Pickme app creates opportunity for marginalised community

The Vesak week brought another first for Pickme, when it delivered hundreds of lanterns to a locked-down urban populace.

The taxi-hailing app company offered its platform free of cost to promote the sale of these lanterns to We Build Colombo Together (WBCT), a collective impact initiative that aims to collectively address urban well-being issues of Colombo through inter-sectoral partnerships.

Launched by Search for Common Ground, Sri Lanka (SFCG), WBCT has worked in Colombo to promote urban wellbeing and development and its partnership with Pickme helped a particular group of people, who depend on the Vesak season to make an income, by using its platform to sell products.

“This was a CSR initiative. No commission was charged from the vendors and the delivery fee was paid by the customers buying the lanterns. We made deliveries within an eight kilometre radius from the vendor. These vendors made the lanterns and listed the product on Pickme. They were very excited about the process, especially because they did not know they could sell their products on a platform like Pickme. We could see how wowed they were when they got their first order.

These communities had spent money they could ill-afford to build these lanterns and it would have been a substantial loss to them if they could not sell them. We are glad to have been part of this project,” said Pickme Business Development Manager Jeewaka Keerthisinghe.

The lanterns had a maximum order number per customer and Pickme ensured that health and safety regulations were followed during the operation, as per the guidelines set out by the health officials and authorities.

WBCT collaborates with over 100 families to create livelihood opportunities and a majority of them depend on informal employment and small-scale seasonal businesses.