Then last summer I spend five weeks in South Africa and had the privilege of speaking with many of the Africans affected by poverty in the rural townships there. One particularly striking moment for me came during a conversation I had with one man who was twenty-three, just a year older than myself at the time. He talked about how he had dropped out of school at age 12 to support his family but was now struggling to find jobs, essentially working for free at a factory in the hopes of eventually being hired on. That experienced truly showed me the desire that people in these extremely poor conditions have for work. They want to be empowered through work. Only work can ultimately bring a someone out of poverty and more importantly bring them self-esteem.

When I heard about Samasource, I immediately saw this business as an opportunity to bring the gift of work to people living in poverty. Better yet, Samasource has the opportunity to scale itself because of its business model, while treading the fine line between business and non-profit.

It is hard to define exactly what Samasource is, but after working in sales for Samasource for three months, I have come to believe that more organizations should be modeled like Samasource. While I often am making sales calls and writing up contracts, I also have the pleasure of working with our service partners in Africa and Asia, making daily cross-cultural connections.

Samasource is a business in many ways, but it is not focused on profits; instead it’s focused on empowering people through work with the tools of business. It has been a powerful motivator to know that each project that I closed would directly lead to more work for workers at our service partners. There is something fresh and different about working in the Samasource system, where doing good means doing good business. I hope that more businesses like Samasource will be founded around this genuine desire to help people because because I have seen the power of this model in my short time at Samasource.

Meet Paul Parach. He’s 24, and currently in his second year of high school, thanks to CARE International’s operations in Dadaab. His story will make you stop whatever you’re doing and think about the latent talent of people in refugee camps.

Paul left his small village in South Sudan at the age of 9, chased out by militia groups. He was forced to leave his mother and four sisters back home. After several weeks of walking across the country with a group of other young boys, he arrived at the Kenyan border and then at Kakuma refugee camp.

There, he was shot in the leg by a man from a rival tribe, and moved to the ICU in Nairobi. His leg was paralyzed.

Read the Rest of Paul Parach’s Story

Palash Mondal lived for most of his life in a residential care home in Kolkata, India. His parents were unable to provide for him and so they reluctantly decided he would be better off in the care of others. This is not an unusual situation in India as few people in “orphanages” here are actually orphans. While at the care home Palash was a student of Uddami’s free computer training school, which is funded by Uran Software Services, a Samasource provider.

Palash was forced to leave the care home after he fell in love with Shukali, his future wife, against the wishes of the care home authorities. For 2 years Palash tried to make ends meet. He and Shukali moved back to his parent’s village where they shared a small room. Palash describes the difficulties of that time, “It was difficult for me to get job at any IT company or anywhere else because I had low education and zero experience.”

In 2005, after the birth of his first child, Palash got back in touch with Uddami. Uran Software Services was being formed and Palash was hired as one of the first staff. At first he worked part-time but as USS developed more clients a full-time position was created.

Palash developed quickly in his job. He had a great interest in web development work and was able to use his knowledge of html learned at Uddami to understand a wide variety of web tools and techniques. Quickly he began to manage projects independently because of his extensive knowledge. He was promoted to web development manager in 2008 and helps manage and train other staff in web tasks.

Palash now says it was Uran and their founders “…who believe[d] in my capabilities … They both trained me and made me work hard for my better future and today I dream to be a web developer which I never thought I could be.” His healthy, happy 4 year old son, Bumbol, is the best testament to the brighter future ahead. Palash’s story demonstrates the power that giving work, not aid has in transforming and empowering the poor.

Samasource wants your help and feedback as we work to refine our Samasource Facebook App Testing. Samasource is currently working on several Facebook application testing projects, but we want to continue to better understand what Facebook developers need for Quality Assurance of their apps.

Samasource was recently recognized by the fbFund for our entry into the application testing market. We are working directly with our providers to improve their knowledge of facebook applications. This past year, we sponsored developer garages across East Africa where we trained a number of our providing firms about the Facebook app industry. As we continue to expand and improve our testing services, we want to get the feedback of current Facebook application developers so we can better price out our services and make our process more transparent for developers.

We want to hear about the types of testing that you routinely need to carry out on your Facebook applications. Let us know about the quality assurance issues that you keep running up against. To put together the most comprehensive and useful list of testing actions, we need your help. Check out the gdoc below to start collaborating!

Samasource Facebook App Testing

Mildred Ampadu-Nyarko, or Mildy, was born in Accra, Ghana in 1984. With a mother in the lowpaying
Ghana Education Service, and a father who depends on intermittent contracts for his
construction services, Mildy grew up in a happy but financially stressed home. Upon graduation
from high school, she could not find the funds to pay for a four-year university. As a result, Mildy
entered a three-year Polytechnic school, where she learned textile manufacturing.

As Mildy says, “There would have been no way to rise up. There are very few textile
manufacturers in Ghana, and so many graduates like me in the textile field, that even getting a
job is hard, let alone rising to a position of influence.”

Enter Rising Data Solutions (RDS), a Samasource provider. When Mildy first came to RDS, she
was a happy but unskilled young woman, with little experience in technology or technologybased
skills such as typing. She was hired for her positive attitude and willingness to learn.
Mildy was not the best agent to start off with — there were others who typed faster, discerned
the English language more fluidly, and had fewer errors when transcribing messages. But it was
Mildy’s attitude that separated her. Every day, she strived to improve, arriving early to work to
practice typing. Every day, she came to work with a smile on her face and a positive attitude
which was infectious, inspiring everyone on the floor to smile and enjoy their work.

After only 8 months, Mildy was given the title of Team Leader, as is now responsible for 15
colleagues, coaching them, motivating them, monitoring them, and creating complex reports
which are sent up the chain to the Operations Manager, who depends on her and the other
Team Leader’s accuracy to measure RDS’s performance as a company.

These days, Mildy’s future is bright. She is an example of the potential of the youth of Ghana to
rise up and rise to the occasion.