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.
