Youth Social Entrepreneurship Course Included In Curriculum In Pakistan

Pakistan, a country that is terrorized by many social problems and haven't been able to find a solution to these problems, may be saved by the Youth Entrepreneur Service (YES) Network, whom is a leading supporter of the involvement of youth in social enterprises in Pakistan. They are aiming to help integrate social social entrepreneurship training with vocational training courses in the country. They are looking to introduce this concept into 155 institutes' curriculum.

Through this, they wish to engage students to find innovative ideas and solutions to the social problems in their community. At the same time, they also wish that this course would guide them to build a promising future not only for the community, but themselves as well.

The whole course will take about 50 hours. 10 hours will be theory based, teaching them on what a social enterprise does and how it functions. Also, it is to let the students familiarize with the concept of youth social entrepreneurship and learn how to develop a social enterprise plan. The remaining 40 hours of the course will include field work to acquire hands-on training.

I find this idea a very interesting and indeed a very thoughtful one. It's killing two birds with one stones, firstly helping them solve the country's social problems, secondly, letting students have a brighter future by setting up their own enterprise and who knows, increase employment rate in their country as well if their social enterprise is a success.

No doubt this is a very good idea, but I still have some doubts over it. Spending over 3 years to learn on what social enterprises are, they are actually only going to use 50 hours to teach them what I've learnt in 3 years. They might be able to teach them the most fundamental elements and aspects of a social enterprise, but is that enough? The idea seems feasible, but I think it will only work out if proper education is given, with a adequate amount of time.

What are the readers thought? Should we also add the education of social enterprises into the curriculum of other students, be it in secondary/tertiary level so as to raise more awareness? Share your thoughts (:

Read the full article here : http://www.justmeans.com/Youth-Social-Entrepreneurship-Course-Included-in-Curriculum-in-Pakistan/50637.html

Reference : Vij, V. (2011, November 14) Youth Social Entrepreneurship Course Included In Curriculum In Pakistan. Retrieved from

http://www.justmeans.com/Youth-Social-Entrepreneurship-Course-Included-in-Curriculum-in-Pakistan/50637.html

Entrepreneurs pitch for £20.000 at Dragon’s Den-style event at University of Northampton

If you have not heard of Dragon's Den before, its a popular show in the US and the UK. It's about entrepreneurs proposing to their ideas to a group of multi-millionaires, known as the dragons, for a sum of money so as to start their business, in exchange for part of the business's equity.

This post is actually about a similar style to Dragon's Den, but it is held in a university, with the deans and other directors as the "dragons". Participants, not only students in the university, but with other people from the public as well, they pitch their social enterprises' business ideas to the "dragons", hoping to get a lump sum of money from them.

It was a tough competition as they narrowed the participants from hundreds all the way to the final three. There were also another 23 other social enterprises that received some form of support from the university, despite not getting the amount of money.

Personally, I feel that this is a very good way to promote social enterprise on what they do as coming up with a business plan would require them to read into what exactly is a social enterprise and what's social cause all about. Also, coming up with such events help to promote social enterprise as well as since Dragon's Den is a famous show, people would wish to participate and its a good way to encourage people to join in and pitch their business plans too.

What's your thought on this? Using a variety show's concept to attract people to pitch in their ideas. Do you think it's feasible? Because in my own opinion, i find this idea very innovative and creative.

Read the full article here : http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/business/local-businesses/entrepreneurs_pitch_for_20_000_at_dragon_s_den_style_event_at_university_of_northampton_1_3259130

Reference : Jones, C. (2011, November 18) Entrepreneurs pitch for £20.000 at Dragon’s Den-style event at University of Northampton. Retrieved from http://www.northamptonchron.co.uk/news/business/local-businesses/entrepreneurs_pitch_for_20_000_at_dragon_s_den_style_event_at_university_of_northampton_1_3259130

Social Enterprise to provide bus services to poorly-served area of Merseyside

A social enterprise in Liverpool, (yes, the football club) aims to provide bus services to areas not well served by major operators. They are doing a change and not like the older days in 1986, where the bus services are only focused on the most commercial routes.

Their reason for doing that is very simple. Besides providing services to people who are more inaccessible to the stadium on matchdays, they wish to plug the gaps in the current network and serve the community. Currently, the social enterprise already holds a community bus permit and is now going to seek funding from sources such as Merseytravel or Liverpool council to launch its services.

Hopefully, this would be accomplished and I believe that not only its beneficial to the people, but to the football club and the economy as well as these would mean more people are willing to go to the stadium to either watch the match, or even buy the merchandises there.

From what this article has stated, a social enterprise need not be a business that in our perspective, help out the marginalized people e.g. the disabled, ex-convicts, etc. They can be there as well to generally help the public whom in this case are people who does not have "easy" access to the stadium. I feel that this idea is really good, and I hope that they win against Chelsea today. :D

Who knows? Maybe if this social enterprise is set up in Singapore, more people are willing to go watch the S-League at Jalan Besar Stadium (for example)? Honestly, nah, I dont think so. But it's still worth a try!

Read the full article here: http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2011/11/01/social-enterprise-to-provide-bus-services-to-poorly-served-areas-of-merseyside-100252-29695851/#ixzz1eEbY6iSd

Reference :
McDonough, T. (2011, November 1). Social Enterprise to provide bus services to poorly-served area of Merseyside. Retrieved from http://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/liverpool-news/local-news/2011/11/01/social-enterprise-to-provide-bus-services-to-poorly-served-areas-of-merseyside-100252-29695851/

Should Social Enterprise take on unpaid interns?

This is a relatively short post, but its something that caught my eye and I feel that its quite interesting. This article mainly talks about the different angles into looking at this topic. One of them is that through this, job seekers could be able to get a job offer from the company after they have proved their worth during their internship. On the other hand, the article takes it into account of young job seekers who cannot afford to work for free, and in that case, is this a form of discrimination?

It then ends it by asking the public whether is it ethical for Social Enterprises to offer unpaid internships. To my surprise, even though its not half yet, but 37.6% of the respondents feels that its not unethical, and that they should continue offering unpaid internships. Whereas the rest of the 62.4% believes that it is unethical.

The arguments that people are raising up are that since interns get the valuable experience through the internship, it should have been more than enough. Another argument is that people feel that if both parties reach a mutually beneficial agreement with full disclosure on both sides of the equation, they do not see how is that unethical. On the other hand, some respondents feel that it creates a negative social impact itself.

Personally, I am not in favor of Social Enterprises offering unpaid internship base on these few points. Firstly, since Social Enterprise is a business by itself, its not a NPO or charity that relies on donations to survive and that they have their own revenue, on what grounds are they to say that they need not pay for the interns' work? To put it bluntly, are they not asking for free labour? Secondly, if the argument is that interns should get valuable experience working in the society, they should get the entire package, which includes from stretching their capabilities, to getting paid. When I say about being paid, obviously I am talking about marketable prices for the interns. For some, it might be only deemed to be as an allowance, more than a salary. Lastly, have Social Enterprises not learnt about extrinsic motivations? Salaries are definitely one part of the key factors that leads to better performance, as it drives the interns to work hard to get their goal. Interns may lose their interests and feel demoralized seeing colleagues receiving rewards for their hard work, but not having anything for themselves.

Definitely, there could be some exemptions. For example if interns really want to get into this Social Enterprise as it is the only one that is able to give interns this set of skills no other Social Enterprises are able to give, trading their salaries for the experience could be well worth it.

Above are just my two cents worth. What about you readers looking at these post? Do you all believe that Social Enterprises should be able to take on unpaid interns? Give me your comments!

Read the full article here : http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-enterprise-network/poll/2011/nov/02/social-enterprise-blog?newsfeed=true

Reference :

Mills, D. (2011, November 2). Should Social Enterprise take on unpaid interns? Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/social-enterprise-network/poll/2011/nov/02/social-enterprise-blog?newsfeed=true

Low perception of social enterprises

Ask a handful of Singaporeans what is a Social Enterprise (SE), and their answers may just shock you. Up till now, even if successful social entrepreneurs were asked of this question, many would give different definitions. So who are we to judge our fellow Singaporeans?

In this article, it talks about how Singaporeans are unaware of Social Enterprises and in which direction should SEs head to. A survey was conducted by the Social Enterprise (SE) Association, and the results? Only 13 percent of the 2,000 respondents surveyed knew what social enterprises are. Of those who knew confused social enterprises with non-profits and voluntary welfare organisations, and even statutory boards.

However, these results did not came as a surprise to Isaiah Chng, director of Proage, a social enterprise that focuses on creating avenues and opportunities for people to age well and Tommy Tng, general manager, sales and operations for Ability Enterprise, who also runs an employment programme under the charity, Society for the Physically Disabled (SPD) that offers services including designing and making greeting cards, bookbinding and making corporate gifts.

However, all hopes are not lost as the survey also found out that of those people who bought stuffs from social enterprises, 91% were satisfied with the products and one of the reasons of buying them from social enterprises is the social cause that the social enterprise stand for.

Personally, I feel that the support from the people towards social enterprises are strong as one of the reasons for purchasing products is due to the social cause. This also shows that people are passionate on helping the marginalized people in the society. With that said, the main problem is how are we able to raise more awareness on social enterprises? Rome was not built overnight, thus I believe that through bit by bit advertising, campaigns and etc, social enterprises are definitely able to catch the attention of Singaporeans.

Will a day come whereby social enterprises are now the "norms" for the society where everyone fully understands the social cause of the different social enterprises and aim towards a common goal? For all I know, if no one starts the initiative, this dream might be as good as gone.

Read the full article here : http://www.salt.org.sg/470/low-perception-of-social-enterprises/

Reference :

Yap, E. (2011, September 2). Low perception of social enterprises. Retrieved from https://www.salt.org.sg/470/low-perception-of-social-enterprises/