Curriculum for Social
Entrepreneurship Here is an outline of the first DVD on social entrepreneurship from Ashoka Foundation.
LESSON ONE OUTLINE ( the DVD video is 40 minutes)
New Way of Thinking and Changing the World – social
entrepreneurship
The Bonsai Tree Story by Muhammad Yunus – People are stunted
by society. Poverty is caused by the system. Poor people are not the
problem. Muhammad Yunus wants to change the system because people are capable
but just stunted by bad systems.
Why Micro Credit? – TO get a dollar you need a dollar the
problem is that poor people need money to start so they go to money lender and
pay 20% per day and become a slave. The system does not allow poor people to
borrow. Muhammad Yunus says credit should be a human right. He says that all
rights flow out of making money so the right to credit should be first on the list
of human rights then the right to food and shelter will follow.
Why Women? – Muhammad Yunus says that in many countries woman can not work, the system ignores woman.
However woman are more responsible than men. If woman make money they give more to their family and they are cautious, long term and
concerned about children.
Grameens Impact – 5 % of Grameen borrowers get out of poverty each year. This means their
kids are in school and they are fulling the other 9 criteria to be consider out of
poverty. Muhammad Yunus suggest a 10 point poverty check list – good housing, children
staying in school, savings deposits for emergency, sanitary latrine, good
drinking water etc. Grameen micro credit
works as evidence by 66% of those involved have
moved out of poverty.
Grameen Enterprises - Grameen is involved in other enterprises because they took over from inefficient government fisheries, solar energy and more. They are
moving into health care and other areas. Grameen businesses are for the poor, the poor
benefit and even own part of the company.
Going Global – As micro loans succeed people from around the world were curious
because Grameen was lending money and
getting it back! As the result they set
up Grameen Trust to replicate the process to help others get micro lending
going in other countries. This trust now provides seed money, training, workshop
and a newsletter. They have help 100 counties around the world start micro
credit lending programs.
Millennium Development Goals- Muhammad Yunus supports the Millennium Development Goals 2015. Grameen organized the
1997 Micro Credit Summit to mobilize others to show off micro credit. They wanted to change the mindset
of people including governments, lenders
and organizations who did not believe or understand that micro credit works. At this time they set
a goal 100 million micro loans and they almost reached it in 2005 in spite of
lack of structures and support. Yunas says micro credit is the key to reaching
the Millennium goals – He says the prosperity
of a country does not trickle down to help the poor. They need micro credit to
help them benefit along with the rest of the population. It allows them to
enter the prospering economy.
A New Kind of Capitalism – The problem in the past has been
a narrow interpretation of capitalism limiting the potential of
capitalism -the poor have been left out. Some companies defined captitalism to include helping people and when they do many problems get solved. Social business entrepreneurs
can make money and cover costs and at the same time help the poor. It is not a
charity but a business and is therefore self sustaining.
Government Providing the Legal Framework – The government has
to play the most important role. The
government does not deliver micro credit but should create a favorable environment
and make it easy for entities to give loans. They have restricted lending and
hurt micro credit. This has to be changed. Governments must allow micro credit
banks. The most important role for the
government it to create the environment for micro credit.
The Value of Wholesale
Funds – Intermediary non government entities must be able to get money and pass it on to micro
lender so that micro lenders don’t have to spend 80% of their
time finding money. Wholesale intermediary makes it much faster and easier to
get micro credit going. The government must set up the legal framework for
wholesale funds.
The United Nations - They can tell stories of success but
don’t expect them to get involved. They can do documentation and collect
information but not implement micro credit. They need to provide good
information as a way of measure success and setting goals and achieving.
The World Bank – They didn’t go very far and not 1% goes to
micro credit. Their involvement is often academic perhaps because they work
with donors so the actual work does not happen much. They have lost touch with the
ground realities of micro credit.
Global Task Local Focus – This problem of poverty is not the task
of government or one entity but everyone should be involved. The task must be
defined to be able to set goals and achieve. This is a human effort and not a
money effort. It requires real work at the person to person level. It
requires setting goals and measure month to month
The Role of Citizens – People must feel it is important
to achieve millennium goals. It must be real rather than PowerPoint presentations. People need to be involved and create pressure and
action groups.
Thinking Ahead - The speed of change is accelerating so where will we end up? We must image then we can create. We need to imagine a poverty
museum so our grand children can see what poverty was like. They will hate their predecessors
for tolerating human conditions like this.
Conclusion - We did something wrong and poverty
is here so lets do something right.
Recent Comments