• About RaHaSolutions

We answer the question:

“How can we maximise the resources that developing countries have; to do the things they need to do …, while minimizing the burden of public debt”

The 12th World Bank Group President

Jim Yong Kim

Targeting the SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals), we: build rainwater harvesting systems on schools’ rooftops, on roads crossing water starved areas, on open fields etc; purify rainwater for the ‘over–served’ in order to avail plenty of low-cost municipal water to the underserved; build toilets in toilet-less homes, schools and roads; and, do menstrual hygiene management (MHM) as a tool for managing the toilets.

We work at a rate of one beneficiary per calendar week in least developed countries (LDCs) and lower-middle-income countries –– we apply high quality of products to maintain or enhance dignity of the beneficiaries.

Members of public contribute substantially to our work by nominating the beneficiaries. So far, nominations require our work retrofitted to projects done with funds from the traditional sources (e.g. public funds, overseas development assistance, individual donors, foundations and CSR). This shows that funds from the traditional sources aren’t enough for SDGs at the scale that is needed, particularly for LDCs and lower-middle-income countries, which require about $1.4 trillion in annual investments.

Therefore, we mobilize some of $5 trillion currently sitting in cash with the private sector to our work.

Our approach is based on 3 questions:

What do you want? You, having a smartphone, want a village or school that you care about to get clean close water, toilets or reusable sanitary towels; but you have no money to spend on the school/village. Brands want to reach you with Brand Activism (CSR); but they have no / limited CSR budget What do you & brands get? We give high quality rainwater harvesting system, toilets or reusable sanitary towels to the village/school that you care about. We give brands a trusted brand activism marketplace and additional ways to reach you. What makes this offer unique? You don’t pay us. Brands don’t pay us.

Our approach is in 2 simple steps:

Step I:

While you do the following 2 things…

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..we inform you about when your village/school will get water/toilets/towels from us –– the information plays on your phone when you scan with your phone print ads in leading print local dailies.

We do this so that other members of public may also nominate villages/schools for our services –– thanks to the print ads, we can reach other members of public (see example of a Waldorf School print ad and a corresponding video):

see more benefits on this

Step II:

We want a beneficiary a week!

Scan with your phone the print ads in leading newspapers to see if your school/village is the next beneficiary.

Each print ad in the leading print newspaper plays on your phone information about posts that were shared the most as at this Monday. If there are 5 print ads in the leading print newspaper, then the newspaper has information about 5 most shared posts –– each print ad has information about one different post.

You can see, from example above, that the information is at end of video ads.

If yours is the post that was shared the most by Monday this week, the school/village (subject of your post) gets water/toilet/reusable sanitary towel of this week soon after you send us their fine physical address.

If yours is not the post that was shared the most by Monday this week, it will be considered among others for next-week’s beneficiary –– continue encouraging your friends and relatives to share your post as much as they can.

Join our global customers –– scan barcodes of products you purchase to make the world better

We pay special attention to ‘dignity’

click to see raha team

For example, we build a toilet in a family home or in a school nominated (for the toilet) by their “urbanised compatriots”. The nominee agrees that they are willing to take our toilet.

The compatriot, typically a close relative/friend/leader to the nominee, is naturally compelled to: lower their social status; privately discuss with the school/family; and, agree with the nominee –– in such private discussions, coercion around it being “disgusting” or “undignified” to shit on the open ground, if any, is not expected to be harmful to the nominee.

Organisations/corporations/persons that draw attention to their products, services, candidacy or events in public offline news medium e.g. a political candidate, a business etc support this project in-kind – by allowing us to play the video ads on phones, they promote this project so that there may be more nominations. They #WasteNoAds in the process.

Political candidate and family businesses have or want to have connections with their local area – they are more than happy to support. National and international chains, on the other hand, often have a strong social or community support ethos as part of their corporate policy, providing free or subsidised goods and services – and sometimes funding too – for local community initiatives. Businesses operate as part of communities and hold as much of a stake in supporting local community amenities and promoting civic pride as the locals themselves.

Therefore, families/schools are still toilet-less because: you, their “urbanised compatriots” are about to nominate them for toilets; and or, corporations/organisations/persons are about to #WasteNoAds.

RaHa is keen to reduce effects, on the poor, of shame [similar to those in community-led total sanitation (CLTS) and in adverts commonly used in sanitation marketing]. To promote the necessary uptake (because any percent of toilet-less-ness is bad, from the public health perspective), we shift effects of promoting conspicuous consumption (i.e. keeping up with or outdoing your neighbour) from the poor (who are affected negatively by this) to you, their urbanised compatriots, and organisations/corporations.

We are guided by an assumption that beneficiaries see little value in low quality products like pit latrines (which may not be meeting UN definition of ‘improved sanitation’) mainly because they know that you, their more urbanized compatriots and favourite organizations, use much better toilets – in this sense, the pit is not different from open defecation (OD), its a mockery.

This explains why our toilets and rainwater harvesting systems are of very high quality standards.

Reusable sanitary pads, that we give to teenage girls (especially those that get our toilets) are for purposes of managing our sun-drying toilets – the girls use them, not because the girls are less fortunate, but because our sun-drying toilets cannot accept disposable pads.

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Join us in this vital work of raising communities out of poverty.

This is HOW YOU CAN JOIN THIS EXCLUSIVE RAHA COMMUNITY