“There are tea garden workers in the Sylhet region who would work for wages as low as Tk69 per day and there is only one earning member in each family. And, during each ‘off-season,’ all the families go through tough times since the sole earning member is unemployed during this period. My project aims to empower them by creating employment opportunities, simply by financing them initially to produce paper bags, which are economical to produce and also has a good market price,” said Saiful Islam. A student of Shahjalal University of Science and Technology, Saiful was among 24 others who participated in a boot camp titled, “Innovate, Incubate and Grow (IIG): A Social Enterprise Support Programme.”
The social entrepreneurship boot camp was launched by British Council Bangladesh, in partnership with ChangeMaker, from February 11-15 at CCDB Hope centre Savar, Dhaka.
In response to the call to submit social enterprise ideas, 24 short-listed participants with nine innovative social enterprise ideas participated in the programme. The boot camp lasted five days, in which the participants underwent intensive training in social enterprise delivered by experts from the UK. This training contributed to enhancing their skills and developing their business plans before a final pitching session in front of a panel of judges. International facilitator,Roy Clunie of Social Enterprise Academy, UK facilitated the camp along with other Bangladeshi facilitators and social entrepreneurs.
Innovate, Incubate and Grow is a distinct social enterprise support programme designed to enhance entrepreneurial knowledge and skills in order to solve social and environmental problems with a sustainable business model. The competition aimed to develop the capacity of young and potential social entrepreneurs by raising awareness and understanding of social enterprise. The objective was to equip the participants with the knowledge of harnessing the immense possibilities of social enterprise that can substantially contribute towards opportunities for inclusive and sustainable economic models, focusing on social impact as well as financial returns.
“Within the five days of the programme, we wanted to ensure that the participants understand what a social enterprise is, what the business model of one looks like, the differences between a social enterprise and a private/public sector firm, NGOs, its key characteristics and so on. They need to recognise that a social enterprise starts from a need in the community, it is established for a specific social environment and the cultural and social impacts that it can make, as well as improvements to the community and the environment. As opposed to the model of a private firm, the objective of which is to generate profits,” said Roy Clunie, the chief facilitator. He added, “we have been teasing out of them the things they need in order to establish a social enterprise. We provided a brief course on leadership skills where they learn about the characteristics they need to develop to become a leader and how to manage a team to assist. The participants also received training on how to run such an organisation with emphasis on how to finance and generate income, so that they are successful in making their social idea come to life and make it sustainable.”
Sharing his thoughts about the idea of social enterprise, Clunie said, “there is a danger that we think that the concept is new. The terminology varies from country to country, some call it ‘social entrepreneurship,’ some ‘social innovation.’ Each country has its own definition. For instance in Bangladesh, co-operatives, mutual associations, community based organisations and some NGOs are actually now moving into social enterprise. These organisations already do social welfare, some of them are already trading and generating income. Social enterprise is not a legal term, its more of a movement, a new way of doing things and Bangladesh will come up with its own description. However, it needs to come up with different legal structures. For example, in the UK, one has the option to become a community interest company, or a charitable organisation, one that is different from a private limited company.”
Clunie points out, “what’s really interesting is that in both Bangladesh and Pakistan, social enterprises are being introduced in the university level, and they are probably leading the way in that field – that has not happened in the UK or in other Western countries. The students have the passion in making changes and impacting the community. It is a privilege to be here and to be a part of that journey.”