POVERTY ALLEVIATION BY E-COMMERCE

Fulfill the dream of e-commerce employment and start a e-business for the population living in poverty

YouChange Foundation is the first charitable organization exploring the field of e-commerce for poverty alleviation. Within 2 years of exploration, YouChange found an innovative solution for building a set of capacity for poverty alleviation by e-commerce. The project also integrated leading e-commerce enterprises, e-commerce service providers, experts, social organizations to participate in poverty alleviation. This has grasped attention from the public and allowed consumers to be involved in this project. It established a platform to enhance the ability to create opportunities for society to participate in the work of poverty alleviation by e-commerce.

For the first time, this project combines MOOC with poverty alleviation throughE-commerce. It developed the capacity of e-commerce in impoverished regions through MOOC+, build 3+2+6 courses and related service systems. Through 3 days of MOOC platform study, 2 days of offline coaching and exchange activities, plus 6 month of accompanied incubation. People are prepared to start an e-business or finding a job in e-commerce field. This project has provided professional e-commerce courses for the rural cooperatives, rural youth, college-graduate village officials, and related groups in the impoverished regions. It found the solution for local government departments and built their capacity for poverty alleviation by e-commerce. It found an innovative method and model to cultivate e-commerce talents.

Pilot: MOOC+ piloted project of capacity building for e-commerce in impoverished regions

In April 2015, the project introduced MOOC model to develop the capacity building of e-commerce in impoverished regions. Mobile internet technology has reduced the cost of information exchange and has resolved the issue offinalizing the standardization of large-scaled training in short amount of time.With the support of NCF Group and Zhongchou.com, it used crowd funding platform to explore social capital to support a new model of rural economic development. The project composed a team of 30 professional e-commerce volunteers. The MOOC courses have 38 sections and 111 classes, it provides theoretical knowledge and practical case studies covering topics which include: basic e-commerce, cooperative policy, cases, product development, quality traceability, logistics, micro-business and agribusiness crowdfunding. It has trained 100 rural cooperatives in Jiangxi, Gansu and Guizhou provinces, also it established 3 offline capacity building learning centers.

MOOC+ the project of capacity building for e-commerce in impoverished regions have provided useful trials for poverty alleviation by e-commerce and take targeted measures in poverty alleviation. The 1+3+2+6 training model has found an effective way to target impoverished regions and it haspractical significance for sustainable development.

Pilot: National Retail Training Camp Project

The era of Internet plus has arrived, and e-business opportunities have attracted many social forces from all directions to alleviate poverty in rural regions. YouChange’s Poverty Alleviation by E-commerce is one of the foundation's major projects that uses MOOC to build capacity for an e-commerce system in impoverished regions. Through a joint agreement is funding the project “National Retail Training Camp”. YouChange will integrate government departments, research institutions, training institutions, business associations, commercial enterprises and other social resources in combination with its experience in poverty alleviation to carry out women’s economic empowerment training in impoverished regions, on top of efforts to build capacity for e-commerce.

The project plan includes a 40 hour course and training materials for women’s economic empowerment through an innovative O2O training model. It has trained 10,000 impoverished people (80% are impoverished women with age between 18-45) in Guizhou, Jiangxi, Hebei, Sichuan and Gansu provinces. This project allows these women to start their own e-business also it creates employment opportunities for them to be recruited in other e-business companies. After training, more than 50% of these women have either start their own e-business or acquired employment within 6 to 12 months. This project has changed their economic capacity and increased income for the impoverished. Also it empowers women’s economic and social development hence increased the speed for the improvement of economic level of the impoverished regions.