About PRSPR
The only thing that makes life possible is permanent, intolerable uncertainty; not knowing what comes next.
Ursula K. Le Guin, The Left Hand of Darkness, Ch. 5 (1969).
“Participation”, “Inclusive”, “Equitable”, “Collaboration” & “Sustainable”
We would say ‘motherhood and mysorepak’, all of us agree that these are important principles, but the challenge is how do we get there. Pick any organization in the social space, and they will have one of these terms (if not more) as the founding principles. Many folx have worked tirelessly to institutionalize these ideas and grapple with the nuances that stem from the diverse spaces we inhabit. In recent times, technology has often been posited as yet another obstacle for all of us to grapple with. Like any other tool, technology too can be harnessed to help achieve these principles or to consolidate the power differences.
At a time when financial inclusion has taken centre stage, we believe that pooling resources can solve the issues created by traditional lending, credit models and even insurance models, and we wish to take a moment to explain why.
The traditional lending and credit system, though widely used, is fraught with challenges, such as exploitation, unequal distribution of resources, financial instability and a lack of dignity. Similarly, insurance is riddled with fraud and moral hazard on the one hand and low acceptability in paying humongous premiums by a large section of society in today’s volatile world.
Our experiment seeks to address these challenges by creating a more inclusive and equitable system. By pooling resources in real-time, individuals can collectively pay for asks, leading to increased trust and accountability among participants. With the advent of digital technology, we have an opportunity to leverage its power and create a transparent and accountable system for managing shared resources, promoting cooperation and mutual support among participants.
The founders met at an Ashoka Fellows get together and have been discussing various ideas around communities, social protection, capitalism, the development space and the rapid use of technology in financial inclusion. Between the founding team, they have over three decades of experience in making the world a better place for everyone.
People
The people behind PRSPR are,
Colophon
Large portions of text and images on this website have been generated from various LLMs and other generative models. The website template was provided by Lene Saile and the source is available on Github. Some icons have been sourced from https://lucide.dev/.