Can 1 million waste pickers get access to health insurance through
blockchain based waste collection?
Soso Care and Empower partner up to boost the positive social impact of waste collection in Nigeria by offering health insurance and blockchain based incentives to waste pickers and collectors.
Low income families picking their waste will through Soso Care’s solution get access to tailored health insurance in return for depositing plastic waste at verified collection points.
“Because of low access to health inclusion, In Nigeria alone, over 55,000 women lose their lives every year from pregnancy and thousands of children die from simple cases of malaria or cough, which are preventable with access to quality healthcare. A greater part of these problems are Plastics which block waterways and drainage systems, turning them into breeding ground for mosquitoes, a vector for malaria that affects a huge amount of people.
As a company our goal is to bring millions of people into the fold of healthcare irrespective of their economic situation. I’m happy we’re taking this sustainable journey with Empower to improve health financing and reduce the burden of cash as a premium simply with plastics as currency. This will not only promote sustainability but will bridge the gap on trust around insurance across low income communities” states Nonso Opurum, CEO and Founder of Soso Care.
Empower provides transparency and traceability to the plastic waste collection, so that the waste collectors will both be able to provide socially collected Empower Plastic™ to the market while also accessing Plastic Credit funding for coverage of the insurance fees.
“If we want a circular economy we need to empower the ones who can do collection and segregation at source most efficiently. Together with Soso Care we want to improve the livelihood, security and dignity for the ones on the ground and make sure the informal sector becomes a formal and valued part of the economy.” said Wilhelm Myrer, CEO of Empower.
“The shift from a linear economy to a circular one won’t just make the global economy sustainable, it can also help us create a more equal world”.
The partners are launching their joint offering in Q1 2022 with selected collectors in Nigeria and will aim to take the solutions globally over the coming years with a clear goal of reaching more than 1 million waste pickers with health insurance and improved life quality by 2025. The joint effort will also bring 1000s of tons of plastic waste into recycling and supply the market with recycled plastic with a proven impact.
About Soso Care
SOSO CARE is a low cost health insurtech, which accepts cash or recyclables as a premium to enable millions of people to access care across over 1,000 hospitals in Nigeria. At SOSO CARE, our mission is to ensure everyone has access to quality healthcare irrespective of their socio-economic status. Their intervention has been feted and recognised by key global institutions, including UN Habitat, UNAIDS, World Bank and Government of Bangladesh https://www.sosocare.com/
About Empower
Empower provides a digital infrastructure for the circular economy. Tracking materials from production or collection into new products and several life-cycles. Empower partners with companies that want to take action and do something that has a real, measurable and traceable impact on the environment. Empower has been highlighted as one of the Global Best Practise solutions to the SDGs at EXPO2020 Dubai and one of
the Top 5 blockchain based solutions for a circular economy. www.empower.eco.
