Current State of Affairs

In developing regions, young people represent a significant share of the population – almost half of Asia is made up of young people, more than 40 percent of Latin America is under the age of 30 and approximately 30 percent of Africa consists of young people. The role that young people play in a rapidly globalizing world is being scrutinized, because their collective decisions determine the future of mankind. Young people are keen to offer fresh problem-solving ideas to address social and environmental challenges. However, their efforts remain obscure and ineffective because of their limited access to opportunities. In addition, society commonly perceives young people as brash misfits who belong to a consumerist, fast-food and myopic culture.

Young people are trapped in a vicious circle of not being able to effectively bring about social change as they are limited to take on positions as volunteers, interns and community service workers. Moreover, with ‘NGOs’ or ‘CSOs’ being perceived as organizations that are commonly irrationally radical and uncompromising, being associated with these organizations is perceived as ‘uncool’. Worse still, these jobs are badly paid. In Asia, where family influence is still paramount, it is extremely rare for families to encourage their offspring to join the development sector because of the lack of growth opportunities, low pay and the little social recognition that it offers. As a result, development as a profession ranks much lower for young people than joining the private sector or government.

Social Entrepreneurship – The Remedy

Can the creative energy of youth be productively directed to support development? The answer lies with young people embracing social entrepreneurship. Although still considered by many as an anomaly in the system, the movement of social entrepreneurship is sweeping the globe and gaining recognition as an innovative, highly impacting and sustainable approach to achieve equitable and sustainable development objectives. The future impact of the movement lies with youth and if it is to bring increased effectiveness and innovation to conventional development, the most dynamic young people must embrace it.

Young people understand the concept of social entrepreneurship almost immediately. They can easily relate to the engagement, passion and energy (all part of youth DNA) that social entrepreneurs commonly possess. Successful social entrepreneurs’ show what development professionalism can mean. These people are passionate, dynamic, efficient and innovative, and eager to make a difference in the world. Repeatedly, they have proven that small things do matter and can become socially significant while generating a fair amount of personal income. They provide models that show capable young people social entrepreneurship can offer a viable career that provides both social and economic returns.

Youth social enterprises led by young visionaries are a nascent force. Although small in numbers, the impact achieved by these enterprises on the ground has been quite impressive. Digital Divide Data (DDD) is aimed at improving the lives of underprivileged youth in Cambodia. It creates non-profit data entry outsourcing centres that hire disadvantaged young people at wages far above local standards. The centres not only provide vocational training and job opportunities, but also scholarships for employees to complete their education, health benefits and a safer working environment. DDD became financially sustainable in only nine months and has to date earned six-figure revenues.

Meal Exchange is a social enterprise that aims to solve hunger in Canada. It has developed an innovative program by which students are able to transform unused meal plan points into groceries, which they can then deliver to local community organizations and food banks. Meal Exchange is run as a franchise, and up to 45 post-secondary and five secondary educational institutions across Canada have a Meal Exchange Chapter. It is estimated that in the year 2003 alone, over $260,000 worth of food was donated to community organizations.

Another youth initiative is Bangkok-based TRN which focuses on developing, refining and marketing grassroots innovations with the use of ICTs to cost-effectively empower rural communities across the northeast of Thailand. Working in partnership with rural communities, its agro project attempts to synergize traditional grassroots knowledge and scientific knowledge to solve local problems in relations to sustainable agriculture. The lives of local farmers have been improved through by the enhancement of their food security and real income. As a result, these farmers have become role models for thousands of others.

Enabling Environments for Growth

The emergence of the technopreneur in the early 90s – Silicon Valley type entrepreneurs - led to the birth of the information economy which revolutionized modern-day business. In a similar fashion, it is hoped the emergence of young social entrepreneurs equipped with innovative solutions, impetuous energy and even impatience will lead to revolutionary improvements for global development. The creation of enabling environments to support the growth of capable young social entrepreneurs will structurally harness their creative potential.

The Youth Social Enterprise Initiative (YSEI) is a recent multi-stakeholder initiative of the Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP), developed collaboratively with its members - TRN, Mitra and OrphanIT. YSEI is seen as a world’s first to identify and provide comprehensive support to young visionaries between the ages of 17 to 30 who aspire to become successful social entrepreneurs. The program recognizes that successful social entrepreneurship requires not only a great idea, but access to the right resources such as knowledge, mentorship, networks and start-up financing that can take that idea to scale.

Another similar initiative is Ashoka’s Youth Venture that helps to empower young people ages 12-20 by providing them with the tools necessary to create civic-minded organizations, clubs or businesses. A Venture can be any youth-created, youth-led organization designed to provide a positive lasting benefit in a school, neighborhood, or large community.

Towards a Self-Sustaining Movement

What we envisage is a self-sustaining process. Young social entrepreneurs’ networks will be catalyzed by the diffusion of information on youth-tailored social entrepreneurship, and the relationship of young social entrepreneurs with each other through the networks will make them more effective in terms of both resource mobilization and impact. Once more and more talented young people are attracted and begin new social enterprises, their interactions with each other through the networks will generate new feedback, making the networks more effective and so more attractive to new social entrepreneurs. They will evolve without central control and will facilitate the development of a youth social entrepreneurs’ movement.

These networks will provide the opportunity for every young person driven to change the world. Because of the supportive environment they provide, social entrepreneurship for the young will become possible. It may also become desirable. If this happens, then the vision of social entrepreneurship as a global movement might become a reality. Who can say what the implications of this would be for the survival of the human race?

 

This article was developed collaboratively with Sailendra Dev Appanah.