Production with Identity: Connecting with global markets

Across the world, Indigenous Peoples are bearing the brunt of rising inequality and the impacts of climate change. Many are forced to leave their indigenous lands - their cultural and spiritual identity - and relocate to urban areas where they are discriminated against and exploited. 

As a result, their indigenous languages, customs and food traditions - the very bedrock of their survival - are eroding. But some brave women are fighting back. Instead of seeking work as unpaid laborers or seeking marriage for financial stability - women from many indigenous groups are producing food and other artisan products rooted in their cultural traditions. 

This important practice not only reinforces their identity, but helps to preserve fragile indigenous cultures. And their products are growing in demand from a global population that is becoming more savvy about the important role of indigenous cultures in shaping a sustainable future. 

But the digital divide is nowhere more vast than in indigenous communities. Both in their countries and origin and in diasporas around the world, poverty, limited access to education and other socioeconomic factors are keeping these women from the robust global demand for their products seen in e-commerce markets. 

A B corp with 10 years' experience 

MIRA understand that e-commerce solutions like Shopify are creating new sources of livelihoods for food producers and artisans, but link on many online platforms, indigenous women are being left out. 

We aim to bridge the gap and bring indigenous producers like Rosita, an Aymara woman in rural Bolivia who founded a women's collective to produce and package hyper-nutritious quinoa bars, into the global market for this amazing product. Such traditional products containing traditional foods and ancient varieties are more nutritionally balanced than those already on the market. We will connect groups like them - and their products - to a consumer base in desperate demand for wholesome nutritious foods and artisanal products rooted in ancient cultures.  

It is those still rooted in our past that hold the keys to the future. But those same people are currently among the most impoverished and vulnerable on earth. MIRA will leverage the power of these women's stories to connect them with digital markets and leverage the existing demand for their products. We will do this by 'crowding-in' financiers, tech companies, trade and logistics experts - bringing together existing actors and solutions to get these indigenous products to market. 

With 10 years experience as an international b-corp empowering young people to use storytelling to advocate for the issues they care about, MIRA has built a vast network of experts, UN organizations, partner companies and other non-profits. 

To launch 'Production with Integrity', we need the financial and business support to bring a dedicated team together that can tie all these partners into a solution-focused super-team that solves the challenges of getting much-sought-after indigenous products to digital markets. This includes: software developers, marketing experts, financiers, logistics experts, trade bodies and indigenous groups/collectives. 

The tech, trade and other solutions to these challenge this challenge already exist, so why are indigenous women not able to reach the markets they need to scale up their income and make their livelihoods sustainable? Why are they still being forced to abandon their traditional lands and languages, and resort to unfairly paid labor or prostitution in cities far from their homelands? We have spoken to these women, and they have the millenia-old knowhow, but not the connectivity. With MIT's help, we aim to connect them with a multi-dimensional network that can bring their products to the world - and bring their incomes to the level needed to remain and rejuvenate their native lands.

With 'Production with Integrity', indigenous women will become true stewards of customs and traditions that are quickly dying out. With a good market for their products, they can remain on their lands, retain their languages and customs, and restore the dignity of their peoples.

Their children will be the inheritors of these indigenous traditions, which are our only hope as a plant for overcoming challenges like climate change and dietary-linked disease. Instead of these solutions being forgotten, these women and the generations that come after them will become leaders in a world where resilience and adaptability are critical to the survival as a human race. 

We can bring together the experts to do this. We know who they are, and what they need to do, but we need support to marshal them. 

Communities like the Aymara lands of the Bolivian Altiplano, where Rosita and her quinoa-producing women's cooperative are struggling to survive, will be the target groups for this initiative. We believe their traditional knowledge holds the key to tackling global challenges like climate adaptability. But these communities are dying quickly as poverty forces indigenous people to abandon their sacred lands. 

With our UN partners, we are currently working to identify other 'high-promise', high-vulnerability" indigenous communities worldwide. In addition to Bolivia, areas of focus include Colombia, countries in West Africa and Mongolia. 

Our work will directly benefit the communities we select because it will enable them to expand the market for already developed products (many indigenous communities have already developed artisian and pre-packaged food products with support from UN agencies, but these agencies lack the marketing or tech knowhow to scale up their markets for sustainability). 

We will provide them with support for shipping, export, front-end e-commerce and innovative marketing utilizing their own stories to spark the interest of consumers, who will buy not only these products, but the timeless wisdom of their producers. This will include a multi-channel campaign that gets the producers' stories into the headlines of both news and social media.

While MIRA will retain a very minor percentage of sales, the income, after payment of the logistics and deliver fulfillment partners, will go to the producers. MIRA is seeking financial support to cover its own costs in building this platform, and linking existing solutions like Shopify with its convening of marketing and trade experts, along with start-up financiers for producers to expand their operations.

For the past 10 years, MIRA has built a reputation for bringing expertise and knowhow together for the benefit of vulnerable people. We are a dedicated group of media, international development and marketing/partnership professionals dedicated to sourcing talent from a range of professional disciplines for the benefit of those at the far edge of the digital divide. 

We count the partnership of several UN agencies, NGOs, companies and individual experts among our community. The Team Lead has over 20 years' experience with UN organizations, and particularly working with indigenous and displaced peoples, to better their lives through more sustainable employment. The entire core team of MIRA has worked directly with the communities we serve on our own and other livelihood-strengthening projects and understands very well that our solutions must be based on their needs and the wisdom of their solutions. 

The indigenous communities we work with are the true innovators. They have given us the feedback that the support they have received from the UN in identifying products for sale has been helpful, with without access to the global marketplace, their efforts are doomed to failure. 

Their indigenous lands are cut-off, impoverished and often not connected to the internet. They lack the use of reliable communications and vehicles for bringing their products to cities without spoilage. They have few opportunities for receiving financing and no logistics support. They have asked us to ensure their futures - and help us to get their amazing products to the consumers that demand them - by using our expertise to help them overcome these challenges. The benefits will go directly to them. As a non-profit, we seek only to benefit those we serve, and the greater good of humanity. 

Our very survival depends on our indigenous communities, and we are listening. We want MIT solve to be a key partner in this journey. 

At the request of AMPRODUC, Rosita's cooperative in Bolivia, and other indigenous communities we are working with, we have already taken steps to assemble the partnerships required to create an e-commerce platform that could bring these products to scale, including a full-time developer and integration with Shopify. However, our tech, marketing and logistics partners are not non-profits, and funding is required to convene their experts in a dedicated working group.

In addition, MIRA has existed thus far as an all-volunteer organization. In order to meet this need of our constituents (and adequately respond to consumer demand), we will need to hire our expert team lead as a full-time project manager, and provide her with business-process support. 

Finally, we will need support to connect Rosita and other producers with the financing they need to scale up their operations, and we will need to contract trade and fulfillment expertise to ensure their products reach their destinations without spoilage. 

SOLVE is a trusted leader in enabling teams to overcome barriers such as those we face in getting indigenous products - from indigenous lands worldwide - to global markets. It is well known that SOLVE can provide the business-support and technical expertise that teams need to problem solve and innovate. 

We hope to connect SOLVE as well with our partner indigenous communities so that they can share their native wisdom and innovative spirit with your experts. For many of these communities, their very survival amid aggressive urbanization, rising inequality, ethnic discrimination and changing climate, demands that they reach into their ancient knowledge banks and innovate every single day. Connecting them with another great font of innovation -- the SOLVE community -- to solve this crucial challenge and keep them on their lands, is a truly momentous opportunity for us to catalyse.

The Team Lead, Hope Traficanti, has been working closely with indigenous communities for more than two decades - both through the work of MIRA and as a high-level consultant for UN agencies including the World Food Programme, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, the United Nations Population Fund and the United Nations Development Programme. 

She has visited native lands, listened to and seen the practices and products of native peoples, and made a lifelong commitment to doing everything she can to help them remain on their lands and retain their culture identity - producing products for a robust, global demand-driven market that build their resilience and protect their cultures.