Sustainable Villages Initiative

In 1988, the earliest iteration of Smart Ant Solutions was birthed in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, East Africa. In this location, a village pharmacy was launched with a $300 pay-forward micro-credit business loan.

The pay forward concept, that is, beneficiaries becoming benefactors in outwardly flowing concentric circles of intuitive altruism, was first developed by local farmers in Umalila, a 7,000 ft. plateau near the meeting point of Tanzania, Zambia, and Malawi.

In the early stages of development, a grinding mill cooperative, fish farm, piggery, tree farm, and guest house were added to the original village pharmacy enterprise. In subsequent years, pheromone trails from the first pharmacy spread to nearby villages and other towns and cities in Tanzania.

Eventually, emergent businesses with loose ties to the village pharmacy began to pop up in DR Congo, Burundi, and Uganda.

Currently, more than 100 community-based organizations and enterprising non-profits have emerged in Sub-Saharan Africa, all of which can trace their beginning to the Umalila Village pharmacy in Tanzania. Spreading beyond the continent of Africa, sustainable village development has begun in Pakistan, Vietnam, Guatemala, El Salvador and Brazil.

In a bottom-up, viral manner, more than $2 million in capital grants and pay-forward business loans have been circulated in more than 100 community-based organizations and social enterprises.

The organizations emerge in free-flowing and interconnected small world networks that expand and consolidate without formal planning.

The fledgling businesses and village-based organizations provide employment for persons in subsistence farming rural areas. Outcomes improve rural farming, fisheries, health services, education through pay forward micro-credit grants.

Local hubs in Tanzania, DR Congo, Burundi, and Uganda have taken the Umalila model one step further and have formed organized sustainable village development businesses that exist solely to help new community-based organizations to pop up as profits are paid forward in the social networks of the original beneficiaries.

The original pay-forward spirit continues to flourish in Umalila. More than 15 self supporting community-based organizations have grown up in nearby villages.

By Smart Ant Solutions