Inservice Teacher Training

Social Entrepreneurship

Posted on | June 11, 2010 | 3 Comments

Noshin Rabia is MKFC teacher training student and working as primary school teacher. Here comes her thoughts about social entrepreneurship and how she promotes this approach in her kindergarten students.

”As a kindergarten teacher I made two projects for my learners to develop their Social Entrepreneurship with the help of ICT.

1) Game of Computer

2) Child and Business”

Social entrepreneurs are passionate, smart and motivated – just like entrepreneurs in the for-profit sector – but they apply their energies to solving intractable social problems. 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.

Rather than leaving societal needs to the government or business sectors, social entrepreneurs find what is not working and solve the problem by changing the system, spreading the solution, and persuading entire societies to take new leaps. Over the past two decades, the citizen sector has discovered what the business sector learned long ago: There is nothing as powerful as a new idea in the hands of a first-class entrepreneur.
Why “Social” Entrepreneur?

Just as entrepreneurs change the face of business, social entrepreneurs act as the change agents for society, seizing opportunities others miss and improving systems, inventing new approaches, and creating solutions to change society for the better. While a business entrepreneur might create entirely new industries, a social entrepreneur comes up with new solutions to social problems and then implements them on a large scale.
Historical Examples of Leading Social Entrepreneurs:

* Susan B. Anthony (U.S.): Fought for Women’s Rights in the United States, including the right to control property and helped spearhead adoption of the 19th amendment.
* Vinoba Bhave (India): Founder and leader of the Land Gift Movement, he caused the redistribution of more than 7,000,000 acres of land to aid India’s untouchables and landless.
* Dr. Maria Montessori (Italy): Developed the Montessori approach to early childhood education.
* Florence Nightingale (U.K.): Founder of modern nursing, she established the first school for nurses and fought to improve hospital conditions.
* Margaret Sanger (U.S.): Founder of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, she led the movement for family planning efforts around the world.
* John Muir (U.S.): Naturalist and conservationist, he established the National Park System and helped found The Sierra Club.

As a kindergarten teacher I made two projects for my learners to develop their Social Entrepreneurship with the help of ICT.

1) Game of Computer

2) Child and Business

Game of Computer The game developed and introduced with a pedagogical focus on developing critical thinking, problem solving and creativity skills among students. Online gaming in education is one of the ways to capture and achieve students’ attention, afford new ways to utilize computers rather than just as an information provider, and provide students with opportunities to simulate solutions to real world problems. Computer games have the potential to create a new learning culture that corresponds better with student’s needs, habits and interests. The game will support students to collaborate on social entrepreneurial activities in disadvantaged communities and will assist students to identify community challenges and then develop sustainable ideas and “enterprises” to address these challenges. The game will also provide a mechanism for identifying those innovations and ideas which could be further supported through component two – the social innovation fund and incubation.

Here in Gulf Countries children are not well aware with the use of ICT and internet. Even they don’t know the exact use of Computers. Because parents are not allowed their children to use the computers or laptops. That’s why I made this plan for my learners to get them idea to the use of Social Entrepreneurship and use of Computers and ICT. I had two Computers at school that was not properly working and just useless

First I put both computers in Activity Room for learner’s where they can use that easily, The learners who don’t know the basics, like Key board, Monitor, Mouse , CPU etc. when they were using that freely without any guidance. After two week, all children know all the basics about computer with the help of their peer group and their knowledge from TV etc. They all were using very well even that machine was not working properly. All were helping each other in gaining their information and understanding with computers. We take a small test to check their knowledge in the end they had enough knowledge.My learners demand new and working machine, they want to learn more about that. . They are ambitious and persistent, tackling major issues and offering new ideas for wide-scale change. Each social entrepreneur presents ideas that are user-friendly, understandable, ethical, and engage widespread support in order to maximize the number of local people that will stand up, seize their idea, and implement with it. In other words, every leading social entrepreneur is a mass recruiter of local change makers—a role model proving that citizens who channel their passion into action can do almost anything.

CHILD AND BUSINESS

We at school arrange a small seminar for parents how they can develop their children business skills. Some points from that semiar:

INTERESTS AND SKILLS It is important to start a business based on the skills and interests of your child. For example, if he or she likes to entertain, then they should consider an entertainment based business, such as a clown at younger kid’s birthday parties. If they like to use computers, they might consider a business typing or creating documents for others.

BUSINESS PLAN – SETTING REALISTIC GOALS Every new business should start with a business plan. What are the objectives of the business? The business should have a mission statement explaining what the business is trying to accomplish. Also, the goals should be realistic. How will your child make money? What will be the costs? How much time will be needed? Will the business interfere with other aspects of his or her life, such as school, or after school activities?

PREPARATION What skills will be necessary for the business? Does your child have these skills? If not, what type of training might be required? Information on learning different skills may be found on the internet, or at your local library. Friends and family are also a great resource. If possible, study the business from others who have done something similar.

SAFETY Safety should always be the top priority, so your child should check with you regarding any businesses they are considering. This also includes always knowing where your child will be. For example, businesses where your child needs to go door to door in unfamiliar neighborhoods should be avoided. Children should also stick to age appropriate activities.

START SMALL Kids should not try to do everything from the start. Start small and have the child test the business on a few potential clients. Then check the results, and adjust the strategy if necessary.

MARKETING Your child will likely need to do some form of advertising for the business. Handing out flyers to prospective customers is one way to advertise. Mom and Dad may also know people who are prospective customers. Word of mouth is a great form of advertisement. If your child does a great job, others will find out and seek them out.

FINANCIALS Is the business making a profit? They will need to understand that the business must make a profit at some point, unless the strategy is a charitable one. Remember, revenues minus expenses equals’ profit.

EVALUATION So how is the business going? Is it making a profit? Is it matching the goals set in the business plan? Is the profit worth the time and effort involved in running the business? Is it taking away from studying? These are all questions that must be regularly be asked.

ENCOURAGEMENT Finally, is sure to give your child lots of encouragement as they begin their business. Remind them that lots of very successful businesses were created by people that failed their first few times. No matter what, learning new experiences, such as starting a business, will help prepare them for the future.

Some other ideas for Social Entrepreneurship

Airtime Donations This operation would allow people to opt-in to a donation program where instead of their unused airtime minutes getting rolled over into more airtime, the collective minutes would be tallied, given a monetary value and used as a seed fund for African entrepreneurs or charities (although I’d prefer the first). This would require relationships with mobile carriers around the world who would then ask their customers if they want their unused airtime donated at the end of the month.

Solar, Solar, Solar Doing anything with solar energy has always been a popular idea for Pakistan. As the costs of producing solar cells drops, look for ways to partner with manufacturers of things like cell phones and laptops. Another unconventional idea would be to partner with satellite dish manufacturers to power dishes for their customers which are already placed outside on the roof of their homes. Double bottom-line cleantech!

Low cost alternative energy Automobiles who killed the Electric Car? Not Pakistan, while electricity is still a problem here, alternative energies would go a long way towards cleaning up the air and reducing respiratory illness in Pakistan cities. India’s had some success with a wind powered vehicle, perhaps instead on importing cheap Toyota’s someone should consider importing these vehicles.

Book Recycling There’s a ridiculous amount of books being printed and thrown away in America and Europe. The idea here is to import them and redistribute them to places like Pakistani schools and book stores.

Creative Commons to Print The amount of words published each day electronically through things like blogging, email, newsletters and wiki’s is more than the amount of words printed each year by book and magazine publishers. There should be a way to harness all this mental activity and human energy so that we aren’t repeating ourselves. There should also be an easy way to get that information to people without computers. Writers would opt-in to have their works licensed through something like the Creative Commons, and then a publisher would filter through all that content and print magazines that were 100% crowd-sourced. This would allow the publisher to keep a very small staff of editors. Like all magazines, this would be ad subsidized and the revues would be shared with the writers. For good measure, the magazines would be printed on recyclable/biodegradable paper. Of course, all the content would also be available online.

Ultimately, social entrepreneurs are driven to produce measurable returns. These results transform existing realities, open up new pathways for the marginalized and disadvantaged, and unlock society’s potential to effect social change.

Category: Teacher training
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Comments

3 Responses to “Social Entrepreneurship”

  1. rabia
    June 20th, 2010 @ 12:18 pm

    you have done inspirational work.

  2. alamdar
    June 23rd, 2010 @ 10:01 am

    Thanks Rabia,

    Hope one day you are also gonna be part of this teacher training experience. Noshin always been a good student with her new innovative ideas.

  3. Alamdar
    June 24th, 2010 @ 10:26 am

    Hi Rabia,

    Good to know that you are active in following this blog. I hope you will find it interesting, helpful and inspirational for your work as well. Keep looking this blog and also try to comment on each other posts.

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