The Challenge

Eastern Congo is characterized by insecurity, poverty, and poor health outcomes. Many parts of the region are stable enough for economic development. But continuous humanitarian aid perpetuates cycles of dependency and undermines local communities' opportunity to design and manage sustainable solutions for themselves.

Taking Action

Asili is a Congolese social enterprise that flips the script. It reinvents humanitarian aid as startup capital for self-sustaining social businesses, including high quality primary health care. Using human-centered design, the community was involved in every aspect of creating Asili. Rooted in compassion and dignity, Asili demonstrates the power of centering humans in the design and delivery of essential services.

Since its inception in 2014, Humaniterra's founder, Heather Buesseler, supported Asili's early stage design, and in recent years, Humaniterra has supported the ongoing iteration and expansion of Asili's health platform. Asili has grown from one clinic and water kiosk in rural South Kivu province to a network of 5 health clinics and 54 water points co-located in "zones" that offer world-class quality to 120,000 Congolese customers per day. The entire Asili enterprise is led and run by Congolese, embedding long-term trust, sustainability, and future innovation in the community.

"Our neighborhood never had clean water or a health clinic that could give us quality medicines and treatments. Since Asili arrived, things have changed. We drink Asili water, which has helped our lives. And the clinic actually heals us. Asili doesn't discriminate—it's one of the reasons I chose this clinic." - Asili customer

Asili was a finalist for Fast Company's 2015 Innovation By Design Award, and a runner up for Core77's 2015 Design for Social Impact Award. Asili was also featured as a case study of compassion in action in the groundbreaking piece, Compassion and the SDGs: An Architecture for Repositioning Compassion in the SDGs.