Abstract
The Brace Yourself for Change Campaign's purpose is to find innovative ways to raise international awareness on college campuses while supporting financially challenged entrepreneurs in the developing world. The Campaign achieved this by convincing a campus organization to purchase natural, thread bracelets for their event instead of mass-produced rubber bracelets. The Campaign arranged for the production of 750 bracelets at a co-op in Guatemala (Tesoros Mayas), paying a fair-trade price of $1.00 per bracelet. The $750 initial investment was raised by soliciting student council and college clubs for donations, allowing 100% of the revenue generated from the sale of the bracelets - $3./each - to be donated to KIVA International for microcredit loans to entrepreneurs in the developing world. The first Brace Yourself for Change Campaign event raised awareness of the issues of vulnerability and sustainability in the developing world on a college campus, and it resulted in $800 of profit to Tesoros Mayas and a $1,250 donation to KIVA, the equivalent of 50 microfinance loans of $25. The current challenge for the Campaign is to replace all use of rubber bracelets at Clark University with the thread bracelets, with a potential for $4,500 per year for micro-finance loans. The next challenge is to get other campuses to embrace the Campaign. 500 schools, with an average enrollment of 5,000 students, participating in the Brace Yourself for Change Campaign could result in $3,000,000 for micro-finance loans to 120,000 entrepreneurs in the developing world, annually.
