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Indian chai stores

Using an 'adda' where large numbers of indian men congregate and turning chai sellers into evangelists by incentivising them, I believe we could get the message out and get lots of registrations. Men across india, especially rural india, have a common past time. They congregate at chai stores, also known as an 'adda', or hangout. These stores sell tea(chai), biscuits, mobile recharge, snacks, tobacco most importantly cigarettes.
These addas have plenty of men walking in, having a chai biskoot sutta ( tea biscuit cigarette) hanging around chatting while they finish their break and then get back to doing whatever they do in life. It's that one time of the day where they are on a relaxed break with their friends. The influence of these chai sellers is immense - from recommending a new brand of smokes or tobacco, to chatting about the political scene, they are a vibrant centre of society. Many people run up a tab, and the trust levels on both sides are ridiculously high.
We could use these chai sellers to influence people to do a cheek swab. Given their rapport with a large number of people, we could incentivise these chai sellers and use their support to do a cheek swab.
For example - we could give them 100 swab kits, and upon returning them with 100 unique samples, the chai seller gets a nice incentive.
This way I believe it's not just the database that grows, but the chai seller becomes an evangelist - and that's super important in reinforcing the message for donors AND potential receivers.




Update -


1. How this idea could apply to non-Indian settings - from American coffee shops to European cafes, for instance -


Waiters could wear a badge - 'Talk to me about saving lives'.
This could spark off a conversation -
I can see this happening when the waiter is bending while placing the coffees on the table, people noticing this badges and its bold premise, and a conversation happening.


The waiter could then hand them a kit, and the job is done within a minute.


2. Who might provide the education that chai sellers need in order to be able to speak about bone marrow donation and answer questions with customers?


2 words - supply chain.


Big companies like Unilever, P&G, ITC etc have massive supply chains that sell toothpaste, cigarettes, biscuits etc to the most far flung underdeveloped parts of the world. What if they offered an internship?


Another word - Intern.


The job of the intern would be to spend time with this fabulous well run company, and spend some time learning their supply chain processes. And their additional responsibility with learning will be - educating their distributors.


Imagine a set of hundred hungry, smart, management type 25 year olds, who join an internship with a large company, travel the country learning their supply chain thereby getting an education of a lifetime, and also educating every single distributor they come across.
Net money spent - negligible. Motivation to do this - high.
Management institutes who use these supply chains as case studies could funnel in huge numbers of students.


 

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