Summary
You can’t turn trash into upward economic mobility. But…
In Lima, Peru, the largest slums produce around one thousand tons of garbage every day, and the city can only collect about half of it, polluting ground and drinking water, contaminating food supplies, and posing serious public health risks.
So Albina Ruiz, asked “what if we turned garbage collection in slums into a profitable microbusiness?” So she worked with the poor, excluded garbage collectors and turned what they do into a respectable profession, creating micro-enterprises with health insurance, representation, creative marketing, and education.
Today she reaches 30% of the population in Peru and has changed the lives of 6 million people across Latin America, improving health and living conditions, and generating much-needed employment opportunities for community residents.
So, you can.
Full Story
Social Entrepreneur Peru: Albina Ruiz and the Ciudad Saludable
Albina Ruiz, founder of the social enterprise Ciudad Saludable, works with people living in areas dominated by the trash dump to create a more formal system of waste removal for their health and the wider city’s cleanliness. Workers who collect and recycle the waste are now employed by the city, own a micro-business, and no longer work under a social stigma. At the same time their efforts to clean up the city are working well, and the model is spreading to other Peruvian cities.