What is a social entrepreneur?

What is a social entrepreneur?

Social entrepreneurs are people who have noticed a need in their community or somewhere in the world, and have come up with a way of remedying that issue.

How did it start?

The first time that the term "Social Entrepreneurship was used was in the 1960's and 1970's to express the need of social change.The term became more popular in the 1980's and 1990's promoted by Bill Dayton, who was the founder of Ashoka:Innovators for the Public, and others. From the 1950's to the 1990's Micheal Young was the leading promoter of social enterprise. Though a lot of these situations have been more recent, social entrepreneurship has been going on throughout history. Florence Nightingale founded the first nursing school and she also developed many modern day nursing practices. Vinoba Bhave founded India's Land Gift Movement.

How does Social Entrepreneurship work?

Social Entrepreneurship works in the way of trying to raise money and awareness for a certain cause or issue. The social entrepreneur only quest is to raise awareness or money for their cause. They can do this by selling items, creating presentations for different locations, or even just making a website. People who hear or know about the cause are usually welcome to help out the cause by using their own method to help raise awareness and money for the cause as well.

Examples of Social Entrepreneurship

Anita Ahuja founded the Conserve India company. Through this organization, Anita has addressed the problems with sanitation, water, and unemployment. She creates different products out of the plastic waste in India. In her business, she sells items such as purses and wallets.Her business began as a fledgling recycling project, but soon after starting the project, they faced a huge issue. What do you do with the thousands of plastic bags that could not be recycled or composted locally? They began to create wallets, bags, shoes, and belts with this product. As the business continued on, they began to use other items, such as older car seat belts, denim, and rubber tubes for their products. As of now, this company is employing hundreds of India's people in more disadvantaged areas to clear out the areas of this waste.Once they sell these products, the profit goes back to the communities to create education and welfare programs. This business is currently thriving, and helping many hundreds of people while doing so.
Yehudah Paz created a mission for the middle east, called NISPED, which started with him noticing all of the training, resource and support limits that these areas have. He decided to base his movement to not to use the typical "foreign aid" like so many western organizations, but to come in and combine outside expertise with local norms and wisdom.This way, there is no issue with modernizing the area, because he is doing gradually, with the help of tradition. This helps him to be non-threatening, comprehensive, and effective.