual people. There is vocational class where people with down syndrome can learn hand-woven. Our labels are made from their woven products.
2. “Thien Tam Huong” is a company which employ disable labors. They are our contractor, making fabric covers of our products.
3. Khang Minh Printing provides us free means of advertising. Our giveaway and promotional products are provided by them
1. My friends are those who first encouraged myself to produce the anti-pollution mask because the environment is worse day by day in our country. And until now they are still buying our products to use and give to their friends and families.
2. Center for Social Initiatives Promotion (CSIP) gave us awards for the Hand in Hand project which encouraged me to start up the program.
3. Some volunteers have been helping the program by contributing their time and effort in marketing, designing and website admin.
4. Every month, a group of mentors from Vinacapital foundation help us improving management skills which are necessary for our businesses now and in the future.
Quality is the most important point that Thien Tam is caring about. By non-stop improvement in products’ quality, in the next three years, Thien Tam would like to penetrate our current products into the current market, as well as developing new products which satisfy new customers’ demands. By the end of next year, we would like to have a standard production process in order to standardize our products. In addition, flowers will be used as a part of the products’ ingredient, which will help in diversifying our products with different scents bringing from different kind of flowers, as some people prefer the scent from flowers than herbs.
Marketing is also an important part that we are paying attention to. In the next three years, we will keep marketing and advertising our core products which are herbal heat pads, herbal masks and aroma sachets to current market while trying to expand the advertisement to new areas/market segments as well as launching new scents of products (flowers scents) which will meet new customers’ demands.
Due to we focus to find suitable job for people with disabilities, we will use internet marketing in order disabilities persons can get salesman online jobs. This program is not only bring more health to community but it care about human resources for disabled people.
Please select up to three in order of relevancy to your project.
PRIMARY
Lack of physical access to care/lack of facilities
Lack of insurance/financing options for healthcare
Limited human capital (trained physicians, nurses, etc.)
(1)Hospitals & clinic are always in the “overload” situation, therefore, patients, especially poor persons must be cured in awfull services. Our products help people to preventing and protecting themselves from sickness which will eventually reduce the need for physical access to hospitals & clinics. (2)Medicare cost is the most expensive fee that people have to pay when they got sick. Prevention is always better than cure and is the cheapest way. (3)In Vietnam, human capital for healthcare is very limited. When people get bad sick like cancer, rich people can fly to any developed countries to cure. How about the poor ones? Vietnam is lacking of well-trained physicians, doctors, nurses… therefore, knowing how to do home healthcare is the best way that we should do to ourselves and others.
Please select up to three potential pathways in order of relevancy to you.
PRIMARY
Enhanced existing impact through addition of complementary services
Repurposed your model for other sectors/development needs
For the immediate future, we would like to build a traditional massage healthcare center (which we have mentioned above) to make use of scraps that are eliminated during production process, therefore, enhancing existing impact (1) through addition of complementary services is our first concerning. In this healthcare center, we will also introduce Qigong rememo (2).
In addition, pushing more marketing activities such as advertising and promotion together with diversifying our products to meet new demands are another activity that we are doing to grow geographically (3).
NGOs/Nonprofits, For profit companies, Academia/universities.
Vietnam NGO: The project of Hand in Hand received an awards from CSIP – Center for Social Initiative Promotion) for start up phase in 2010.
For profit commapies: some companies collaborate with us in upgrating thientam website, internet marketing. Especial, we are mentored by an foreigner group of Vinacapital. They offer us 3 hours/per months free of charges. We are trained how to make business plan, Marketing plan, …
Academie: Two botanist experts are our consultants.