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Built to Scale? Growing Pains Hit Cambodia’s Businesses for Good
With the ‘Markle Sparkle’, the little-known business - which employs survivors of human trafficking and other vulnerable women to make ethically sourced, environmentally friendly jeans - exploded. However, the spotlight also created a dilemma for the young social enterprise - or business using profits for good.
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- Region
- Asia Pacific
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- human rights, scale
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A social enterprise in Kerala combines sustainability and women’s empowerment
Does it come as a surprise that the six yard wonder, the sari (a version of cloth) is one of the largest polluters of Vembanad lake, along with plastic? Social entrepreneur Sanju Soman, one of the people behind Bhava, a social enterprise that upcycles saris and cloth explains, “Cloth usually escapes attention as a pollutant due to the constant spotlight on plastic. It is as bad, and one of the largest pollutants taking years to disintegrate, ending up as landfill or in water bodies. A cotton bag is not very much better than a plastic bag, it also leaves a footprint in water, like here in the Vembanad lake. Plastic bags came as alternatives to paper bags, for which trees were cut. We started using more of it, less of paper bags and single use plastic became the problem it is today.”
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- Uncategorized
- Region
- South Asia
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Perspective: Become Local Change Makers Through Social Entrepreneurship
Ikigai is a Japanese concept meaning ‘a reason for being’, which is roughly translated to ‘thing that you live for’ in English. Each individual’s Ikigai is personal and specific to their lives, values and beliefs. A social entrepreneur’s Ikigai is to bring systems change and/or mindset change with innovative solutions to society’s most pressing social, cultural, and environmental challenges. From deep within, he/she is committed to the good of all. They are ambitious and persistent — tackling major issues and offering new ideas for systems-level change. Moreover, social entrepreneurs are not trying to ‘capture a market’. They make their ideas as simple and as safe as possible so that people in thousands of different communities will seize the idea and become local change makers.
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Perspective: The Trillion-Dollar Opportunity in Supporting Female Entrepreneurs
There is much discussion and debate about how to support female entrepreneurs — and rightly so. Currently, women-led businesses are less likely to survive, despite evidence that their startups are often highly successful. New analysis by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) shows that if women and men around the world participated equally as entrepreneurs, global GDP could ultimately rise by approximately 3% to 6%, boosting the global economy by $2.5 trillion to $5 trillion. So how do we support female entrepreneurs?
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Navigating the Informal Economy Is Vital for Africa’s Rural Youth: How Do We Help Them Do That?
Growing the formal employment sector is vital to the long-term health of African economies, but it’s not generating jobs fast enough for young people just entering the workforce. A partnership between the Mastercard Foundation and TechnoServe has provided training and mentorship to nearly 69,000 young people across rural Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda by helping them navigate existing opportunities in the informal sector. Chris Donohue at TechnoServe shares how helping young people build multiple sources of income is creating meaningful change in their lives.
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- Uncategorized
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Doing good found to take its toll as more social entrepreneurs report burnout
Passionate and dedicated to the cause, businesses leaders on a mission to help society and the environment are increasingly coming up against an unexpected hurdle - burnout. Globally social entrepreneurship is on the rise, with more businesses being set up with the aim of making a profit that can be used to address problems like unemployment, homelessness, mental health, knife crime and even loneliness.
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- Uncategorized
- Tags
- employment
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Political jitters drive U.S. to biggest fall in global social entrepreneurs poll
Opportunities to build businesses with a mission to do good in the United States have plummeted since 2016 due largely to a decline in government support, according to the second global poll on the best countries for social entrepreneurs on Tuesday. The United States fell the most out of 45 countries in the Thomson Reuters Foundation survey of about 900 social enterprise experts, diving to 32nd place from the top ranking in the inaugural survey three years ago. The poll found the United States fell the most of all nations when respondents were asked if government policy supported social entrepreneurs, and came last in a combined ranking about women’s leading role in running such businesses.
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- Uncategorized
- Tags
- research
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Inclusive Fintech in Practice: Chipper Cash Illustrates Three Keys to Tackling Cross-Border Payments in Africa
Though the mobile money revolution has reshaped East Africa, only around 8% of the region's residents actively send or receive payments across borders. Akansha Kasera at BFA’s Catalyst Fund discusses how Chipper Cash is addressing the need for cross-border transactions through a simple, affordable payments platform. She breaks down what's driving the platform's rapid growth – and what other providers can learn from it.
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- Uncategorized
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