Changemakers

First day

Our class started on 27 June 2009 and will go on until October but I won’t be here for all of it. It is a laboratory course on social entrepreneurship that meets weekly on Saturday afternoons for three hours. Approximately 20 of us sit around tables arranged in a U, a format I always favour because it is ideal for discussion. We have a comfortable, well-lit and air-conditioned room. I share pens with and sit next to my mother who is the one with a strong vision for change in our province of Bicol, Philippines which we'll hear about soon. Our first class also started on a more emotional note that I had expected, thanks to our professor, Arnel Casanova. Soon after introductions we all realised the room was filled with likeminded, ideal and hot people! Yes, hot. We were all burning with a passion to make things happen! Three successful students from the previous year shared their insight and spread yet even more enthusiasm throughout the room.

Big words

I expect a lot from this class and my interaction with it given that I only have until the end of August. With an emphasis on business and logistics, I know that I am starting at zero. My understanding of Social Entrepreneurship is so romantic and therefore very young and soft. I want to know the ugly, tough side. I want to know why it's still a growing thing, what battles it fought and are currently fighting, who its enemies are and how to negotiate if not befriend them.

The first reading material is a book with a very straight-forward title : How to Change the World by David Bornstein. ‘Ok...right...’, thought I, ‘this is a big one’. We’re on the right track. I’m going through it slowly and although it is easy reading, I stop at every other page to look up new vocabulary like ‘artesian’ and ‘microcredit’. Those words triggered questions. I found myself flipping through my pocketsize Oxford and then getting a vague but quick understanding on how wells work through Wikipedia and reading all about the Grameen Bank thanks to Google. Despite it being a very distracting a slow process, it’s exciting! Hey, that’s why I’m here. Just watch: this blog will become a glossary for the ABCs I missed out on! I think this will be a step in solidifying my understanding of Social Entrepreneurship.

As I’m reading this in bed, this is a book that does not allow me to slouch. I want to sit up straight, wake up early the next day and needless to say, change the world after having your breakfast.

Notice how in the last paragraph Social Entrepreneurship is capitalised. (I wonder how many times I will write Social Entrepreneurship/ Entrepreneur/ Enterprise in this blog, lets call it all SE.) WHAT IS IT??? Here are some definitions:

Social Entrepreneurship

• Is an activity or starting a business to solve a social problem
  – A. Casanova on our first day of class

• Social entrepreneurs are individuals with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social problems. They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major social issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change.
  – Ashoka

• Is a form of leadership that maximizes the social return on public service efforts while fundamentally and permanently changing the way problems are addressed on a global scale. Social Entrepreneurs employ a wide variety of creative approaches and practices from diverse academic backgrounds, artistic disciplines, and professional sectors in order to develop and implement pattern-breaking solutions for previously intractable social problems in ways that are sustainable and scalable to a larger population.
  – Reynolds Program in SE, NYU

And if you really want to get into it and see other facets, try this article :

• Why defining ‘Social Entrepreneur’ is a waste of time
  – Chubbybrain.com

• Hopefully, is not just another fad
  – Me

IT'S HAPPENING
but it already started...

Before I even knew what a SE was, I spent the summers of my high school years with passionate idealists. For three years I have been attending Peace and Conflict Resolution Workshops for Youth in Asia during the summer for about a month. The prevalent quote was Mahatma Gandhi’s: ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’. These workshops took place in Dharamsala (India), Mindoro (Philippines) and Godavari (Nepal). Imagine small, personal groups of about 35 diverse individuals from the host countries and an international selection of youth. Participants included, but were not limited to, leaders in their communities in rural Mindanao (Philippines), an artist, a chairman of a young NGO in Nepal, high school teachers, a self-deemed Tibetan activist and European students. During discussions we found creative ways to share information and sat in circles on plastic chairs, on the mats of a classroom floor or amongst huge rocks by a refreshing river. We were classmates and roommates. We shared dreams, big dreams. We had conversations that resonate with me until this day. I only realise now that I spent these summers with people all driven by the same spirit of a social entrepreneur. A name I prefer that fits both my workshop friends and current classmates is a name our professor addresses us by and that is: Changemaker.