Who is a social entrepreneur ?

What do Florence Nightingale (U.K.), Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh), Wangari Maathai (Kenya), Anil Gupta (India) and Babiker Badri of Sudan have in common? They have sailed or are currently sailing in a ship called Social Entrepreneurship.

The names of the above personalities were mentioned  at the British Council Management Forum by the presenter  Gerard Lemos and the chairperson Dr. Samia Habbani on the topic ‘How to become a Social Entrepreneur’ on Sunday, 17 January at Hotel Salam Rotana, Khartoum.

Gerard Lemos is a sociologist, a social researcher and academician. He is the author of numerous books and reports about social policy and is currently writing a book on social welfare in China. One of his recent books titled ‘Steadying the Ladder’ is about social and emotional aspirations of homeless and vulnerable people. He is one of the founders of the School of Social Entrepreneurs. Gerard Lemos for several years has been Deputy Chair of the British Council before becoming the Acting Chair in 2009.

Lemos is of the opinion that social entrepreneurship is growing. The reasons could be many:                          a) Disillusionment and conventional political structures  b) corporate life getting increasingly insecure    c) mobile and networked society  d) porous boundaries between business, government and NGOs           e) growing focus on ethical consumerism   f) innovation in sources of Finance and financial instruments  g) growing concern for autonomy ethics and self employment, people want to be employed and finally h) Happiness and quality of life. “Getting rich makes you happy for a while, not forever, and has diminishing returns. We live in an age of identity and social entrepreneurship gives you one”.

Social entrepreneurs are individuals who come out with innovative solutions for social problems. They find out what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution and influencing the entire society to bring about the change without leaving it to the government or business sectors.  Gerard Lemos simply defines a social entrepreneur as some who builds and grows network organizations.

The qualities that social entrepreneurs have are their commitment to social injustices, compassion for the worst off, empathy, a wish to empower, value driven, persistent, expanders, competitive and action oriented.

The skills that social entrepreneurs are endowed with are of fundraising, motivating staff and volunteers, inspirational leadership, networking, influencing, persuading and campaigning.

The positive behaviors, qualities and skills of both a social entrepreneur and a commercial entrepreneur are often overlapping   but the main differentiator between the two is the values. Unlike traditional business entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs primarily seek to generate "social value" rather than profits.

Florence Nightingale, also know as the ‘Lady with the Lamp’, was the founder of modern nursing. She established the first school for nurses and fought to improve hospital conditions.

Babiker Badri was the pioneer of women’s education in Sudan. He took up the social cause of educating girls and started a school for girls’ way back in 1907 against the wishes of the British government and the society. Today everyone remembers him and his family for the Afhad University for Women.

Wangari Maathai was the first woman from Africa to have been awarded the Nobel Peace prize in 2004. Maathai has stood at the front of the fight to promote ecologically viable social, economic and cultural development in Kenya and in Africa. She founded the Green Belt Movement where, for nearly thirty years, she has mobilized poor women to plant 30 million trees. Her methods have been adopted by other countries as well. We are all witness to how deforestation and forest loss have led to desertification in Africa and threatened many other regions of the world - in Europe too. Protecting forests against desertification is a vital factor in the struggle to strengthen the living environment of our common Earth. One of her recent campaigns has made Japanese restaurants switch from wooden chopsticks to reusable plastic ones. This will save the forests in China to a great  extent. It’s ironic that most of these super cheap chopsticks came from China , a country where only 17% of the land is covered by forest, far less than 68% for Japan.

Mohammad Yunus is another recipient of Nobel Peace Prize 2006 for social entrepreneurship. He began offering microloans to women who made bamboo furniture starting with $27 from his own pocket. This empowered the women to become economically self-sufficient and proving the microcredit model that has now been replicated around the world.

Gerard Lemos mentioned another social entrepreneur Anil Gupta from India. Anil Gupta is a Professor of Entrepreneurship at the prestigious Indian Institute of Management, Ahmadabad. The social alchemist as he is known, practices what he preaches. He is an austere person  who has been making journeys on foot  all over India and discovering grassroots inventors and demonstrating the potential of knowledge rich economically poor people for progress of the society.

Lemos at the end showed video clips of Anil Gupta’s grassroots inventors from the Discovery Channel under the theme ‘My Technology’. The inventions were tree climbing apparatus; pedal driven mini washing machine; modified scooter for the physically challenged  and the amphibious bicycle.

There was a lengthy Q&A session, but at the end the listeners left with a question in their mind. ’Do you feel inspired to use your talent to help others? Now is the time to start doing work you believe in by becoming a social entrepreneur and perhaps starting your own non-profit business to address social problems and challenges.