villageTell
villageTell is a champion organization designed to help catalyze a worldwide Village Phone movement,
that makes owning and using phones a reality for the rural poor. villageTell is not a phone company, but
works in partnership with existing telecommunications companies and Microfinance Institutions to help bring
affordable and sustainable communications to the rural poor in developing countries. villageTell gives
individuals access to phones in their own villages rather than having to walk hours if not days just to make
a phone call. For many villagers who rely on traveling to main cities in order to conduct business, the cost
of not making a phone call can be 8 times greater than not making the call itself. villageTell is a for profit
company that reinvests a significant portion of its profits to further social and ministry missions to the poor.
The Village Phone program launched in Bangladesh over 11 years ago, established by
Grameen Bank and
GrameenPhone, winners of the
2006 Nobel Peace Prize for eradicating poverty. Today there are over 350,000 village phone lady’s connecting
100 million people in that country.
Like the wildly successful Village Phone program in Bangladesh, villageTell will provide mobile phone access
and affordability for the rural poor in the form of a Village Phone Kit that becomes the village pay phone for
up to 100 families.
The Village Phone Kit is a complete business in a box made up of a mobile phone, range extending antenna,
cables, a phone charging source, wholesales airtime minutes, marketing materials, training manual and support.
The Phone Kit is provided to a village lady, or Pastor that already owns and operates a micro-business in their
village. Revenue is earned by selling calls (airtime) to others in the village, usually netting an additional
$1 to $2 per day. In most cases, costs of the Phone Kits are financed through a Microfinance Institution partner.