Thanks to $25,000 in seed cash from two Tufts competitions, Farah Momen, F20, is piloting a task this summertime to aid Bangladeshi girls who paintings inside the garment industry. Her project, called The Now Exchange, will offer free contraceptives at a Dhaka factory as the first step towards enhancing ladies’ health there.
Momen and Giulia Bova, a pal from her undergraduate years at McGill University, received the Fletcher D-Prize Poverty Venture Solution Competition in March. The accolade came with $10,000 to pilot the program this summer season. In April, the two ladies also gained the first vicinity inside the social effect track of the Tufts $100K New Ventures Competition via the Gordon Institute, which gave them a further $15,000. Both prizes also provide in-type support.
The D-Prize has strict criteria focusing on the “D,” which stands for “distribution” and emphasizes the need to spread innovative thoughts widely, said Marilyn Davison, entrepreneurial train in the house at The Fletcher School, who mentored Momen via the competition. “Farah’s suggestion constantly was very strong on satisfying those criteria,” Davison said. “She and her companion Giulia additionally have very strong on-the-ground information and revel in, both in Bangladesh and in the area of a circle of relatives-planning tasks.”
Momen and Bova intend to begin their challenge this summertime by presenting free injections of Sayana Press, a hormonal contraceptive, through an already present in-manufacturing facility fitness clinic. Over time, they plan to expand to extra clinics and other aspects of women’s health, together with menstrual hygiene and home violence education. Their intention is to have the offerings funded with the aid of international corporations that promote garments made in Bangladesh.
“Retailers can be held chargeable for the well-being of people through their supply chain,” Momen stated. “They’re those which have the capacity to truly do it.”
Momen, who’s Bangladeshi-American, traces her idea for this agency to her past due uncle, who owned a garment factory and generously invested in his community. Women regularly make up 80 percent of the body of workers in such factories, so the legally required on-site clinics offer a good avenue to attain them, she said. “Because women are working such long hours, they’re not necessarily going to headstand in line” at an overcrowded public health facility after paintings, she stated.
Momen developed some of the methods for The Now Exchange in a Fletcher elegance, Managing NGOs and Social Enterprises, with Professor Alnoor Ebrahim. The course challenges college students to figure out what they are able to do properly and how to scale it to make a bigger effect.
“This forces a group to get numerous readability on what they want to reap and how they’re going to do it and the way they’re going to keep their very own toes to the fireplace for it,” Ebrahim stated.
This summertime, Momen and Bova, who’s earning a grasp’s diploma in international development coverage at the Korbel School of the University of Denver, will work on the challenge in Bangladesh. They will identify a pilot manufacturing facility, hire an enterprise development director and health running shoes, and educate health care workers the way to administer the contraceptive and deal with broader problems of ladies’ health. Next year, they desire to add two or 3 extra factories, every with approximately 300 employees.
Ebrahim, for one, is assured about The Now Exchange’s prospects.
“Farah and her team have been very clear and systematic in wondering this via,” he said. “I’m optimistic, each because of their clear thinking and due to the fact Farah is exceptionally inspired.”
Heather Stephenson can be reached at [email protected] Jim Sojourner, F20, contributed to this text.
GETTING THEIR START IN BUSINESS
Fletcher college students excel in entrepreneurial contests due to the fact they are “very well-traveled and they may be keenly aware of the granularity of the lives human beings stay in one of a kind elements of the world, of the bottlenecks at the floor, once in a while logistical, once in a while cultural, and every so often political,” stated Bhaskar Chakravorti, Dean of global commercial enterprise at Fletcher and govt director of the faculty’s Institute for Business in the Global Context. Student start-up groups “tap into the insights college students have primarily based on beyond reviews and past travels to solve complex problems.”
Beyond The Now Exchange, here are 3 Fletcher pupil projects that won awards this spring.
KISAAN
AWARD: $5K Second region, Social Impact Track, Tufts $100K New Ventures Competition.
TEAM MEMBERS: Aesclinn Donohue, F20; Mohammad Uzairi, F20.
MISSION: Kisaan (“Farmer”) is an asset-primarily based microfinance product for farmers with small operations in Pakistan. It functions bendy reimbursement schedules and allows participants to percentage the chance of recent investments. It additionally complies with Islamic monetary norms.
INDIAN SMART SOLAR MUNI+ FUND
AWARD: Finalist, Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge.
TEAM MEMBERS: Joseph Craven, F19; Rob Fitzgerald, F19; Shrinal Sheth, F19; Arkady Ho, A07, F19.
MISSION: This leveraged private fairness fund changed into designed to assist improve air best and increase renewable energy use through bundling municipal debt earmarked for solar projects.
SUSTAG4ALL
AWARDS: $5K Third vicinity, Social Impact Track, Tufts $100K New Ventures Competition; Second area, 2019 Tufts Food and Entrepreneurship Competition.
TEAM MEMBERS: Cesar Diaz; Natalia Estrada; Jacquie Kay; Cyrena Thibodeau, N20; Luis Villegas, F19; Jacob Weiss, N20; Rockford Weitz, F02, F08, director and entrepreneurship coach of Fletcher Maritime Studies software.
MISSION: By imparting get right of entry to information, markets, and credit, SustAg4All enables avocado farmers in Colombia profit from sustainable agriculture practices.
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