Kinshasa, DR Congo — Kadiwaku Foundation is pleased to announce that they have been selected as an official member of the Million Lives Club, an initiative that celebrates innovators and social entrepreneurs who are scaling impact in improving the lives of those living on less than $5 a day.

The announcement was made by Alexis Bonnell, chief innovation officer at the U.S. Agency for International Development, on Tuesday at the Social Capital Markets conference in San Francisco. The effort, led by USAID and partners including donor agencies from Canada, United Kingdom, and Australia, seeks to help social enterprises achieving meaningful scale attract the support they need to grow and even partner with bilateral donors.

In DR Congo, the majority of people with disabilities rely on family support or turn to begging because they have no other options open to them. Our innovation is enabling them to become either entrepreneurs or employers. Our vision is to reach one million Congolese with disabilities by 2030 and expand to other countries within Africa. John Kadiwaku Ntonta, the Founder of Kadiwaku Foundation.

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The Million Lives Club is comprised of three cohorts of innovators and social entrepreneurs who are improving the lives of those living on less than $5 a day:

• MLC Vanguard: Celebrates those who have directly impacted 1,000,000+ clients with their innovations
• MLC Voyager: Recognizes innovations expected to impact 1,000,000+ clients within 18 months
• MLC Pioneer Highlights innovations that have scaled to meet the needs of 40%+ of their target populations.

The Million Lives Club recognizes the importance of a customer-centric focus in global development and believes that collectively highlighting social innovators that have reached transformative numbers of clients will act as a powerful platform to encourage the uptake and scaling of innovations for good, everywhere.

About the Million Lives Club

The Million Lives Club seeks to nurture innovation ecosystems by recognizing innovators and social entrepreneurs whose innovations have scaled to serve 1 million customers, or are rapidly approaching this milestone. The Million Lives Club is an initiative inspired by members of the International Development Innovation Alliance (IDIA) and supported by a growing partnership of leading development organizations. For more information, visit millionlivesclub.org.