The Avon Lady Brings Light and Economic Opportunity to Sub-Saharan Africa

Solar Sister is a social enterprise that brings an interesting opportunity to woman entrepreneurs in and around Uganda. The business model is similar to that of the cosmetics company Avon - women sign up to become salespeople and then sign up others to become salespeople and so on. The customers are friends and family in the community, and the product is a sustainable, solar-powered lamp. Everyone wins.

If you’d like a pretty visualization of how it works, or you just want to learn more, go to solarsister.org. But before you go, meet Katherine Lucey, Solar Sister’s founder and CEO. She does a great job explaining what a social venture (or enterprise) is, and how a thoughtful kind of capitalism can be used to eradicate poverty in a village or a whole region.