David’s Blog: Bringing back some memories to reality.

Posted: Wednesday 12 October 11, 10.58am GMT

In thinking about some of the ways in which business has been active in helping more disadvantaged people I remembered some inspiring programmes I have seen in South America over the last few years. I was taken two years ago by a colleague from our Buenos Aires partner Amartya to a slum area to the west of the city. Here, the residents had been troubled for a long time by high energy costs, as there was no piped natural gas to their houses, meaning they had to buy expensive bottled gas. The national energy company agreed to install piped gas to the community, which meant great savings.

The problem, however, was that the poor state of infrastructure in the town meant that there were no street signs, and therefore no way in which the residents’ bills could be delivered. A residents’ group, funded by the gas company, set up a community challenge whereby all the street signs were painted by volunteers, and the house numbers by groups of children as part of their art classes at school. The volunteers now deliver the monthly bills, as part of the partnership with the company. Energy costs for the residents have been halved.

In Santiago de Chile…

There still remain a few very disadvantaged shanty towns, although great efforts are being made to improve the living conditions of the residents. One of the best known programmes is Un Techo para Chile, a Roof for Chile. My good friend Javier Zulueta, now with his own successful CSR consultancy was, a few years ago, its CEO. We visited one such slum, called campamentos in Chile, to see the work of the charity. It provides modular wooden housing to residents, complete with floor, light, heating and running water, none of which they would necessarily have had access to in their original dwelling. The programme is supported by Telefonica, and has now gone international as America Solidaria, managed by Javier’s brother Sebastian.

Once at a conference in Lima…

I met a very inspiring person, Diego della Torre. Diego’s father is a wealthy entrepreneur, with a successful, large business manufacturing and marketing building materials. On leaving business school, Diego had the opportunity to enter the family firm and at some point, become CEO. However, he realised that the nature of the products the firm marketed was not suitable for the very difficult conditions in the Lima slums, due on one hand to the hilly nature of the terrain, and on the other, to their relatively high cost – as could be expected for materials primarily aimed at commercial and other major building projects.

Diego decided to set up his own company, focused on materials at low cost and which would be appropriate for conditions in the shanty towns. He has built up a very successful business, is very active personally in the communities in question as an adviser, mentor and councillor, and is a great example of how a different approach to a classic business can be of huge benefit to a very disadvantaged community.

One final point I thought was very interesting – in all of the communities mentioned above, unemployment was no higher than the country averages. The problems were, of course, long distances from work, and low wages, making it difficult to improve living conditions. So the programmes we have looked at were very effective in improving those conditions, with the committed help of the business sector.