SOSO CARE
With pervasive poverty, poor healthcare financing and high maternal mortality, Less than 3% of Nigeria’s 200 million population have health insurance as it is considered an expensive luxury. Again, Nigeria generates over 34 million tons of waste yearly and about 20 billion PET bottles causing poor sanitation, poor healthcare and affecting the environment
SOSO CARE is a social enterprise low cost insurtech which aims to use recyclable garbage as a financial resource enabling millions of uninsured slum dwellers mostly pregnant women and kids to access micro health insurance in 1170 hospitals nationwide.
By linking garbage to healthcare access and food stamps we are killing 2 birds with 1 stone in addressing poor healthcare access, sanitation and environmental sustainability.
With pervasive poverty, poor healthcare financing and high maternal mortality, less than 3% of Nigeria’s 200 million population have health insurance as it is considered an expensive luxury. Because over 100 million people do not have a health insurance, they rely on out of pocket payment for health needs. This means leads to poor health choices mostly in pregnant women who rely on poor traditional birth attendant and home delivery which has claimed the lives of 55,000 Nigerian women every year during childbirth, making the country account for a quarter of global maternal mortality.
Also, low access to healthcare and catastrophic health financing means millions of kids born into poor homes won't have access to basic healthcare. This is a major factor why millions of kids lose their lives before they celebrate their 5th birthday from Malaria and vaccine preventable disease.
Again, Nigeria generates over 34 million tons of waste yearly and about 20 billion PET bottles causing poor sanitation, poor healthcare and affecting the environment as these plastics find their way into drainage to block waterways thereby causing water stagnation and breeding grounds for mosquitoes which causes malaria; a major killer of children in Nigeria and Africa.
SOSO CARE is a social enterprise low cost insurtech which aims to use cash and recyclable garbage as a financial resource enabling millions of uninsured slum dwellers mostly pregnant women and kids to access micro health insurance in 1170 hospitals nationwide.
We use b2b and commissions
By leveraging on technology to eliminate the high cost associated with traditional insurance value chain process we created a seamless process by partnering with Hygeia HMO to underwrite the insurance risk. To access care, Members can pay $1 monthly premium or deliver recyclable materials like bottles, glass, plastics bags equivalent to $1 monthly to our drop off locations. The waste are sold to big recycling companies as raw materials. The money generated from the sales is converted into health fund to finance the $1 premium in other to access healthcare.
In summary this means people with low incomes can collect recyclable garbage from the streets and bring it to any of our registered agent nearest them who weighs and values the waste then credit the individual in the form of a medical health insurance.
We serve the bottom of the pyramid with over 90 million people in Nigeria.To measure impact we use and be using data, feedback from interviews and reviews of present and potential customers. Soso care business model is scalable and replicable as we plan to move the solution across Africa.
By linking garbage to healthcare access and food stamps we are killing 2 birds with 1 stone in addressing poor healthcare access mostly in pregnancy and child health as well as sanitation and environmental sustainability.
Our goal is to halve maternal mortality and vaccine preventable deaths in our live time mostly in Nigeria and other developing countries.
- Expand access to high-quality, affordable care for women, new mothers, and newborns
Every year over 55,000 women lose their lives on pregnancy and child birth in Nigeria. SOSO CARE mission aligns with this challenge dimensionis as we provide affordable and flexible ways of financing health needs for over 100 million people including vulnerable pregnant women and kids without a health insurance, by solving child and maternal care health needs through sustainable health financing for everyone to access quality and basic health care including access to:
- Pregnancy and child birth; normal and assisted delivery,
- Antenatal and Neonatal care
- Malaria, vaccination and other health conditions in over 1170 hospitals nationwide.
- Growth: An organization with an established product, service, or business model rolled out in one or, ideally, several communities, which is poised for further growth
- A new application of an existing technology
Currently we are the cheapest micro health insurance in Nigeria with premium costing less than a dollar for everyone. Also, we are the only insurance that aims to use recyclable garbage to finance healthcare in over 1170 hospitals for millions who prefer to donate waste which can be sold and proceeds converted to finance their insurance premium which is a key problem of the poor that makes us unique.
Our uniqueness and impact is why we have been recognised in many places including UN habitat, World Bank, UN AIDS, World Health Assembly, Geneva health forum, WSIS, VentureLab and financing maternal and child care by Viva tech and Sanofi pharmaceutical.
By linking garbage to healthcare access, micro capital and food stamps we are killing 2 birds with 1 stone a as the solution addresses the needs through the following:
• Access to healthcare to reduce infant and maternal mortality in these regions
• Improving sanitation & environment in slums and
• Creating Jobs for the distribution network and waste collectors
SOSO CARE is a web based solutions which aims to provide millions of people easy and seamless access to a low cost health insurance and premium.
We are using a web based solution as well as AI bot to provide easy access to our health plans. we are also working on an offline USSD to ensure millions of people without internet or smart phone can still access our health plan irrespective of their location
- Artificial Intelligence / Machine Learning
- Audiovisual Media
- Crowdsourced Service / Social Networks
- Software and Mobile Applications
Nigeria accounts for 55,000 maternal mortality every year. This is equivalent to one women losing her life every 7 minutes and a quarter of global maternal mortality burden. We are not even taking about millions of kids who lose their lives from Malaria and vaccine preventable deaths before they reach age 5.
Since millions of waste tons are generated yearly with billions of plastics our goal is to find lasting ways of solving these both problems in sustainable and impact ways.
Our goal is to improve and provide access to basic health care which will directly provide access to quality healthcare for women and kids either with cash or use of recyclable points for people without cash.
- Women & Girls
- Pregnant Women
- LGBTQ+
- Infants
- Children & Adolescents
- Rural
- Peri-Urban
- Urban
- Poor
- Low-Income
- Refugees & Internally Displaced Persons
- Minorities & Previously Excluded Populations
- Persons with Disabilities
- 3. Good Health and Well-Being
- 6. Clean Water and Sanitation
- 11. Sustainable Cities and Communities
- 13. Climate Action
- 14. Life Below Water
- 17. Partnerships for the Goals
- Nigeria
- Cameroon
- Congo, Dem. Rep.
- Ghana
- Kenya
we are currently serving over 2450 people mostly families which includes mothers and kids. we hope to serve 500,000 by 2021 and 9 million people by 2025 since over 170 million Nigerians do not have a health insurance mostly pregnant women and kids who are the vulnerable population.
Our mission is to ensure millions of people especially woman and kids have access to basic health care irrespective of their financial strength. This is why we will continue to look out for alternative ways of payment for health inclusion.
By next year, our goal is to move to Lagos with a population of over 23 million people of which only 5% have health insurance. This market will provide us access to over 3 million in 8 -15 months. in the next few years our goal is to scale SOSO CARE to ensure at least 9 million people as their is a huge gap in health financing as over 170 million Nigerians don't have a health insurance. we are also working on post harvest loss as a form of alternative payment to insure the families of local farmers in rural communities. This is why we are working with state government in Nigeria to ensure SOSO CARE basic health plan reaches the last mile.
Technically SOSO CARE model is scalable and can be replicated across markets around Africa because of the competitive advantage and low entry barrier. Our biggest challenge is funding mostly for awareness marketing because millions of people do not understand insurance and how it works.
In the next few months with grant and funding, we plan to move to Lagos with a population of over 25 million with about 40% living in slums and suburbs in poverty. This city alone will provide us access to 3 million people within 8 -15 months.
- Hybrid of for-profit and nonprofit
we are a recognised company.
9 people work on the solution 5 full time staffs and 4 part time staffs
The team is a mix of experts with deep knowledge and background in health, technology, Insurance, sales, informal sector, waste and business management. The combination has all it takes to deliver the mission and objective of SOSO CARE.
We partner with Hygeia HMO as our health insurance underwriter. Hygeia Hmo which has been in operation since 1986 is one of the best health insurance companies in Nigeria. We also partner with some recycling companies for our the sales of recyclables.
We use B2C and commissions
By partnering with Hygeia HMO to underwrite the insurance risk, Members access care by paying a cash premium of $1 or delivering recyclable materials like bottles, glass, plastics bags equivalent to $1 monthly to our partner agents who sells the collected waste to big recycling companies as raw materials. The money generated from the sales is converted into health fund to finance the $1 premium in other to access healthcare
In summary this means people with low incomes can collect recyclable garbage from the streets and bring it to any of our registered agent nearest them who weighs and values the waste then credit the individual in the form of a medical health insurance.
We serve the bottom of the pyramid with over 90 million people in Nigeria. To measure impact we use and be using data, feedback from interviews and reviews of present and potential customers. SOSO CARE business model is scaleable and replicable
- Individual consumers or stakeholders (B2C)
Our goal is to serve millions of people who has never owned a health insurance before. since our model is sustainable through commissions and markups we make, achieve our mission to serve over 100 million people mostly women and kids, we will rely on short term grants, donations and raising investments for awareness marketing in other to gain presence and sustain our service from selling the premium and products.
One of our biggest barriers beside fund is user awareness and scale. ensuring that millions of people learn and know about insurance as well as trust the service because of gap in trust is a huge problem for us. I'm hoping to learn better insight on how we can scale our solution from solve in other to reach more people.
- Business model
- Product/service distribution
- Funding and revenue model
- Monitoring and evaluation
- Marketing, media, and exposure
Partnership and support in areas like marketing, funding, media exposure, service distribution will help us grow and meet our mission. In Nigeria and Africa millions of people do not have a health insurance. millions of people with low education lack trust on the service as they consider it an expensive luxury. I believe with insights from support and mentoring, we can learn best ways to scale SOSO CARE health plan to millions of people without a health cover and ensure we build trust to serve the bottom of the pyramid at the last mile without access to quality and affordable health care
I will like to partner with MIT faculty to gain industry and expert feedback that will help us meet our mission.
SOSO CARE, we believe poverty is worst than war and this drives our decision and mission of health inclusion. In IDP camps in Nigeria, millions of refugees displaced fro their homes from conflict face worst and critical health conditions since they are denied access to quality healthcare which force many to rely on catastrophic out of pocket health financing watching their loved ones die from treatable and preventable diseases. At SOSO CARE our goal is to give everyone equal access to quality and affordable health care irrespective of financial strength.
SOSO CARE, we think and believe that pregnancy is a beautiful thing so no woman deserves to lose her own life while giving another life simply because she is poor with limited funds to access quality healthcare for child delivery. Again, we believe single mothers and poor widows do not need to starve their kids from dinner to save for anti malaria drugs of their sick kids. We believe in alternative source of health financing that can and will empower women to prioritise the health needs of their children without been affected financially. We also believe young women should have access to quality information on sexual and reproductive health to reduce induced pregnancy and abortion as well as STDs
Because of our mission and impact. we have been recognised by:
- UN AIDs as a top solution fighting for health inclusion and also recognised by
- World Health Assembly,
- Sanofi Pharmaceutical on sustainable health financing,
- Geneva health forum on last mile health delivery, as well as
- World Bank as top 5 global solution on sustainability.
SOSO CARE, we think it's regrettable to watch kids die from malaria and preventable diseases like vaccine related deaths. We believe that pregnancy is a beautiful thing and no woman deserves to lose her own life while giving another life simply because she is poor with limited funds to access quality healthcare for child delivery. Again, we believe single mothers and poor widows do not need to starve their kids from dinner to save for anti malaria drugs of their kids. We believe in alternative source of health financing that can and will empower women to prioritise the health needs of their children without been affected financially. This is why we low cost health insurance plan covers access to basic health care including antenatal and neonatal care as well as vaccines and treatment for malaria and many primary killer diseases in children. As we are committed to providing treatment and preventative care, SOSO CARE model will ensure that communities and people without a health plan or lack access to quality health services can now have access to quality healthcare either with cash or using recyclable points
Because of our mission and impact we have been recognised by:
- UN AIDs as a top solution fighting for health inclusion and also recognised by
- World Health Assembly,
- Sanofi Pharmaceutical on sustainable health financing,
- Geneva health forum on last mile health delivery, as well as
- World Bank as top 5 global solution on sustainability.
At SOSO CARE we are working to ensure that millions of people without a health insurance who will plan to cover, consistently get an update on vaccination of kids as well as reminders on primary cases that caused their them illness and ways to avoid them. we plan to use predictive and precision health update on medical records to ensure people understand their health and environment to stay healthy
Like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which is guided by the belief that every life has equal value and works to help all people lead healthy, productive lives.
At SOSO CARE we consistently think it's regrettable to watch kids die from malaria and preventable diseases like vaccine related deaths. We believe that pregnancy is a beautiful thing and no woman deserves to lose her own life while giving another life simply because she is poor with limited funds to access quality healthcare for child delivery. Again, we believe single mothers and poor widows do not need to starve their kids from dinner to save for anti malaria drugs of their kids. We believe in alternative source of health financing that can and will empower women to prioritise the health needs of their children without been affected financially.
This is why we are working with State health insurance scheme and primary health care agencies to ensure the access to quality and affordable reaches the last mile mostly in suburban and rural communities who are the worst affected with health inequality in care access and vaccination.
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CEO