Eco Akan Project

1- Unavailability of clean and cheaper cooking energy in Parakou (the largest city in northern Benin)

Benin is ranked 163rd in the Human Development Index by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Analysis (INSAE). One of the factors in this situation is energy insecurity in the home. Energy services for cooking depend on outside the country and are therefore very expensive for all Beninese.  In the Bourgou region of northern Benin, the city of Parakou has more than 25,000 households (according to the General Census of the Human Population, RGPH4 in Benin), most of which are low-income. None of the households can afford to buy cooking gas to prepare their meals. More than 80% of households use charcoal: Charcoal appears to be available but is obtained by destroying fireplaces.  In the city of Parakou, nearly 2,500 young people and women make their living from the trade of charcoal bags: An activity that is very polluting not only for the environment but also for the health of the inhabitants because of the charcoal dust and the smoke produced in the houses. The immediate consequences are the development of diseases in women and children (cancer, respiratory diseases, etc...), poverty, deforestation, and climate change. 

2- Deforestation

These millions of bags of charcoal sold in Parakou (and even in all the cities of Benin) come from the villages of N'Dali and Tchaourou (the largest villages in north Benin) where more than 2,000 trees are cut down each month since 1985 3- Poor management of agricultural waste

More than 85% of the population of the villages of N'Dali and Tchaourou (where wood charcoals are most manufactured) are engaged in agriculture. These activities of women generate wastes (shea husks, cotton stalks, and corn cobs) without any effective means of management. They are burned, leaving children with lung problems.

To solve these listed problems, Smile Wastes proposes the Eco Akan project.  The Eco Akan project consists in developing ecological alternatives to wood charcoal with agricultural wastes in the department of Borgou (North Benin). Concretely, it consists of :

1- Training of women: Organize economic interest groups with women and young farmers of the villages of N'Dali and Tchaourou for the collection and resale of their production to Smile Wastes. In the long term, young charcoal makers in the villages should join the cooperative. The goal is to create a new source of income for the women's and young farmers' cooperatives.

2- Establishment of an ecological fuel production plant:  Manufacture of ecological charcoal with agricultural residues purchased from the women's agricultural cooperatives. This factory is based on low technology. The machines and tools are manufactured locally by our teams. They are adapted to the local situation. The process of manufacturing ecological coal with waste (biomass technique) is mastered by our team. Technical (R&D) and social feasibility studies have already been carried out with 50 test households on the project. At the end of our studies, it reveals that our product, in addition to being ecological and economical, is accepted by the target group because of its effectiveness among households.

3- Distribution of our products on an innovative line:  Our economic model should be classic B2C (From our factory to the households directly) but this model will not allow Smile Wastes to reach the maximum of households. Moreover, this model will force us to create competition for women/youth living from charcoal resale activities in the city of Parakou. To better combine the economic impact with the social impact, we wanted to create a B 2 B 2 C model. Concretely, it is about collaborating with the charcoal resellers:

- Create Ecokiosk: (the store where ecological products are sold)

- To train the women resellers of charcoal in the management of Ecokiosk

- Give them the necessary tools to transform them into Eco entrepreneurs, allowing them to add other income-generating activities to stabilize the business model.

4- The last product/service of this project is the mobile application.  

We found that people do not have access to real information about the negative effects of their daily actions on the environment. Moreover, the majority of the population of Parakou uses a smartphone but is mostly illiterate. Our mobile application will also allow households/customers to contact Ecokiosk to buy our products or exchange their waste for ecological products/money. This mobile application will broadcast audio contents of a few seconds or the real information will be communicated in the national language: It is about the awareness of the most concerned in the local language to the stakes of environmental protection.

Our project is aimed at 04 targets:

Target/beneficiary 1: women of agricultural cooperatives in the villages of N'Dali and Tchaourou. 

In the villages, women organize themselves into cooperatives to manage agricultural products. Specifically, the cooperatives are composed of essentially illiterate women who transform shea nuts into butter, for example. The activities of these women's groups leave waste around them. To get rid of it, they burn the waste. Smile Wastes through this project aims to train and equip 07 women's cooperatives to collect and sell their waste. For us, it is a way to secure our supply chain and for the cooperatives, it is a way to have a new source of income thanks to the resale of their initially burned waste.

Target beneficiary 2: Young workers in our factories.

In the city of Parakou, 80% of young people over 18 years old do not have a diploma. They are young, able-bodied, and capable of working but the lack of industry to perform creates unemployment in the city.

Smile Wastes recruits young people of the locality that we train in the trades of industrial valorization. It will be 10 direct and permanent jobs that we aim to create during the project.

Target beneficiary 3: Women charcoal sellers.

In Parakou, more than 2,500 women resell charcoal to households. The business of reselling charcoal feeds many families in the city. They are the contributors to the environmental pollution in the city.

Our project aims to organize the former charcoal resellers and transform them into eco-entrepreneurs. Concretely it will be a question of training and putting at the disposal of these women of Ecokiosk. These women/young people transformed into Eco-entrepreneurs will resell in the Ecokiosk our ecological fuel which comes as an alternative to charcoal. For us, it is a way to reach more customers and for women, it is a way to work in a clean, healthy, and above all economic environment. One of the project's challenges is to test and validate an economic model for this target.

Target Beneficiary 4: Client households

Parakou has more than 25,000 households, all of which cook with charcoal because of the unavailability of a clean energy source. In households, charcoal blackens the walls and pollutes the houses. We replace charcoal with clean cooking energy of similar efficiency to charcoal but with waste. Our solution is both efficient, economical, and available to all households in the city of Parakou.

The Smile Wastes team is composed of four young entrepreneurs who are very talented in various fields.

First, we have Mr. Bruno GBODJIVI, Biomass Energy Specialist, Social, and Environmental Project Manage. He has 05 years of experience in organics wastes management 

Then, there is Ms. Marguerite Zannou, a Computer network technician. Passionate about Social Impact and Administrative Management

The third person on our team is Mr. Aminou Tayé ATIGRI, Technician in Environmental Protection, and a specialist in soils and climate change.

Finally, we have Mr. Patrick DJONDO, a Superior technician in general mechanics. Specialist in the design and manufacture of machines Together, our team is ready to take on any challenge that comes our way and deliver exceptional quality work.

Par cible :

Target/Beneficiary 1: 02 women's cooperatives of the agricultural cooperatives in the villages of N'Dali and Tchaourou. 10 women per cooperative, i.e. 20 direct persons and 80 persons indirectly (4 persons per family)

Target beneficiary 2: 02 young workers of our factories. Two direct jobs are created and 8 people indirectly affected

Bénéficiaire cible 3 : 01 revendeuse de charbon de bois soit 4 personnes affectées

Bénéficiaire cible 4 : 50 ménages clients ont accès à une énergie propre pour cuisiner, soit 100 personnes concernées par notre solution

Au total 63 personnes sont desservies directement par notre solution et indirectement 192 personnes sont concernées.

Dans l'exécution de nos missions nous sommes confrontés à des défis dont la résolution nécessite un appui plus fort que nos moyens. Parmi ces défis, nous avons réalisé qu'en devenant membre de cette grande communauté de solveurs, nous pouvons relever la plupart d'entre eux. Nous pouvons citer :

- Appui institutionnel : recommandations de Solve MIT pour toucher plus de partenaires politiques dans le pays

- Réseautage : Rejoindre à travers ce programme un réseau de leaders partageant les mêmes idées.

- Accompagnement et coaching : Pouvoir bénéficier d'un coaching et de conseils d'experts pour accompagner nos chefs d'équipe dans la croissance du leadership

- Ressources difficiles à obtenir : en devenant un solveur, nous espérons avoir accès à des ressources telles que des licences logicielles ou des services pour affiner notre application mobile.

- Bénéficiez d'une exposition médiatique lors des conférences Solve MIT pour augmenter nos chances d'attirer davantage d'investisseurs.

Making green coal from agricultural waste is not a technology invented by Smile Wastes. The innovation in our project is the way we serve the solution to the target. The special points of our project are:

- A unique alternative to charcoal made for the population of the big city of Parakou (Borgou) with the agricultural waste of the villages N'Dali and Tchaourou (Borgou).

- A solution accepted by the target: a social and technical feasibility study conducted by our teams to validate the innovation with the beneficiaries/clients.

- Integration of women's cooperatives in the collection and valorization of their production waste

- Professional reintegration of women/young people who used to sell charcoal in ecological jobs: our commercials

- Our mobile application: an application that allows on the one hand to collect waste from households and companies, to allow customers to exchange their waste for our products or money.

By 2025:

07 Agricultural cooperatives formed/organized for waste collection and resale.

Number of indirect jobs/income created: 95

Number of direct jobs created: 10

Number of youth/women reintegrated into Ecokiosk: 25

Number of households with access to fuel: 500

In 5 years

35 women's cooperatives trained for collections in Benin

250 indirect jobs/indirect income

20 direct jobs created

50 young people/women reintegrated into Ecokiosk in the whole of northern Benin

5 000 households have access to clean energy for cooking in North Benin

Our key indicators :

- At-risk-of-poverty rate

- Income from family labor and capital per family work unit

- Share of organic farming

- Adult education and training

- Female population most likely to be circumcised

- Wage gap between men and women

- Number of households in the city of Parakou with access to affordable clean energy

- Per capita labor productivity

- Share of jobs created by incoming employers in total job creation

- Employment rate of 15-64-year-olds

- Gini index

- Interquartile range of wages

- Interquartile range of wages

- Share of the population living in poor or very poor housing

- Air emissions of fine particles from charcoal use

- Quantity of household and similar waste collected by waste category

- Ecological footprint and biocapacity

- Quantity of household and similar waste per woman by collection method

- Percentage of agricultural and similar waste that is reused or recovered

- Carbon sequestration rate

- Organic matter in agricultural soils

- Conservation status of species

- Number of partnerships with companies

- Number of partnerships with cooperatives

- Number of partnerships with city hall

Specific Objective 1: Equip Smile Wastes to increase production capacity to serve 500 households in the city of Parakou with environmentally friendly and economical fuels

Activities:

- Tooling up with final production machines capable of boosting production

- Training of workers (recruited locally) in the use and maintenance of the machines

Results :

- Smile Wastes has the machines and tools to produce 10 tons of ecological charcoal per month

- At least 500 households have access to clean energy for domestic cooking

- 10 direct jobs are created for the charcoal manufacturers in our factories

Specific objective 2: Strengthen the supply chain by supporting and creating income for 07 women's cooperatives in the villages of N'Dali and Tchaourou

Activities :

- Accompany 05 other cooperatives of women farmers for training in the collection and packaging of their agricultural residues.

- Set a fee for the waste collected by the women farmers' cooperatives in order to create an additional source of income generated by the waste

- Create a consortium with local agricultural production companies to collect their organic waste

Results:

- 05 women's cooperatives or 50 women have a new source of income from their initially burned waste

- 50 women are trained in waste collection

- 50 women know their right to work

- 04 production companies federated for the consortium for the collection of agricultural waste from factories

Specific objective 3: Reinsert 25 young people living in polluting activities into ecological entrepreneurship with a viable economic model

Activities:

- Develop an e-Smile Wastes Application to link faster the companies, individuals, and women cooperatives having agricultural or industrial waste recovered in our plants. The user/customer can inform us of the existence, nature, and quantity of waste he has.

- Through the application, the user can choose to exchange their waste for a Smile Wastes product: a mobile digester, ecological charcoal, or improved stoves from our partners.

- Thanks to the mobile application, the customer/household will be made aware of the environmental protection

Results:

- 25,000 people educated via the app and our communication campaigns

- 500 people sell their waste via the application

- 500 people buy our green products via the mobile app

Specific objective 4: Digitize waste purchase and waste exchange operations against Smile Wastes products

Activities :

- Sensitize and train youth/women charcoal sellers in the city of Parakou: Transform mindsets and create 25 Eco Entrepreneurs

- Create 25 standard store boxes of dimensions (meter) 5 x 5 x 3 which the Eco Entrepreneurs created will be managers.

- Set up a viable economic model for these eco-entrepreneurs: The exchange of waste for money or products, the sale of biodigesters, the sale of charcoal, and the recharging of telephones are activities proposed in the EcoKiosK

Results :

- 25 women charcoal sellers (polluting) are doing the ecological activities

- 25 direct jobs created for women and youth

- 25 women trained to manage an ecological business

Our solution uses the technological base for this type of problem.

For our production machines, they are made locally to better adapt to the realities

A mobile application (e-smile Wastes) allows households to sell their household waste and buy eco-friendly products for their homes.

With the application, households can exchange household waste for eco-friendly coal or eco-friendly products

Our core (founding) team is totally diverse. From different fields of practice, different regions and religions. We have within the management team, a renewable energy project manager, an environmental specialist, an IT technician, a lawyer and a specialist in local machinery manufacturing.

Our employees are from the beneficiary community. They are trained and equipped to better perform their duties. We respect the labor code and the code of integrity in our projects. They benefit from insurance and social security. They are contractually bound and enjoy the same rights without any distinction of gender, religion or ethnicity.

For the rest of our human resources, we plan to continue on our guideline.

To recruit young people from the beneficiary locality - to train them in the different tasks - to contract their work - to declare them legally at the level of the national social security fund - to subscribe to health insurance - to participate in the rise in competence of each worker.

Customer Segment: Our ecological charcoal is targeted primarily at 25,000 households in the population of Parakou (where charcoal trade and use is intense).

Value Proposition: The Eco Akan project provides the population with a clean and affordable source of cooking energy. This ecological and economical charcoal is made from agricultural waste available in the villages of Borgou.

Channel: To distribute our products, we set up Ecokiosks. An Ecokiosk is a store (built with recycled materials: old iron and sheet metal) run by former charcoal sellers. We are going to reconvert the charcoal sellers into sellers of ecological products such as our charcoal.

Customer relationship: Our business is supposed to be B to C. With the creation of our Ecokiosk we are going on a B to B to C model. Smile Wastes will advertise the Ecokiosk products. The Eco-entrepreneur (responsible for the Ecokiosk) buys the product from Smile Wastes at a price to make a margin on the resale to the household customers.

Revenues: Our sources of revenues are basically the sale of our charcoal to the Ecokiosk. One Ecokiosk is likely to sell up to 50 bags per month. For the 25 Ecokiosks, this means that Smile Wastes will produce 1250 bags per month.

Resource: Our key resources are our staff, our know-how

Activities: - Securing the supply circuit (integration of agricultural cooperatives and organic waste products companies)

- Establishment of a new industry for the production of ecological coal with agricultural waste

- Setting up of Ecokiosk for the resale of our finished products

- Setting up a mobile application to bring Smile Wastes' customers closer to us and raise awareness of environmental protection

Key partners: Our partners are the 07 cooperatives of at least 10 women per cooperative. Solid organic waste production companies. Incub'IMA of Sème city. The Mastercard Foundation. The Resolution Project. SOLVE MIT.

Cost: Project cost: $140,000

Eco Akan wants to be a production company. By definition, a successful production company must master and secure 03 levels, namely the supply circuit, the machine + logistics package and the sales market.

The plan that Smile Wastes is currently putting in place to secure these three poles is as follows:

Supply chain: With grants and donations, we organize women into cooperatives/train the cooperatives to collect and resell the waste to Smile Wastes. This way of doing things creates a reassuring supply network for Eco Akan/Smile Wastes that we will keep for a while. Moreover, with the subsidies and donations, we aim to federate companies specialized in agricultural processing around the project. These companies have production waste that they will sell to Smile Wastes via the mobile application. After the subsidy stage, Smile Wastes will have an efficient network and the quantities and prices will be set according to the company's demands.

The machine pack and logistics: The size of the machine pack depends on the demand made by the customers. During our studies we have identified the size of the demand. Currently established machines are unable to produce for all customers. With grants and donations we will set up the machine package capable of producing at least 150 tons of ecological coal. The maintenance and depreciation of the machines will be calculated and included in our production costs.

The market of sale: For the sale of the product, we have organized informal charcoal sellers. They will sell our ecological products as an alternative to charcoal. They will be inserted in the Ecokiosk and will have an economic model of Eco-entrepreneur.  The grants and donations will allow us to :

- Build a total of 25 Ecokiosk in the city of Parakou in 2025.

- Train the Ecokiosk managers

- Test the economic model of Ecokiosk

Our financial viability plan is based on the sale of our products in the 3rd stage of the project.

Currently, we are in the 2nd stage. Step 1 of the project was subsidized by the Mastercard Foundation in Benin ($5,000), it consisted in doing a social and technical feasibility study on the project. We were able to identify the low-tech machines needed, the quantities and qualities of waste to be used, and the profiles of the workers to be recruited.

The second step is the development of the pilot phase. During this stage we aim to find sponsors to deploy the solutions validated during the feasibility study. We have the support of The Resolution Project for a grant of $3,000 for this stage. In addition to our personal contributions, we were able to start the implementation of the solutions. This is still in progress. Currently, we have been able to secure 02 cooperatives of women farmers, create 02 direct jobs, and 50 households have access to our ecological coal.

To be financially independent, Eco akan needs to have at least 450 clients. This is why we have set as our objective for step 3: to raise funds to build a factory capable of producing for 500 households/clients with a secure supply and sales channel.