Approximately 1 in 6 city dwellers living in slums across India lack adequate (or, in some cases, any) access to education, healthcare, financial stability and products that can mitigate some of the risks associated with slum living.

In Bangalore, what may be perceived as a lack of access to better prospects is heightened by the obvious and striking juxtaposition of the 鈥渢emporary鈥� tent communities next to brand new, modern technology parks that house some of the biggest global IT companies 鈥� a sight which we see on a daily basis.

The lure of the city for many people originally from rural areas in north Karnataka, Andra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu is economic in nature. Construction jobs in Bangalore pay male workers Rs. 300-500 a day compared to Rs 150-200 a day in their native village (in Australian dollars, that equates to AUD5.20 – 8.60 compared to AUD2.60 – 3.50), while female workers might get Rs. 200 in Bangalore, compared to Rs. 100 in their village.

One of the main barriers to the adoption of Pollinate鈥檚 clean energy products in urban slum communities is demonstrating their value to locals. The value proposition of the solar lantern that Pollinate began with, for example, compares the ongoing money spent on kerosene per week to the single cost of the light, which has no ongoing cost. This comparison is not so straightforward for the more efficient cookstove, as many people collect wood rather than buy it. The health benefits which we understand 鈥� including reduced smoke inhalation 鈥� may not be as immediately apparent and hence valued. Behaviours we are finding which tend to confirm this include the burning of plastic to speed up the ignition of traditional stoves.

Finding the appropriate way to pitch the product as an option for those who are still essentially consumers has become a balance between wants and needs. Thus, Raju, our Pollinator (or local micro-distributor), may begin his pitch with lines like, 鈥淲ith your traditional stoves, your flames may go to Chennai, Mysore, Kerala, Sri Lanka, but with this stove the flames go straight to your chai.” After focusing in on such convenience factors, he may then move onto some of the broader benefits of using this stove.

Essentially the cookstove market testing process is a business development activity for Pollinate. We are trialling a new product, which we believe is a good fit from a 鈥榣ivelihood鈥� perspective, but which will not be fully adopted into the business until after a trial period and lengthy stakeholder engagement is completed. After all, we are essentially providing options to underserviced communities, not trying to impose change where it is not wanted. A quote from a recent article on the website puts it well:

“Individuals at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP), even those living in poverty, deserve the dignity of being treated as customers, rather than as beneficiaries of problem mitigation.”

The people Johannes, Belinda and I have been working with each day are human beings whose lives we have only scratched the surface of in terms of understanding.

Seeing the impact even a simple solar light can make to a child’s education is proof enough that this kind of social enterprise is one of the pieces in a complex web of creating systematic social change.

Until next time…

-Rosanna

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Stepping out of the airport, the humidity hits. We鈥檙e here!

The Pollinate Energy office-cum-home is an oasis in the middle of the chaos that is Bangalore. Our first full day today saw us meet the other members of our team, which, in addition to Johannes, Belinda and I, includes two other Australians and three Indian young professionals. Two of these three are Bangalore locals, which will help with the language barrier, and one is from Delhi. All, however, have very interesting backgrounds and insights into Indian ways of life!

Bangalore at night.

Today we also got to hear a bit more of Pollinate Energy鈥檚 background from two of the not-for-profit鈥檚 directors. The story goes like this: a few years ago, Kat 鈥� one of the co-founders 鈥� was finishing her Masters thesis, which investigated the “willingness to pay” for energy products within urban slum communities.

The night before the dissertation was due, Kat was on a plane heading back to London to submit the work that had been consuming her for months. But as they took off from the Delhi airport, the lights below them began to blink out across huge stretches of land.

Later, they learned they had witnessed the world鈥檚 single largest power outage in history 鈥� 700 million people without power on the night of the 31 July 2012 鈥� in what was front page news around the world.

And yet, as bad as it was, Kat knew more than 400 million people in India were constantly聽without power, but that fact never made the news.

Pollinate Energy was thus built out of the realisation of the need to address energy poverty across India. It鈥檚 a great story that we鈥檙e now lucky enough to be contributing to!

Today wasn’t all work though; we also had the opportunity to see a side of Bangalore that we may not have otherwise seen. Our guide, Rohan was a wealth of history, culture, and religion.

Women shopping in Bangalore.

We saw the Sikh temple where no god is worshiped but everyday hundreds of people are fed, and if you need somewhere to stay, they always have room. We also visited a dobhi ghat (pictured below) 鈥� a huge expanse of lines, large chunks of granite,聽and a complex network of pipes and tanks, which together acts as the clothes-washing hub for many of the city’s fancy hotels and companies 鈥� as well as a Hindu cemetery and goddess Kali black magic temple, where curses can be both cast and removed.

The Dobhi Ghat.

Hindus are more often cremated, which makes this cemetery unusual – instead of being buried lying down, the residents of this cemetery are buried sitting up, ready to greet the next cycle of life.

Tomorrow we will be meeting our local Pollinators, testing out our first fuel-efficient cookstoves, and visiting our first communities to demonstrate the stoves.

You’ll be hearing how we go!

-Rosie

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