OneRoof, a social enterprise with a double bottom line has opened this year 18 stores in Mexico and India that deliver essential services to the rural poor. These stores are the pilot stores for the franchise model that OneRoof plans to launch starting from next year.
OneRoof’s is testing a unique delivery platform that provides people in rural communities access to nine essential services that taken together can help move people out of poverty. The nine essential services are: information and communication technologies (ICT), financial services (microfinance), education, energy, health, clean water, sanitation, agricultural technologies, and employment generation. The typical store starts by offering the central service, ICT, like an internet café and over time they expand on other services depending on the local demand and linkages formed by OneRoof with partners. An innovative for-profit social enterprise which is due to scale up through franchising!