Cluster 23 of 28. Ideas 436 to 450
The women who are not working
The mechanism
The single largest unused asset in the country is sitting at home. Much of what keeps it there (childcare, safe transport, working hours) can be sold as a service, and the industries that would employ it can be built.
The 15 ideas
- 436Childcare co-operatives run by mothers for mothers, licensed and inspected, in every town
- 437After-school clubs at the schools, paid by the parents, run by teachers who want the income
- 438Women-only transport services for the night shifts and the early trains
- 439Home-based work platforms that pay properly: sewing, embroidery, bookkeeping, design
- 440Shared workspaces for women with childcare attached, in Colombo and the district towns
- 441Women's craft co-operatives with a single brand and a single buyer abroad
- 442Sinhala and Tamil lessons by video for the children of Sri Lankans abroad, taught from home by graduates and paid in pounds, dollars and francs
- 443Elder-care visits for families in Sri Lanka, as often as the parent needs, daily, twice a week or weekly: a trained carer to help with bathing, meals and medicines, and to sit and talk, at a price a local salary can pay
- 444Women's business networks with a loan fund, run the way Grameen Bank does it, not on charity
- 445Sinhala and Tamil dubbing studios with real voice actors, and subtitles checked by a person before they go out, selling to the streaming platforms and the film-makers of the world
- 446Phones and laptops refurbished in Sri Lanka, graded, warrantied and sold on to the markets of South Asia and Africa
- 447Footwear workshops on the garment industry's model: shoes and sandals soled with Sri Lankan rubber, made for the world's brands first and then under a brand of its own
- 448Bamboo grown on degraded land and made into flooring, panels and furniture for export
- 449Tissue-culture laboratories growing banana, pineapple and foliage plantlets by the million, disease-free, for the farms of Asia, Africa and the Gulf
- 450Insect farms that turn food and market waste into protein feed for the fish farms and poultry, replacing imported feed