DashDirect, a project aimed at relieving extreme poverty through direct donations, launches this week.
Launched by members of the Dash community DashDirect leverages said community’s generosity in order to help the world’s most poor, according to frontend lead Zachariah Knapp:
“Dash Direct is a blockchain-based Direct Giving project. It uses private Dash donations to provide a basic income to people living in extreme poverty.”
While most significant projects in the Dash community tend to seek funding from the treasury system, DashDirect did not seek to put in a funding proposal. According to Kevin Colussi (aka joezippy), DashDirect’s founder, treasury funding was not necessary due to the generosity of the Dash community:
“I was approched by a masternode owner to do this, and they said they would assure the funds for they first 18 at $40 USD for two years, thus we didn’t need the treasury.”
A grassroots effort to build a Dash-based solution to poverty
The method by which DashDirect seeks to alleviate poverty is to provide a basic income to selected families living in extreme poverty, paid in Dash. A storefront will be run where families can spend their Dash on basic goods and services, thereby creating a local Dash economy where it is used as an everyday currency. According to Knapp, this will be carried out with the help of a local associate known as a “trusted champion,” who in the initial test case of rural Ghana will be Dash community advocate Mahamadu Abdul-Salam (aka Cryptolib):
“Each phase will survey 30 households living in extreme poverty, and then select 17 households to earn a basic income of $40 USD per week for 102 weeks. To facilitate this, each household receives a smartphone that has been preloaded with a Dash wallet. The person in charge of these 17 households is known as the Trusted Champion. Cryptolib is our first TC. His responsibilities include financial/Dash education, weekly check in with households, and managing a storefront where recipients can use their Dash to purchase basic needs items. TC’s will create Dash micro-economies. This is an incentivized Basic Income project, so TC will receive a basic income wage for each group managed and each will manage 4 groups of 17 households as we grow. Surveys will be administered weekly to show the changes that basic income brings to recipients lives.”
To kick off the project, this week a “ThursGiving” post will be announced, encouraging donors to give towards the needs of several impoverished families, and will spread the word via social media encouraging others to do the same.
Dash’s constant expansion throughout the third world
Dash has made significant gains in the third world, due to its usefulness as a payment system and instant transactions with low fees. The first Dash conference in Venezuela drew 350 attendees, over double the projected amount, and now several local businesses accept Dash. Teams around Africa continue to spread Dash education, including a recent second team in Nigeria, while countries such as Ghana have even more.
