l i a r T s r e z bla
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Make your mark
Change lives
This magazine was developed in partnership by the Office of the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office, Enterprise Insight and the Social Enterprise Coalition. It was produced by Social Enterprise magazine.
contents
Editor: Tim West Publisher: Kath Acres Design: Glock Design, www.glock-uk.com
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Welcome by guest editor Tom Savage
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A new approach for a changing world
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Where to get information and advice
For enquiries about Social Enterprise magazine, please see our website: www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk or email us at news@socialenterprisemag.co.uk
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Making water work: Durham school pupils get down to business
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Bringing social enterprise to the catwalk
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Trailblazer interview: ethical fashion designers Holly Berry and Emma Triplett
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Cosmic takeover: when students took charge at a social business in Devon
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Innocent fun with ethical impact: interview with Innocent drinks co-founder Adam Balon
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Hidden depths: finding a different kind of treasure at the bottom of the Indian Ocean
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All aboard the starship social enterprise: a day in the life of the third sector minister
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A minister on the right track: interview with Cabinet Office minister Ed Miliband
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Heaven’s kitchen? Meet the latest trainees at Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen
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A winning team: social goals galore at AFC Telford
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Putting trust in young entrepreneurs: why The Prince’s Trust is backing social enterprise
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Trailblazer profile: music entrepreneurs Eva Horne and Jessica Farrar are making dreams come true
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Going to extremes: social entrepreneurs get active and inspired on a trip to Cornwall
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Trailblazer interview: Hayzel Khokhar’s business is helping families develop a healthier lifestyle
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Trailblazer interview: Sara Hughes gave up a successful corporate career to join the social enterprise sector
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Boffins with a mission: applying science for a social purpose
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Trailblazer interview: Ian Anderson broke his neck then built a business out of ‘wearable computers’
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Trailblazer interview: Amy Carter, young social entrepreneur of the year, and pioneer for ethical holidays
socialenterprise
A free pdf of Trailblazers is available for download from the Social Enterprise magazine website: www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk The pdf will also be available from the Cabinet Office website at: www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/thirdsector, where you can find more information on the Government’s policies on the third sector and social enterprise. A limited number of copies of Trailblazers are available for organisations working with young people who are interested in social enterprise. If you are interested in copies please email: trailblazers@socialenterprisemag.co.uk A special DVD has been created by Enterprise Insight featuring several inspiring young social entrepreneurs. For information on this, email: dvd@enterpriseinsight.co.uk
Trailblazers
hot fact. There are more than 50,000 social enterprises across the UK, ranging from village shops to multi-million pound recycling businesses; running everything from community-owned pubs to school buses, and from concert halls to dental surgeries. Social enterprises have a combined annual turnover of around £27 billion and represent about 5% of all businesses with employees.
welcome by guest editor tom savage
Welcome to Trailblazers, a magazine that sets out to inspire the next generation of social entrepreneurs. From Mozambique to Melmerby, you’re about to read an incredible selection of stories to showcase a burgeoning movement that’s attracting more and more young people. ‘Social enterprise’ as a term doesn’t mean all that much to many of us, but you will have heard of many of them, such as Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, the Eden Project or the Big Issue. Whether you’re into fashion, like El Laskar (page 8-10), music like Eve and Jessica (page 25), or sport like AFC Telford United (page 22), there are more and more exciting opportunities out there. As Cherry Read explains in her article (pages 4 and 5), success to many no
longer just means making money but also changing people’s lives – and this is why Social Enterprise Day on 16 November marks the launch of the Make Your Mark: Change Lives, an ongoing campaign to help young people find out more about how they can get involved (website www.makeyourmark-changelives.org). We hope that perhaps one day a millionaire will not just be someone who has made a million pounds but someone who has changed a million lives! The day also sees the launch of a new idea called Make Your Mark with a Tenner, an exciting competition in which 10,000 students will be given a month to see how much money they can make with only £10. All that we ask of participants is that they think
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about the social or environmental benefit that their activity has. If you’d like to get involved, email me at tom@enterpriseinsight.co.uk for more information. If you’d like to hear about some more stories, we’ve also produced a DVD where you can see some of these people in action; please email dvd@enterpriseinsight. co.uk with your name, address and the number of copies of the DVD you would like and we’ll get some out to you. We’re all doing what we do because we love what we do... and we need more and more young people to come and join us! Tom Savage is founder of Blue Ventures and social enterprise campaigner at Enterprise Insight.
We hope that perhaps one day a millionaire will not just be someone who has made a million pounds but someone who has changed a million lives! tom savage
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Make your mark
Change lives
A new approach for a changing world
Where to get information and advice If you are interested in learning more about social enterprises then take a look at the Social Enterprise Coalition’s website: www.socialenterprise.org.uk. Here you will be able to find a lot more information and case studies on the sector. There is also lots more information on Social Enterprise Day and on the ongoing Make Your Mark: Change Lives campaign, at www.makeyourmark-changelives.org. Wide ranging advice to all businesses, including social enterprises, can be found on the award winning Business Link website www.businesslink.gov.uk. Search the site for ‘social enterprise’ and find specific information about things to consider when setting up a social enterprise. The site also includes links to further sources of advice and help, including websites and materials developed by the social enterprise sector. For further information on help setting up social enterprises, whether it’s advice, courses or start-up grants you’re after, try the following sites:
From football clubs to Nobel Laureates, you’re more likely to come across social enterprise than you might think. It’s about big challenges – but great opportunities too, says Cherry Read from the Social Enterprise Coalition
Everyone reaches the stage in their education where they start thinking seriously about their job prospects, and choosing a career is rarely an easy decision. Many young people want to do their own thing rather than work for someone else; they also want to make a difference. Gone are the days when the brightest students wanted a career pushing paper around for 40 odd years, or were only interested in fame or fortune; nowadays young people are more likely to be motivated to use their energy and creativity to help others. So what are the options for someone who wants to use their intelligence and skills to help solve some of the big issues facing the world today? Well, you could work for a charity, try to find a business you believe in, or go and work in the public sector. But if none of these quite grabs you, there is another approach that brings together the best of all these worlds: social enterprise. Everyone is familiar with the work that charities, businesses and government agencies do, but social enterprise is not yet as widely known. However, we have all come across a social enterprise in one way or another – for example, Jamie Oliver’s Trailblazers
restaurant ‘Fifteen’ which had its own TV show documenting the progress of a group of young unemployed people learning to become professional chefs, or ‘The Big Issue’, which enables homeless people to earn a living selling the magazine, or Cafédirect which, as a fair-trade business, helps farmers in poor countries to claim a fairer share of the profits from their labour. Most recently, the economist Muhammad Yunus (pictured, above right), one of the world’s great social entrepreneurs, has been in the headlines for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. He is founder of the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, which provides loans for people too poor to access traditional finance, in order to help them start up their own businesses and lift themselves and their communities out of poverty. Put simply, social enterprises are businesses trading for a social or environmental purpose. They are different from the traditional charity approach because, as businesses, they generate their own income and can break free from a reliance on grants and donations. Social enterprises take some of their inspiration from the private sector and aim to be
profitable, but instead of the profits ending up in the pockets of distant shareholders they are put to use in achieving their social or environmental aims. These aims might range from training disadvantaged teenagers in music skills or recycling office furniture through to forest management or community wind farms. In certain parts of the UK, you are more likely than not to have your household recycling picked up each week by a social enterprise, or to use a local swimming pool or fitness centre run by a leisure trust. In other areas, there may be a social enterprise running a care home, doctor’s practice or dentist’s surgery. As you will have gathered, the social enterprise sector is incredibly diverse, and includes a huge range of businesses. A rapidly changing world means that young social entrepreneurs have plenty of scope to come up with innovative ways of addressing problems that interest or affect them. In response to the damage caused by mass tourism Amy Carter founded Bespoke Experience (www.bespokeexperience. com), a fair-trade tourism company which sets up eco-resorts in areas of extreme poverty to empower the local community and environment. The company employs
and trains local workers, buys local products and works to ensure that a higher percentage of the holiday costs are kept in the host country. Closer to home, a growing number of supporter trusts have been set up by loyal fans dedicated to keeping local football clubs alive and rebuilding their links with the wider community. Without their work, clubs such as Lincoln or Chesterfield would have been unable to avoid bankruptcy, and by reinventing themselves as community hubs they have been able to generate extra revenue renting out their facilities and providing services like training and education on site. The diversity of the social enterprise sector and its openness to innovation are two of the main reasons why it’s proving to be a popular choice among young job seekers. The sector is able to accommodate whatever skills or interests you may have; what it asks for in return is that you use your creativity and energy to make a real difference. Working for a social enterprise guarantees you will be tired at the end of the day, but you will know that your work went some way to improving the world around you. n
Changemakers www.changemakers.org.uk Offers youth led learning programmes, grant schemes and volunteering initiatives which will help young people get more involved in their local community.
Prince’s Trust www.princes-trust.org.uk A charity that ‘helps young people overcome barriers and get their lives working’. The trust is developing a specific social enterprise support programme.
Unltd www.unltd.org.uk A charity which supports social entrepreneurs by offering funding opportunities.
National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship www.ncge.org.uk Aims to raise the profile of entrepreneurship and the option of starting your own business as a career choice amongst students and graduates.
School for Social Entrepreneurs www.sse.org.uk Provides training to enable young people to use their skills for social benefit. Judge Business School www.jbs.cam.ac.uk Offers a masters degree course in community enterprise. Young Entrepreneurs online www.youngentrepreneurs.co.uk Website designed to give advice to future entrepreneurs with a dedicated section on social enterprise.
Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship, Saïd Business School, Oxford University www.sbs.ox.ac.uk/skoll Aims to be the world’s leading academic institution for social entrepreneurship. Runs MBAs in social entrepreneurship and hosts the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship. Social Enterprise magazine www.socialenterprisemag.co.uk Monthly news magazine for social enterprises and social entrepreneurs.
Make your mark
Change lives
Making water work Photograph © Ian Jobson www.iandobson.co.uk
For school pupils in County Durham, taking action to help West African children get clean water didn’t just mean a bit of fundraising – but creating a whole new business. Louise Tickle went to meet them
It was finding out that schoolchildren in Ghana couldn’t get clean water, never mind a decent education, that started it all. When the Year 9 students at Fyndoune Community College discovered 18 months ago that their counterparts in the West African country had to walk miles to fetch filthy water before making their way to class, they decided they had to take action. From this, the idea of Water Works was born. “Selling water for water,” as Sandy Kaur Bassi, now aged 15, puts it. She was one of the original Water Works team who dreamt up the plan of Trailblazers
selling bottled water to fellow pupils to raise money for a freshwater borehole for Ghanaian schoolchildren. With research showing that good hydration made a difference to student learning, together with the inexorable roll of the healthy eating bandwagon, offering to sell bottled water in school seemed to make sense. Helped by their teacher Lynda Dixon, a group of 14 students then formed a social enterprise that swiftly took them on a steep learning curve. Initially they contacted the charity WaterAid, who sent them DVDs
demonstrating water poverty across Africa. Having played them in assembly, surveyed the school to find out whether they’d want to buy bottled water and got everyone enthused about their Water Works project, the team of students got talking to local businesses. “We had to find a supplier who would sell us the water wholesale,” explains 16year-old Chelsey Summers. “But it took us out of our comfort zone at the beginning,” laughs Sandy. “When we realised that Mrs Dixon wasn’t going to do it for us, we were all in a panic, we thought,
oh no, please you do the phone calls! But she said we’d have to get on with it and do it ourselves.” Eventually Charlotte Burn, now aged 16, plucked up the courage and picked up the phone. It’s easy to forget how daunting this would have been for a 14-year-old: Charlotte had to talk her way through to the right person, explain the team’s business proposition and negotiate a price, payment conditions and delivery details. “I was really nervous, but I did a script and practised over and over again what I was going to say, and then it all went out of the window of course when I was on the phone!” she explains. “I got a real buzz out of it when I finally got through to Angie at Abbey Well, and she said yes, they’d supply us for 30p a bottle.” Having contacted the support organisation Changemakers, which helped the Water Works team develop their social enterprise model, the students negotiated a loan from the school (now repaid) to buy their stock and the water was first sold for 50p a bottle. With outlets scattered around the school, soon bottles were flying off the shelf. Unfortunately a fair few were then being dropped on the ground. By coming up with a new price policy, with bottles selling for 70p and giving 20p back for returns, the problem was solved; some canny pupils even saw a business opportunity of their own by collecting discarded bottles and cashing in on the 20p offer. The profits were starting to stack up, but the Water Works team was now faced with the problem of piles of returned plastic. The team had to research the options and then work with a private recycling company to take their waste. Water Works has to date made a profit of £2,500, impressive enough in itself; a relationship has since been built with a school in Ghana, Adum Banso Primary, which will soon have its very own borehole thanks to the money that’s been made. But the impact of Water Works goes wider than that. The students did all the business planning, ordering, stock control and retail in their own time, and gained significant personal and business skills in the process. They decided to build portfolios towards gaining Changemakers’ special ASDAN Social Enterprise Award. This involved
logging 60 hours of work and spending a week of their summer holiday compiling evidence to demonstrate the impact of the project. They have since also won the Princess of Wales Award for Young People. Some 18 months on, the project is changing; guided by their teacher Lynda Dixon, the Water Works team has just handed over their water selling business to younger pupils. The team who will take their social enterprise forward is a group who took part in a competitive initiative called Future Business Magnates last year, and won out over other competing schools. Their project, which entailed planning a social enterprise that would sell healthy foods at a dedicated tuckshop in school, is about to be realised; later this term the ‘Health Shelf’ is to start retailing cereal bars, hot soup, fruit bags and of course, bottled water, though this time in flavoured varieties. Businesses, social enterprises or not, have to change and adapt to the market; water fountains were recently installed in school, so the demand for plain bottled water plummeted. Now, as well as ordinary water, the stock-cupboard is heaving with multi-packs of citrus, mandarin, pear, peach and fruits of the forest-flavoured water. All natural and with no added sugar, as the Future Business Magnates team is keen to emphasise. And all in demand by fellow pupils who have already put their money where their tastebuds are; despite the water fountains, sales have remained buoyant. The Water Works team is going to be concentrating on their exams this year, but what they’ve learned will be passed on to a new group of pupils, the 12-year-old ‘Water Babes’. The social enterprise projects have been a major journey for the students, says Lynda Dixon. “Seeing them picking up a phone and talking to big businesses, working to tight deadlines and learning communication skills has been impressive,” she says proudly. “It’s clear that their motivation has come from another source than just making money,” she adds. “The difference between social enterprise and conventional business to me is the passion – it’s not just a case of making money for its own sake, but for the sake of achieving something more tangible.” n
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The difference between social enterprise and conventional business to me is the passion – it’s not just a case of making money for its own sake, but for the sake of achieving something more tangible.
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Lynda dixon
hot fact. A survey published this year by London Business School found that young people are more likely to be social entrepreneurs than any other age grouping.
Make your mark
Change lives
Mary Zacaroli spoke to the founder of the Ethical Fashion Forum, El Laskar, and some of its socially conscious designers.
Bringing social enterprise to the catwalk Trailblazers
Elizabeth Laskar – El – is on a mission: to fight poverty stylishly. It started when she became aware of the flipside of this glamorous industry – the child labour, the farmers killed by pesticides from growing cotton, and the one million tonnes of unused fabrics that are sent to landfill. As a fashion consultant, she thought this was just plain wrong and decided to do something about it. Not long after, she met Tamsin Lejeune, who not only runs the fair-trade fashion label, Juste, but also works part-time for Labour Behind the Label. And now, together with two other women, they run the Ethical Fashion Forum (EFF). At its most simple, the EFF is a network for individuals, companies and organisations who want to work together to make fashion environmentally-friendly and ethically and socially aware. But it’s an entity in its own right with three main prongs: a website which will allow interested parties to meet on-line and exchange ideas; a consultancy which runs seminars, workshops, fashion shows and other projects; and a charitable foundation. Although it’s only been going two years, the EFF has already been involved with some high-profile events, including the fair-trade fashion arm of London Fashion Week, Esthetica. It also organised a young model competition in August through the BBC’s website for teenagers, Slink, aimed
at highlighting unfair trade practices in fashion. The winner, 18-year-old Szjerdene Mulcare (pictured left) became the EFF’s ‘Face of Conscious Style’, took part in a photo shoot, wearing ethical fashion and also appeared at London Fashion Week. Meanwhile, another BBC partnership, the scrap fashion eco competition, is just getting going (see www.bbc.co.uk/blast/ opportunities/scrapfashion). So if you think you can be the next Stella McCartney, then you might find this a good place to start your career. Other budding designers have been taking part in the Design4Life Ghana competition. Supported by Topshop, the contest was set up by the EFF with Tabeisa, a South African organisation which raises AIDS awareness and provides business skills for disadvantaged people all over Africa. The winner was recently announced at the Paris Ethical Fashion Show (see www.design4lifeghana.com for more details). The competition has been very successful, linking fashion students, graduates and designers based in the UK, Ireland and Ghana with Ghanaian artisans and entrepreneurs. It’s a great example of how networking can be a powerful tool for ethical businesses to work with larger organisations like Topshop. “I’m constantly networking,” El says. “Let’s say a small business owner hasn’t got the money or the access to market
their products, so they join the EFF and we promote them.” She gives the example of Pippa Small who makes jewellery with craftspeople from indigenous tribes. El introduced Pippa to the fashion stylist of actress Emma Thompson. Emma then wore some of her jewellery when promoting one of her films. Even though places like Topshop and Marks & Spencer are starting to stock organic and fairly traded lines, ethical fashion is still a niche market. So where are the job opportunities for young entrepreneurs who want to work in this sector? “There are at least 100 organisations that are commercial now,” El reveals, citing fashion designers like People Tree (who are stocked at Topshop), Howies and Enamore, Terra Plana (who makes shoes) and Cred Jewellery, whose gold comes from fair-trade mines. A great way in is through internships. “Most of the people who have been working with us at the Ethical Fashion Forum have been at every single event, working backstage,” El says. “We get to know them, know what they’re like. What you’re going to find in this sector is people who are very kind, knowledgeable and they share. Rather than sending a CV, try and get to their events, get to know them, be around them, ask questions and show them who you are.” El’s has lots of other top tips if you are thinking of working in ethical fashion:
#1 First of all, you need to realise you’ve got passion. Admit it and use it. #2 Know the market you want to get into inside out. #3 Get to know people in the sector you want to work in. Go to the relevant industry events. #4 Get work experience or volunteer. #5 Know your strengths and weaknesses and then go and seek advice from experts where you’re weak. A lot of creatives aren’t good at business and a lot of business people aren’t good with creativity. #6 Network and build partnerships to plug skills gaps. #7 Learn from other people and share your knowledge. #8 E-commerce is the way forward. Have an on-line presence. Do internet research and find out whether what you want to do can be implemented on-line. #9 Make it financially viable. So seek financial advice and get a business plan together. If you’re not good at it, get someone to help you who is. #10 Finally, always try and remember the ‘triple bottom line’ – people, profit and planet – in everything you do. The Ethical Fashion Forum will be organising a seminar on getting into ethical fashion in the early part of next year. Email info@ethicalfashionforum.com for details.
Make your mark
Change lives
Trailblazer interview: holly berry, 23
Trailblazer interview: emma triplett
Founder of fashion label Reclaim Fashion
Founder of fair trade designer handbag business Hatti Trading
Job: I am a designer using recycled materials to create visually stimulating pieces that rely on their aesthetic nature and not their ethical nature. I also go into schools around London to do workshops about the use of recycled materials in design, and the exciting and creative possibilities in doing so. How you got here: I studied fashion at Kingston University. I specialised in the use of reclaimed materials and began to experiment with what I could achieve. I did it as a reaction to the ugly side of the fashion industry, and I actually find it visually exciting to see that something has had a previous life. I also think it’s important for me to reach out to other future designers, consumers and all kinds of students, people still at school, developing their attitudes, opinions and beliefs. The EFF helped me to get the tutors at my old university to start taking more notice of students interested in doing things ethically. What does social enterprise mean to you? It means working in a personally fulfilling way, which will be beneficial to others at the same time. To do what I love and help others achieve something too, whether I’m 10 Trailblazers
saving the world by knitting things out of old plastic bags, or helping and inspiring young students to be creative in an ethical way! Your greatest success as a social entrepreneur: ....would have to be when someone gets excited about what they’re working on with me, when a student has an amazing idea and when someone really makes a project their own. Your future plans: I would like to visit every school in London with Reclaim Fashion. And to have my fashion pieces in numerous shops and boutiques around the world! Why do you think social enterprise is a good career for young people? Young people have a huge force behind them, more than they realise. They are going to shape the country, and if they can find ways of inspiring, helping, creating together it will make strong and powerful groups within society, with the power to change the world. Your top tips for young social entrepreneurs: Be bold, be ethical, and be innovative! Don’t ever think you’re idea is too silly!
Job: Import and sales of fair-trade handbags produced by survivors of human trafficking. How you got here: Gave up meaningless job in the UK, decided to go travelling but stayed in Nepal where I became involved with a charity rescuing victims of human trafficking. No one would give them jobs, so I created jobs for them making handbags and began importing the bags into the UK. What does social enterprise mean to you? A business which exists to help others, not just to make a profit. A business with a social conscience. A business which thinks about the effect it is having all the way down the supply chain. Your greatest success as a social entrepreneur: Surviving the first year! Providing continued employment to eight girls in Nepal and giving them the chance of independence. Your future plans: To become a household name and to take the company into Europe and America. Why do you think social enterprise is a good career for young people and why: With every social enterprise start up, the world is becoming a better place. Your top tips for young social entrepreneurs: Don’t try and be perfect immediately; you cannot do everything at once, it takes time to learn and refine and there are always improvements that can be made, so take one step at a time.
www.reclaimfashion.com
www.hattitrading.co.uk
Cosmic takeover For Enterprise Week last year, Julie Harris, chief executive of Devon-based social enterprise IT company COSMIC, decided to put young people in charge of the business for the week...
When I was considering the Enterprise Week approach at COSMIC last year, it struck me that many times we had engaged with young people in work placements, projects and volunteer roles, and always these roles were at a practical, servicebased level. We had never had any young person come into COSMIC and want to manage things; they wanted to do web design or training or desk-top-publishing. I just thought it would be good to engage a group of young people who could really get their teeth into some management... and that soon led me to propose that we allow a group of students take over for the week, and so we did! We had a group of five young people who were studying for their A Levels at our local community college, The Kings School, and they stepped into the five management positions at COSMIC. Jess Spencer took on the role of finance and marketing officer;
John Robertson, website services manager; Lisa Vittles, adult training manager; Patrick Cooper, youth training manager; Alison Metcalfe, project co-ordinator; and Tim Wardale, technical manager. The week was a great experience, and not just for the students but also for the management team at COSMIC. It was a great reminder of how energetic and inspirational young people truly are, and many of the decisions made during that week led to clear improvements in our approach to work and projects – especially those targeting other young people. We are very much looking forward to doing more of the same this year. Throughout its ten years of operation, COSMIC has always held a social objective to provide young people with training and employment opportunities in ICT. This is an aim which sits very close to the heart of the company and long may that continue. n
One of the young team who went to COSMIC for Enterprise Week last year, Lisa Vittles, liked it so much she has now joined the team.
“I had my first encounter with COSMIC when I was about 12 at my local youth club. I remember turning up at the hall and seeing a huge space shuttle in the car park! Although it wasn’t until I was invited up to
COSMIC for Enterprise Week last year that I knew exactly what they did and began to develop a keen interest in the company. Enterprise week at COSMIC was a unique and invaluable experience. At the time I thought that the staff at COSMIC were crazy to let five 17-year-olds ‘take over’ the company’s running for a week! However, as I began to understand how COSMIC worked I saw that in fact they aim to give others these ‘precious’ experiences, to help them progress in the future. We all had such a good week at COSMIC that we didn’t want to return to school! When I was offered the chance to
do an Advanced Modern Apprenticeship with COSMIC I was really excited. I’m three months into it now and it hasn’t disappointed. Since working here I have learnt a lot more about social enterprises and how they work. I am glad to be working for a social enterprise as everything we do benefits somewhere, something or even someone. This makes what I do worthwhile. I think a career within a social enterprise would be rewarding for any young person and I would definitely recommend it!’ n For more information about COSMIC please visit www.cosmic.org.uk 11
Make your mark
Tab here please Change lives
hot fact.
innocent fun with ethical impact guy behind the Eden Project. He had a clear vision of what he wanted to achieve and he made it happen.
to be queuing up in a juice bar. Fresh fruit smoothies that you could pick up from the chiller cabinet seemed like a great idea.
to achieve with Innocent? Our focus for now is to become Europe’s favourite little juice company so it’s smoothies all the way.
What does being ethical mean to you? It means doing everything we can to leave things a little bit better than how we found them. We want to do what feels right to us, to do something that we can be proud of.
Where do you get your products from? We buy our fruit from all over the world. Our bananas come from Costa Rica, our blueberries come from Canada and our strawberries come Poland. Because we are dedicated to making delicious drinks from 100% pure fruit and nothing else, finding the best tasting varieties of fruit is paramount.
You use plastic packaging and bottles for your products. Why not recyclable stuff? In the next couple of months we’ll be launching our first 100% compostable bottle. It’s made from corn starch and will decompose on a compost heap in roughly 12 weeks. We’re pretty excited about it.
How can you ensure that as your company grows your ethical/social goals remain strong in the future? Running a business that we can be proud of is at the heart of Innocent and each day we are working towards becoming more sustainable and are encouraging our suppliers to do the same. For example, we have a Sustainability Squad at Fruit Towers whose aim is to make sure that we are running the business in the most sustainable way possible. And from day one, everyone within the company is encouraged to adopt and embrace our values. It’s something that is discussed on a daily basis, and also at our quarterly allcompany meetings.
If you think you have to be old and experienced to start a successful business, think again. Friends Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright were only 26 when they set up their company, Innocent, which sells fruit smoothies and flavoured water in a supermarket near you. While they may have had Cambridge university educations and good jobs in the City of London, this didn’t exactly set them up for a life selling fruit products. From the beginning, the founders have tried to run the company using social and environmental principles. Here Mary Zacaroli talks to Adam Balon about ethics, juices and banana phones. You call yourselves an ethical business. What does that mean in practice? We always try to leave things a little bit better than we found them. This influences absolutely every single decision we make throughout the business; from what electricity we choose for the offices, to our ingredients. For example, we buy all our 12 Trailblazers
bananas from Rainforest Alliance accredited plantations. The Rainforest Alliance is the world’s leading independent ethical auditing body: it looks not only at farm workers’ rights and well-being, but also protects ecosystems on the farms and encourages biodiversity. As well as this, we make our own visits to encourage better practices
among our growers. We also donate 10% of our profits each year to support NGOs in the countries where our fruits come from. Who influenced you most in this direction? The environment is something that’s hugely important to us at Innocent. Someone who I think has done a great job is Tim Smit, the
The Eden Project in Cornwall, one of the UK’s highest profile social enterprises, gets well over a million visitors a year. By 2006, five years after opening, Eden had contributed £700 million to the local economy.
What do you spend innocent’s profits on? We invest our profits back into the business and share some with the people who have made that success happen. That’s how we’ve managed to keep investing in growth without looking for funding externally. And each year, we give 10% of our profits to our registered charity, the Innocent Foundation. The foundation works with NGOs in the countries where we source our fruit and its main aim is to help communities on a path to a more sustainable life. Why did you want to sell smoothies? Before we set up the business, all three of us were leading pretty hectic lives in London and realised that we weren’t really living a very healthy lifestyle. All we knew was that each morning we wanted a fresh juice but didn’t necessarily want
If you were a smoothie, what kind would you be? Mangoes & passion fruits – smooth, sweet and exotic. You’re selling innocent smoothies for kids – who chose the flavours? Kids actually. We went into schools to find out what they liked, what worked for them. We asked them about their favourite fruit and their preferred combinations. Then it was back to the kitchen and off to work. Why have you always presented such a zany image with ducks and bouncy balls listed with the ingredients? We’ve always wanted to be ourselves and that does involve a certain level of silliness. It’s all a bit of fun. So many foods and drinks list bizarre chemicals in their ingredients, we just thought that it would be fun to add something a bit different. What’s the best thing about working at innocent? Definitely the people. The company has grown hugely in the last couple of years so it’s been really important to find people who want to achieve the same things as us. Everyone is encouraged to embrace and adopt our values, to come up with new ideas and new ways of doing things. And it really seems to be working. Apart from selling lots and lots of smoothies and other yummy things, what do you want
What opportunities are there for young people in your company? We’re currently the fastest growing food and drink company in the UK so as you can imagine there are a fair few vacancies, 36 at the moment. The company itself is quite young too: the average age is 27. We’re always on the look out for talented people to join us. What’s your advice for young people starting out, particularly ones who haven’t had your kinds of opportunities? Stand by what you believe in and don’t give up. We were turned away by countless banks when we started – they simply didn’t believe that our idea would work. We were determined to make drinks made from 100% pure fruit without using stabilisers, preservatives, colourings or additives and we were told that it just wasn’t possible. But we persevered and look where we are. How old do you have to be to start a company like yours? I don’t think that there’s any age. It’s all about following your ideas and what you believe in, and being entrepreneurial. Is your phone at fruit towers really a banana? It is indeed yellow and shaped like a banana. And here’s a photograph to prove it. n 13
Make your mark
Change lives
Hidden depths
Tom Savage, co-founder of an ecotourism business and co-ordinator of this year’s Social Enterprise Day, reveals how making money and making a difference came together for him at the bottom of the Indian Ocean When I first told my friends I was starting an entrepreneurial society at Edinburgh University in 1999, most of them assumed this was the first step in a career towards trying to amass a small fortune at the expense of others. Even as recently as 1999, ‘entrepreneurship’ conjured images of tycoons practising the ‘Alan Sugar style of management’ – exclusively about making money. It took me some time to convince them otherwise. Although social enterprises have existed in a variety of forms for a long time, people are still surprisingly closed to the idea that an 14 Trailblazers
entrepreneur can precipitate valuable social change. I’ve known I wanted to be an entrepreneur for as long as I can remember. My dad runs his own business – so I was able to see the advantages of entrepreneurship from an early age. To me, it was always the best option, both in terms of deriving meaning from what you do as well as the opportunities and freedom it presents. The entrepreneurial society in Edinburgh is now one of the biggest at the university today. It further ignited my passion not just for entrepreneurship, but for trying to encourage others to think about starting a business.
Starting something often creates opportunities that otherwise may have passed you by. For me, this is one of the most exciting aspects of entrepreneurship. Just after I started the society, another group of students told me about their expedition to chart and conserve previously unexplored coral reefs in the Western Indian Ocean. After my finals, I ended up going with them to run an expedition in Zanzibar, Tanzania. We raised over £25,000, winning awards from the Royal Geographic Society and PADI International. Having spent most of the month preceding my final exams fundraising instead of revising, we quickly realised that
we loved the project enough to try and turn it into a social enterprise – and so a friend, Alasdair Harris, and I went about founding Blue Ventures (www.blueventures.org). We decided the company had to be a social enterprise because our fundamental aim was to work with the local populations in the region to conserve their marine ecosystems – which these people rely upon for their livelihoods. We didn’t feel that this was all about making a profit, yet we knew that we needed to run the organisation like a business as opposed to a charity. Hence our current structure, which is that of a trading company limited by shares, alongside a
charitable organisation, to which all of the companies profits are donated. Our aim was to create an organisation that enabled international volunteers to pay to participate in a project, whilst using this money to help finance it. We felt this was important for two fundamental reasons: firstly, it meant that we did not have to rely on funding for the project as new organisations find it hard if not impossible to win funding without a track record; secondly, we wanted others to share in the incredible experiences we’d had working on a marine conservation expedition without having to win university or project funding or organise an expedition themselves. Developing a fully functioning research site 5,000 miles away in 2003 was an incredible challenge. Due to the remoteness of the site in Andavadoaka, Madagascar, over 24 hours’ drive from the nearest town, we had to rely on a relay of messages to our London office, which often took up to two weeks to complete – resulting in incredible amounts of forward planning. Despite this we’ve now run 23 expeditions and manage up to 18 volunteers and 12 staff members from London at any one time. To date, more than 300 international volunteers have participated in our projects. And we have raised awareness of the state of the region’s oceans both nationally and internationally. In 2005, Blue Ventures was highly commended in the Responsible Travel awards. Later in the year, Blue Ventures and its partners in Madagascar won the Seed Awards, an international initiative to find the most promising, innovative and entrepreneurial partnerships for sustainable development – the only European organisation to have been given this award. However, high-profile success rarely brings financial security. Blue Ventures still struggles by with five UK-based staff working from the house of one of the founders. Growth is also an issue – in order to grow we need to take risks, but we don’t want to make any decisions that might impact upon our ability to continue our conservation programmes. As a small organisation we are on a precarious footing, yet we haven’t the money or the support to grow as we would like. This is one of the reasons why I have moved on to pursue other ideas in the last year or so, as it allows my salary to be used
to grow the organisation. My first step was to establish Travelroots, a responsible travel agency. Over the last few years I’ve been lucky enough to travel a great deal and I’ve been shocked by the lack of awareness amongst travelers, who continue to stay in awful places with no concern for the places or people they are visiting. Listing only the very best places to stay around the world, Travelroots aims to encourage people to travel to places that do good, not harm their local environments. To date we have over 50 places around the world and the company is growing well. More recently I have taken a ‘sabbatical’ to join Enterprise Insight to encourage the next generation of social entrepreneurs. As the ‘social enterprise campaigner’ I am responsible for engaging existing social enterprises and entrepreneurs in the overall campaign, and for galvanizing activity on Social Enterprise Day on 16 November. Enterprise Insight runs Enterprise Week on 13th-20th, the Lloyds TSB Enterprising Young Brits competition and the Make your Mark Campaign – all of which aim to inspire people in their teens and 20s to be enterprising and to turn their ideas into reality. As ever, a new role opens your mind to new ideas and there are two that I’m particularly excited about at the moment. The first is the Make Your Mark With a Tenner challenge where 10,000 people will be given £10 and asked to be as enterprising as they can with that money in one month. The second idea is a website I’m launching called tiptheplanet.com – this is a wikipedia-type resource which, I hope, will help generate tips and discussion that help the planet – have a look and add a tip! As you can see, once you get started in the world of social enterprise, there are so many exciting opportunities and people out there that it’s difficult to know where to turn. Almost every day I stumble across another amazing sustainable idea that someone is working on that will help change people’s lives! Every day, I have to persuade people that working in this sector doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your standard of living, or work with a bunch or tree-huggers. And every day social enterprise becomes a bigger, more influential and exciting area in which to work. Don’t let it pass you by! n 15
Make your mark
Tab here please Change lives
All aboard the starship Social Enterprise! Third sector minister Ed Miliband has a big job on his hands trying to encourage businesses, charities and local authorities to work together to improve communities, especially when it comes to helping ‘at risk’ or socially excluded young people. So who better to send to talk to Mr Miliband and watch him in action as he visits third sector organisations in Cumbria, than two budding young reporters from a social enterprise youth training initiative, LIVE Magazine. From its base in Brixton, South London, LIVE puts young people together with industry professionals to create a free youth magazine that deals with issues concerning young people aged between 12 and 21. LIVE’s 21-year-old editor Shola Aleje and 20-year-old news editor Kalise Cross joined Ed and his team as they took to Cumbria to see exactly why he was appointed, what his plans are and why he is so keen to get young people involved in the future of social enterprise.
A day in the life of the third sector minister
11:00, Lazonby Swimming Baths Secret liaisons: Before greeting the local dignitaries and people gathered to meet him Ed brainstorms with members of his team.
11:10, Lazonby Swimming Baths Let’s be social: Kalise meets Stuart Pate, a big supporter of the third sector and a member of Cumbria Council.
11:15, Lazonby Swimming Baths The second phase: Kalise continues talking to Stuart Pate and aims to investigate his views on social enterprise.
11:30, Lazonby Swimming Baths Say cheese: Ed Miliband poses for photographs whilst boarding The Fellrunner Bus – a social enterprise designed to help senior citizens get about, socialise and remain active in the community.
11:50, Lazonby Off and away: As the bus sets off for Penrith Ed mingles with passengers on board listening to their opinions and answering their queries.
12:15, Melmerby and Fellside Newsagent Have I got a newsagent for you? Ed enters the shop to see a Social Enterprise organisation in its full glory – a community-run local village store.
12:35, Melmerby and Fellside Newsagent Talking heads: Ed talks recycling with local Cumbrian recycling officers.
12:55, local church, Lake District Knocking on heaven’s door: Local authorities and third sector groups discuss how they can better work together in response to incidents like the recent floods.
13:05, local church, Lake District Background briefing: Anthony Gardner, director of strategy and performance, explains to Shola the reasons this meeting is taking place.
13:20, Church Meeting Hall Grubs up! Everyone tucks into their lunch apart from Ed who’s posing for the camera!
13:30, Church Meeting Hall Lost in thought: Andrena and Shola have a brief chat about social enterprise and how the day is going.
13:50, Church Meeting Hall Bunch of laughs: Ed speaks to Cllr Roger Bingham before he is due to go and speak. Roger is very funny by the way!
14:10, Penrith Station Buried in his ’berry: Ed keeps up-to-date with the latest technology trend, the Blackberry, in order to check in with the office back in London.
14:30, Penrith Station New found friends: Waiting at the station to catch the train home, Kalise and Ed bond on work ethics.
14:45, Penrith Station Mastermind: On our way back to London, Kalise and Shola gain the opportunity to quiz Ed about social enterprise.
15:00, Penrith Station Tug of war: Ed and Kalise are locked in an intense discussion; Kalise is trying to get as much information as possible on social enterprise and how it can benefit young people.
From Brixton to Borders and back – our day in pictures. Photos: Corrine Burton
06:40, Euston Station, London Off the rails: Kalise and Shola meet Ed’s private secretary Andrena to get the train up north. It’s far too early, our brains haven’t started working properly yet!
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06:45, Euston Station The departed: Quick! Hurry! Our train leaves in five minutes!
10:15, Penrith Station, Cumbria Final destination: After a long journey, some interesting conversations with Andrena and some bad train sandwiches, we arrive in Penrith and are greeted by members of Cumbria County Council.
10:25, Penrith All aboard ‘the Milibus’: So this is Cumbria, so far so good. Next stop: beautiful Lazonby to meet various organisations who were brought together by the disastrous flooding the area suffered in 2005.
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Tab here please Change lives
A Minister on the right track
After boarding the train home to London it’s finally time to sit down and discuss the issues with Ed on the record – roll the tape... LIVE: How was your day? Ed Miliband: It was a very productive day. I think because we spend so much of our time in the office in London, certain elements can become overlooked. I think the team benefited from this trip greatly. L: So what was the purpose of your visit? EM: The purpose of me coming out today was to see what I can actually learn from people and what can be applied in forthcoming policies. L: Why did you choose to go to Cumbria? EM: One of our most important issues is recognising and understanding the way the Third Sector works together with local authorities, which was the main reason for coming to Cumbria. L: What’s your definition of social enterprise? EM: Well the definition I use is social enterprises are “companies created for a social purpose – such as employing disadvantaged people – who principally reinvest their profits into the aims of the business”. L: Where is the government policy going in terms of social enterprise? EM: We need more social enterprises – there are about 50,000 so far and we want to open the door to the next 18 Trailblazers
50,000. Government doesn’t create the entrepreneurs – but we can help or hinder their success. For starters, we need more people to know about social enterprises. Secondly they need more help and advice – as it’s one thing knowing about social enterprise but actually starting up one is an entirely different ballgame. Many people need help and guidance. They also need financial assistance. Lastly, we need them to have a fair way of competing. L: Why do you think social enterprise will be relevant to young people? EM: I think it’s relevant because more and more young people aren’t only interested in making money, they are actually more socially aware. Social enterprise could be right for them as they are making money as well as being socially conscious. I think it’s a way of changing society through business. I think young people have changed over the last 20 years – certainly in the ’80s there was a sense younger people were more interested in making money and only that. L: But if young people thought like that, then why are so many young people moving out of Cumbria in first instance? Shouldn’t they be staying and helping their home town? EM: That’s true, but social enterprise isn’t
for everyone; not everyone has the business skills and not everyone wants to do it. The problem is that not everyone knows enough about it – there’s a survey that only about 25% of people actually know what social enterprise is. L: How does it feel being Third Sector Minister? EM: I’ve met some incredibly inspirational people, and also learnt a lot about myself. One thing I’ve learnt is that something that looks good from Whitehall or the centre, doesn’t necessarily look as great from the frontline. This is one of the reasons why I haven’t rushed to put lots of new initiatives in place without talking to people on the ground. People respect you if you are open with them. You can never say to someone simply that you can’t do what they want; if you can’t do something, you have to explain to them why. L: What does your November 16 announcement hope to achieve? EM: It’s the day when everyone involved in social enterprise will be together and a chance to spread the word through schools, media, colleges, and beyond. It’s also about ensuring successful social entrepreneurs are held up as positive role models. n
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We need more social enterprises – there are about 50,000 so far and we want to open the door to the next 50,000... More young people aren’t only interested in money, they are actually more socially aware.
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Ed Miliband
Personal Perspective #1: Kalise Cross, 20
Personal Perspective #2: Shola Aleje, 21
If I’m honest I had never actually heard of ‘Social Enterprise’ or the ‘Third Sector’ before being approached by this magazine to hang out with some politician called Ed Miliband during his whirlwind tour of the Lake District in October. But the more I learned about the ideas behind social enterprise the more it seemed to make sense: getting businesses involved in bettering our communities can only be a good thing surely. Could this be the answer to most of the problems facing British society and the economy? Or is this a sneaky way for the government to sell off the public services to the highest bidder? Ultimately services like the NHS could end up being privatised and isn’t this what Margaret Thatcher tried to do in the 1980s? After having the pleasure of a day out with Ed Miliband in Cumbria and the opportunity to discuss these issues with him I’ve learned that it’s not quite as simple as that, there are differences, there are big new ideas and although no-one knows for sure if it’ll work, it’s got to be worth trying. During my trip I also learned about Ed’s plans to get more young people involved in social enterprise by offering them support to get their ideas off the ground which I also approve of. Ed has a big announcement coming up on November 16 in which the Government will be laying down its vision for social enterprise. I’ll be interested to hear how his ideas and his research are going to become a reality, and I’ll be interested to see if he has taken anything on board from talking to me! n
I’m usually very cynical when it comes to politicians’ public aims and personal ambitions and agendas. They have a well-earned reputation of whitewashing certain subjects and avoiding giving straightforward answers to tough questions. However, our trip to Cumbria was actually very insightful, and it gave me a rare, privileged chance to really understand the inner workings of a politician’s mind, and I felt the Ed was not trying to hold anything back. I was curious to establish Ed’s motives and reasons for taking such measures in order to ‘please his people’, was it all for show? Did he really care about Third Sector organisations? From this trip I really think he does; at the end of the day, politicians are human too (even if they sometimes forget it) and they have morals and ethics just like the rest of us, well some of them do. It’s clear from this whole experience that although Ed Miliband’s heart is in the right place, I think there are a lot of points to consider in terms of actually generating a response amongst young people. He can certainly talk the talk and I generally believe he has the initiative to take the Third Sector to new heights. Ed isn’t rushing and his policies and plan for the future seem in place; to me he is the type of government figure we need. Young people need a lot more structure than adults if they are going to be encouraged to participate in social enterprise projects. None of this is going to be done over night, but as the saying goes, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’. n
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Tab here please Change lives
Heaven’s kitchen?
Photography by Melissa Gibbons
LIVE magazine’s Monique Wallace visits a well-known social enterprise, Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen, to meet its new bunch of trainees Cast your minds back to 2002 and remember Channel 4’s hit series Jamie’s Kitchen. Celeb chef Jamie Oliver recruited 15 unemployed young people to train as chefs in his new restaurant, the aptly named Fifteen. Well the project is still thriving today, and the restaurant now has its fifth group of trainees. I went along to the restaurant to meet two trainees, Davina Thompson, 23 and Michael Kress, 19, who are both six months into the course, to find out just how successful the whole project has been. On entering the restaurant, a mass of young faces were all hard at work, operating professionally in the open plan kitchen – and by the smell of things they weren’t doing too badly. The diners looked pleased too. Trainees have to go to college four days a week for three months before they can work in the restaurant. Now they have all achieved their NVQ1 qualifications, they go to college one day a week and work the 20 Trailblazers
other five in the restaurant. As a social enterprise, all Fifteen’s profits are re-invested into the company, enabling them to continue providing young people with unique opportunities. “It’s shown me the road I want to go down, and I have no intention of coming off it,” said Davina. Davina came across Fifteen after surfing the internet for catering courses. She explained that Fifteen has given its trainees opportunities which their challenging backgrounds may not have otherwise made possible. “I did reasonably well in my GCSEs, then I hopped from course to course but nothing was fulfilling. I moved out of home and went to different hostels, not doing anything for two years.” Not only has the social enterprise helped the trainees put their lives together, it has given them the inspiration to help young people like them in the future. Being involved in a social business highlights how they too can make a difference: “I’d love to
start up my own business one day and take on trainees. It’s what someone did for me, so I’d like to give it back,” says Michael. Like Davina, Michael has also come very far. “I was at school until my A-Levels, but I didn’t do well. I was too lazy to sign on before, and now I come here every morning.” Davina and Michael are an example of how the education system doesn’t work for everyone and how for some young people a work-based course is far more beneficial. But the work doesn’t come easy. The trainees have to answer to a head chef and are under the same pressure as chefs in a normal restaurant. However, they realise this will only help them in the future. “I want to get more experiences in different types of restaurants with different types of pressure so I can bring all my experiences together,” says Davina. From speaking to the trainees, I can tell that Fifteen and its charity, the Fifteen Foundation, is working hard to help change
the trainees’ lives and deter them from giving up prematurely. As Davina says: “It’s changed my life immensely because the foundation helped with everything, including money and housing. Any problem you have, they help you so that you’re not distracted from the course, and for me that’s what I needed.” Michael agrees. “It’s brilliant, I wish there were more places like this because a lot of people need help.” The trainees realise that they are part of a social business and are aware of the difference it makes. They are supported by a team of mentors who believe in them and give them direction – something they wouldn’t get under normal circumstances. Davina wouldn’t want it any other way. “It’s weird because I don’t really think of it, it’s not until you have a conversation with someone on the outside that you realise what you’re involved in is different. I’m proud that I’m part of the foundation, and I will give it my very best because I’ve been allowed to be a part of it.” n
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I wish there were more places like this... It’s not until you have a conversation with someone on the outside that you realise what you’re involved in is different.
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Davina Thompson
hot fact.
Cafédirect, the UK’s largest Fairtrade hot drinks company, works with 35 producer organisations representing the farmers who grow their products in 11 countries, paying a fair price guaranteed to exceed the cost of production to ensure that over a quarter of a million growers and their families receive a decent income from their trade. 21
Make your mark
Change lives
A winning team Photography by Tony Mitsinga
AFC Telford United was formed in 2004 after the financial collapse of Telford United Football club. Now it’s a social enterprise – wholly owned by supporters and the community through Telford United Supporters Trust and a partnership between the club, supporters, the local authority, local college and others. It’s resulted not only in the creation of a stronger football club but also in one of the most imaginative sports and learning complexes in the country: a unique ‘sports, enterprise and learning village’ for Telford. Jodie Wright went to see them
We all have a general impression of footballers and football clubs: filthy rich, no idea of the real world or value of money, and they don’t give a damn about their community. Imagine if there was a football club that gave back to its supporters and did all it could to ensure that the welfare of the community was sustained. Well, you don’t have to imagine any more – AFC Telford United are doing just that. I headed to Telford to meet 27-yearold chairman Lee Carter, along with Mark 22 Trailblazers
Donavon, Telford and Wrekin council regeneration manager. “It’s a fairytale story,” Mark explains. “This club went to the wall, it collapsed, and Lee in particular with the partners, saved it. But we’ve risen from the ashes and got promotion so it’s very exciting.” When the old club ran up a very high debt a few years ago, an announcement was made that it would basically have to put up the shutters. But the loyal supporters had different ideas. They raised £64,000
within 24 hours and used it to build a new football club from scratch. AFC Telford Utd Ltd was formed by the supporters and they promised themselves and the community that they would keep football alive in Telford. Two years later and – at the time of writing – the club is at the top of the league table, heading up the premier division in the UniBond Northern Premier Football League. “The club’s like a co-operative, 100% owned by the community,” says Mark,
explaining that the council has been active in forming a partnership with the club and helping to develop the stadium. Along with partners in private companies and voluntary and community groups, the club has been developing a range of new facilities and services for the community, including an ICT room, a vulnerable kids project and a learning centre which will be the ‘hub’ of a project that aims to help thousands of schoolchildren each year use the dynamic sporting environment to develop numeracy, literacy and computer skills. As a social enterprise, ACF Telford Utd’s vocabulary includes phrases like ‘regeneration’, ‘social inclusion’ and ‘civic pride’ – where sport, learning and community work come together. They are pushing other sports such as rugby, hockey, cricket and basketball. And everybody is involved – the players will be doing some teaching and, as Lee reveals, there are even innovative ideas for involving the other staff: “We want to have different diplomas within the club such as grounds-keeping, where we will get the groundsman in to teach people how to keep a pitch,” he says. “And we could get the chef that does the catering on match days in to teach people about cooking.” AFC Telford is one of a growing number of clubs and supporters trusts going down the social enterprise route. And their reputation is spreading: they have been asked to give other football clubs and local authorities advice on how to initiate their own social enterprise. And this year they were shortlisted in the national Enterprising Solutions Awards. Big football clubs may have all the status, but it’s clubs like Telford that are more what football is really about – involving the community and realising what good they can do. “When we first started the new football club our main motive for wanting to be involved was the fact that we understood we couldn’t achieve anything on our own,” says Lee. “It was far better to be part of a bigger group and achieve success together. As the years have gone on we’ve understood more the power of football and what impact this has on its community.” n Find out more online: www.telfordutd.co.uk; www.tust.org; www.enterprisingsolutions.org
live and uncut Three features in this magazine have been put together by young journalists and photographers from LIVE magazine, a youth magazine run as a social enterprise and based in Brixton, South London. We’ve asked our journalists to tell us a bit about themselves in the biographies below. You can find out lots more online at: www.live-magazine.co.uk and www.livity.co.uk
Shola Aleje, 21
Co-author of our Cumbria feature “I first noticed LIVE magazine in late 2004, and upon discovering this interesting journalistic venture, I called in. After having a meeting with the editor Jordan Jarrett Bryan I was hooked! He asked what I was into musically, socially, etc and I gave my all. The thing I love most about LIVE is its extremely positive attitude – you actually feel like you are going to get somewhere and be someone in life. I started writing music reviews and was promoted to music editor. Jordan left LIVE summer 2005 due to old age, and after an intense interview process, I was appointed editor. And the rest, as they say, is history.”
is a good opportunity for people that don’t have qualifications and want hands on experience. Everyone needs to be a part of this ASAP!
Kalise Cross, 20 Co-author of our Cumbria feature
“I found out about the wonders of LIVE through my social worker. I was sitting in my house one day, feeling sorry for myself. Sorry about the fact that I was 20 years old with no job and nothing to get up to each miserable day. Then the postman delivered me a letter from LIVE that would change the rest of my life for ever... Since being at LIVE, I have learned how to write like a professional journalist, to conduct myself professionally in a working environment, and to motivate myself. I have been assigned the job of front Author of our Fifteen feature section editor (which I do very well indeed if “I’m in my final year at university where I I may say so myself) and I am working hard have been studying a degree in English towards being deputy editor. I now see my language and linguistics with journalism future as very bright and productive. I want and news media. When I graduate I’d like to young people to know that the positive have a career in music journalism or PR. At approach to society can really work. I LIVE, I am music editor. I’ve found it really intend to pursue journalism and become rewarding because of the experience I’ve as big as I can. Who knows where I will gained and the people I’ve met. When I’m end up: reporting the news? Editing Vogue not studying, writing or slaving away for magazine? But one thing’s for sure – I’m minimum wage, I love attempting to cook, never turning back, not for love nor money. seeing my friends and telling very bad jokes. This is one true success story. Thanks LIVE.”
Monique Wallace, 20
Jodie Wright, 19 Author of our Telford feature
“I got into Live in April 2006. I had a copy of the issue with Sway on the front and on the back of it there were contact details for Live. I just contacted them and took it from there. I was actually on one of the earlier front covers, years ago, when I was attending a course in Streatham. My current role at Live is features editor, which I think is a major role in the magazine. Live
SPECIAL THANKS TO OUR LIVE PHOTOGRAPHERS: Corrine Burton, 18, for the Cumbria shoot; Tony Mitsinga, 21, who went to AFC Telford for us, and Melissa Gibbons, 20, who took the photos at Fifteen. For more information on Live magazine email Callum@live-magazine.co.uk 23
Make your mark
Change lives
Putting Trust in young Entrepreneurs
trailblazer profile: Eva horne/jessica farrar Eve Horne and Jessica Farrar set up Continuous Entertainment in 2005 with the support of The Prince’s Trust. It is a recording studio in Royal Arsenal, London, that supports and encourages involvement in music to a whole range of people from their local community. In 2005 Eve (pictured right) and Jess (left) were winners in the social enterprise category of the National Business Awards, described by Chancellor Gordon Brown as the ‘Business Oscars’.
The Prince’s Trust has an impressive record using business to help change the lives of young people in difficult circumstances. Ginny Lunn, the Trust’s head of policy and development, explains why social enterprise is a great fit for many of its young entrepreneurs
The Prince’s Trust has long recognised the value of enterprise as a means of empowering disadvantaged young people. All our existing programmes contain an element of enterprise, whilst specific programmes like our flagship Business programme often involve social enterprise. This programme provides young people with a mentor and a loan to start up a business. Last year we helped more than 3,500 1830 year olds start their own businesses. Many of those young people would otherwise not have gained access to the finance and business support they needed. The people we help are on the margins of society: in or leaving care, struggling at school, unemployed or in trouble with the law. We know that young people who have come from more difficult circumstances often have a greater drive to put something back into their community. Our experience in reaching out to and supporting young people from disadvantaged backgrounds means that The Prince’s Trust is ideally placed to bring them into the social enterprise sector. A number of the businesses we have supported through our Business programme do have a social purpose, and many are operating as social enterprises, even if the entrepreneurs running them aren’t aware of the term. In London, there is an overt social enterprise option. Young people who approach the Trust for a business loan can be given a mixture of grant and loan funding and a mentor to help 24 Trailblazers
them start a social enterprise. The social economy promises a more innovative, engaging and sustainable way to turn around disadvantage in a community, using business models to create social change. Opening up the potential to become involved in social enterprise will allow young people to gain experience in business, improve their teamwork, boost their confidence and their communication skills and increase their employability – and benefit the local community at the same time. One of our other programmes – Group Awards, funded in England through the lottery’s Big Boost programme, encourages young people to do just this – take an active part in their communities. The projects range from an information service for young carers in Kendal, to creative writing and music workshops aiming to unite communities affected by gun crime in Birmingham. Many of these projects have income-generating potential, and could develop into small businesses, whilst others have developed into social enterprises such as youth cafés. Many social enterprises have links with their local community; indeed, many begin their lives as local projects, initiated and driven forward by an individual or group of committed, passionate people who want to change things for the better. The Prince’s Trust and Royal Bank of Scotland Group (RBS) Make it Work pilot does exactly this. It targets young people who live in the most deprived wards in the UK, stimulating ideas and helping groups of young people set up community projects
and learn about social enterprise. With further support, the projects may then progress on to becoming social enterprises. The Make It Work programme in Wales, for example, recruits young people aged 16-25 years who are unemployed and not in education or training in Cefn Golau, Blaenau Gwent – one of the most deprived regions in Wales. They have the opportunity to explore, experience and evaluate real community based enterprise activity, working in teams and leading their own projects. They meet every Wednesday afternoon, writing business plans and working towards gaining a qualification in social enterprise. The qualities and values of the social enterprise sector are inherent in the work of The Prince’s Trust. The Trust is always looking to find creative solutions to the tough issues and challenges facing disadvantaged young people, and does this by supporting social innovation and piloting new approaches. Moreover, disadvantaged young people have the passion and capability to set up social enterprises; they simply need the support and help to pursue their ideas and dreams. As HRH The Prince of Wales, President of The Prince’s Trust, says: “All I ever wanted to do with my Trust was to make an investment in the future so that young people could realise their full potential for themselves, for their communities and for the nation.” n Ginny Lunn is head of policy and development at The Prince’s Trust
Jess: We got funding from The Prince’s Trust about a year and a half ago to start up. We basically opened a recording studio and it’s there for the community – so we help people build their dreams basically. And they come in and they can record vocal recording, band recording, do track production. Eve: So that is the community side of things. On the commercial side of things we do things like sound to picture, post production, things like that, so we can do both. Growing up in this area we realised that there is nothing for young people and we really wanted, as well as fulfil our own dreams, to help others fulfil theirs. J: The way we make money is basically by charging people on an hourly rate to use the studio. We have a discounted rate for people that are students or on benefits, and then a commercial rate for regular users. E: When we started up we didn’t know what social enterprise was at all. We found out when we were writing our business plan for The Prince’s Trust that we could become a social enterprise and it seemed really good because we didn’t want to be a charity because this is our dream and we didn’t want to allow anyone to be able to take it away from us. If you are a charity you have a Board, and they kind of control everything. But we also didn’t want to be an outright business as well, because we wanted to help people. J: A social enterprise isn’t a typical charity and it’s not a business as such, where people can buy shares. It’s basically a business that makes money but the money it makes is put back into the business in order to better that service. J: The Prince’s Trust offered very good support to us when we started. We also
received legal advice from Lovells which has been so helpful for us as a recording studio – we have actually signed artists with contracts that have been provided by Lovells. Alongside that we also got a mentor from The Princes Trust, who met up with us monthly and gave us advice on how to progress with our business. E: For the future we plan to run a multi media centre. The council have approached us with an idea which is similar to an idea that we had, and they are really keen to go ahead with us. And because they have seen the good that we do here, they want us to kind of front the project and be in control of it. So that’s in the near future. On the production side of things, obviously Jess and myself want to be producing well-known acts and have a franchise of these recording studios that can help other young people. The advice that we would offer to other young people that want to start up their business as we have is to have determination, passion and knowledge and skills within the area that you want to work in. E: And try and get everything for free at the beginning! Haggle your way through deals and stuff like that. In order for us to get our promotion and stuff like that we made sure that we got loads of articles in the newspapers. And make sure you are doing something different that makes people aware that you are here and that what you have to offer is special so that you get more people coming to you. J: So make sure you have a strong USP, a unique selling point. And be patient, it takes a while. But you will get there if your idea is strong enough. E: Be determined and you will succeed! n 25
Make your mark
Change lives
hot fact.
There are more than 100 leisure trusts around the country running swimming pools, gyms and other leisure facilities – serving more than 100 million customers and investing their profits back into the community.
trailblazer profile: heather wilkinson
Going to extremes Photography by Faisal Khokhar
How do you inspire a bunch of young, socially motivated business folk who are used to doing extraordinary things? Take them on an ‘Extreme Weekend’ in Cornwall of course! Social entrepreneur Hayzel Khokhar was there with her surfboard... Sleep, eat and surf with social entrepreneurs for a weekend and by the end of it you’ll have a pretty good idea about what makes them tick. We arrived at the Newquay hostel in darkness, car laden with swimwear, fleeces, laptops, and umbrellas. I had an inkling that it was going to be a bit of an escapade having read phrases like ‘comfort, stretch, panic’ in the information pack provided by Striding Out, the support network for young entrepreneurs that was hosting the weekend. As we pulled up at our hostel, our host and Striding Out founder Heather Wilkinson was there to greet us with her beaming smile and warm northern twang. We were all slightly ruffled and groggy from the five-hour journey but she soon rallied us and probed our more sociable nature. After all, if we were to share a bedroom with complete strangers we had to be at our most courteous. You never know what will tip the balance; squeezing the toothpaste from the wrong end perhaps or leaving too much sand in the shower. As it turned out everyone was very laid back and friendly and despite it being a little cramped in the girls’ dorm it was never too close for comfort. We even grew to be fond 26 Trailblazers
of the bunk beds’ garish colour schemes and basic amenities as it was all part of the adventure. Having a bar downstairs was also a bonus especially as the staff would serve you drinks right up until the seagulls gave a resolute blast of morning lung power... The objective of the weekend of course was to tap in to each other’s wealth of experiences within the non-profit sector and apply these new ideas and approaches to our own businesses. We were also there to develop ourselves both as individuals and team players and this was done through coaching sessions, lateral-thinking and alternative communication games. The latter involved everything from twisting ourselves in knots to directing the other team members to build a sand castle which reflected our current business model. Then there was the surfing – yes, real surfing, not the online kind – which certainly encouraged us to ‘stride out’ in to more unfamiliar territory. The challenge was further increased due to the harsh conditions. We had to fight against the vivacious wind, the current tugging relentlessly at our legs and also a very random pattern of waves coming at us from all directions. Exerting so much physical and mental energy however was actually very invigorating. It is all too easy
to stay in a habitual cycle but then you also forget how much of an adrenaline buzz you get when you finally do tear yourself away from the norm and try out something new. I suppose it’s the same kind of drive that fuels the minds of entrepreneurs. When I was in the early stages of developing RISE, a fitness and life-skills project for hard to reach families, my energy seemed inexhaustible. I was working at peak performance, scribbling ideas in the bath, on the bus and at 3 in the morning on a notepad beside my bed. Looking back I even surprised myself at how many extra hours there seemed to be in the day. But it is inevitable that those lulls would also set in, you know the kind – when every door seems to be slamming in your face and your feet are operating like road-runner but you’re still not getting anywhere. The perfect cure for this disillusioned mindset I decided was the Extreme Weekend. I found there was a good balance of both fun and business focussed activities which meant that I was relaxed but also creative. Each member had a variety of expertise, knowledge and experience to bring as well so I took away with me new methods and leads that I wouldn’t have otherwise considered. Over a five-hour lunch at the Cornish
branch of Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant we all engaged in a ‘penny for your thoughts’ exercise. Everyone got a turn to bring a business-related agenda to the table and when we were given an idea by one of the other members we would give them a penny in chocolate money. For me it was quite apt to be at a restaurant owned by Jamie Oliver as my project also involves working with schoolchildren and engaging them in more healthy lifestyles. I am now entering a new phase of business where I will be predominately working ‘on’ the project rather than ‘in’ it. Before I was coaching young people directly and now I will be writing a training programme to teach other people how to deliver these classes. My primary objective is to ensure that the project reaches a larger proportion of my target market across the country. The Extreme Weekend gave me the idea of setting up a franchise system. I was very keen on this as the ethos of the company will still be upheld but the teachers can use their own initiative and innovation to deliver the sessions. Over this very prolonged and delicious lunch I was also given suggestions on possible funders and partnerships. Another useful pointer was the feedback I received
about streamlining my business. I was advised to look at ‘effort verses results’ in order to judge how efficient the business could be. I have now given the results much more value and found easier ways to achieve them. I was struggling with this equation before because when I get really passionate about an idea I want to do everything and tend to really overstretch myself. I have since tapped in to more resources and learnt to delegate better. Essentially my new business plan has more clarity and focus and I am confident that I can achieve the big results I’m after while still being realistic. Having the whole weekend to network meant that conversations were much more natural and free-flowing. Having the time to sleep on ideas and develop them further the next day gave them much more substance too. Striding Out’s Extreme events are also different in the way that you get a really personalised support service. And Heather herself has a very genuine interest and belief in the businesses of all members and her motivational nature is very inspiring. Yes, the weekends are very action-packed and highly sociable but being in the spotlight can also bring out the talent in you. n See Hayzel’s Trailblazer interview, page 28
Heather Wilkinson is the inspirational founder of ‘Striding Out’, a social enterprise that coaches and supports young social entrepreneurs. Heather’s passion for social entrepreneurship stemmed from a masters degree in economic development and community enterprise, followed by a series of six-month work placements in the public and private sectors. As a research consultant, Heather learnt how to plan and run projects to support people into enterprise, employment and training. But she began to see a role for a new style of business support service which would bring entrepreneurs under 30 together to coach, train and support each other. In particular, she wanted to educate and inspire them about social enterprise and sustainable business practices. Striding Out was launched in November 2005. Through its training, coaching and consultancy services, it has already supported more than 300 young entrepreneurs. Heather was recognised in the 2006 Edge Upstarts Awards as ‘Social Enterprise Mentor of the Year’. n Further information: www.stridingout.co.uk 27
Make your mark
Change lives
Trailblazer interview: hayzel khokhar, 25 Social enterprise you run: The RISE Project, which encourages and supports families to lead healthier lifestyles and develop their life skills. Having had a very active childhood myself, I wanted to share the fun and benefits with other families. I studied for qualifications in fitness, education and childcare and started to put my business plan together. I found UnLtd, an organisation that backs social entrepreneurs, and they provided me with a grant, a project manager and free access to business training. What do you like about social enterprise? Everyone has skills that can be used for the greater good of society. I also believe that if you care passionately enough about something you shouldn’t just pay lip-service to the cause but go out there and do your bit to change it. It feels really good to be working out of a love for what you do rather than merely working to earn a wage. I also enjoy the fact that you can be as creative and innovative as you like with a social enterprise. What have been your greatest successes? Being able to motivate people that usually shy away from exercise and seeing them enjoy themselves and get fitter. And your biggest mistakes? I previously made the mistake of not running my project as a business, ie something that generates money and is therefore sustainable. This was all well and good but it meant that I had to rely solely on my grant and that was going to run out. I have since learnt that I can sell my services to health and 28 Trailblazers
education establishments who need the services I’m offering. Where do you see RISE heading? In 5 years time I see RISE operating countrywide using a franchise system and tying in with more professionals who can contribute their skills to the business. In 10 years I see RISE as a recognised brand within the fitness sector and I aim to publish a set of books relating to its ethos and practices. Is social enterprise a good career for young people? I would definitely recommend social enterprise as a career for young people as there are a lot of talented people out there that have ideas which could really make a difference. However, I wouldn’t recommend jumping in without doing a great deal of research and having a really good business model in place. What are your top tips for aspiring young social entrepreneurs? #1 Research and plan your business thoroughly #2 Make sure your business model can support itself without funding in the mid and long-term #3 Be creative in pulling in resources and support in kind #4 Network with like minded-people, exchange skills and knowledge and get plenty of feedback #5 Evaluate your progress regularly, be prepared to adapt accordingly and track the evidence of success www.riseproject.co.uk
What is your job? Learning and enterprise support manager, Coin Street Community Builders How you got there: Did a languages and business degree and then worked for DaimlerChrysler and the German civil service, followed by a five-year spell at Shell and then a year at the Development Trusts Association (DTA) as London regional development officer, joining Coin Street in August 2006. “I knew I wanted to work in social enterprise but I didn’t know what it was called! I got advised to go to a big blue chip company and get some training. I ended up in Shell and stayed for longer than I thought I should because I had some great opportunities there, fantastic support and brilliant line managers. I was allowed to work on large projects and take big risks – but I really struggled with the high-profit environment because it’s not my motivator. I was attracted to the DTA because it was about community development but using a business approach to achieve it. The DTA was where I learned properly what the sector was, and that it was what I had been looking for the whole time. I was just amazed by what people in development trusts were able to achieve and by the audacity and tenacity of some of the organisations. It’s that old saying about not giving a man a fish but giving him a rod and teaching him how to fish. It made me want to actually go out and work for a social enterprise. Until I went to the DTA I had no idea that Coin Street was a development trust; I just assumed it was all private development. The job at Coin Street involves support for local people, encouraging enterprise, employment and economic activity in the local area generally; and, more broadly helping other people to learn from our experiences. What’s been your greatest success? My greatest success is probably moving into the social enterprise sector itself because it offers challenge and excitement and the chance to get involved in big projects but for social objectives. How about your mistakes? Sometimes risks have worked out and sometimes they have not. And actually that’s not a mistake. You have to take risks, especially if you want to grow social enterprise. There are a lot of barriers in the way and I think the real mistake would be to sit on your hands and do nothing in case you make a mistake.
Trailblazer interview: What sara hughes, 29 is Coin Street?
If you’ve seen London’s South Bank you might well have spied the landmark Oxo Tower just a short walk from the Royal Festival Hall and National Theatre. But you probably don’t know that the tower and 13 acres of land around it are all managed by a social enterprise called Coin Street Community Builders. Coin Street uses income from its commercial projects to make the South Bank a better place to live in, work in and visit. Since 1984 it has transformed a largely derelict site into a thriving neighbourhood – building 220 new homes for people in housing need, running events and a range of family programmes including a day nursery, out-of-school activities and parent and family support. A new Coin Street neighbourhood centre will be completed towards the end of 2007, and a major development including a public swimming and indoor leisure centre, new dance studios and a headquarters for the Rambert Dance Company, as well as 355 flats, is also being planned for a site next to the National Theatre. Find out more online: www.coin-street.org
Rather like the word “profit” in social enterprise, we have to learn that “risk” is also not a dirty word – if Coin Street had not taken risks it would not be here now, and at Shell they teach you that risk is part of the normal business process. Where do you see your career heading in the medium and long term? In a couple of years I will still be here and growing the business. In the longer term I would like either to head up a social enterprise of my own or looking at getting back to my roots
and doing organisational development for social enterprises. Is social enterprise a good career for young people? It’s a growing sector and I think it’s an alternative economic model for the future. I can see it being incredibly successful. It’s now very much more common for people to have a social conscience and social enterprise is a way of having an exciting dynamic role in achieving that purpose. What are your top tips for aspiring young social entrepreneurs?
#1 Find somewhere you can be inspired and you can learn: there’s a lot of that in social enterprise, and people who will allow you to grow in this way. #2 Consider going to big business and getting the business skills first. Everything you learn can really be valuable in the social enterprise sector. #3 Just give it a go – it’s a fantastic area to work in and you don’t have to compromise your values in order to do it! n 29
Make your mark
Change lives
boffins with a mission
hot fact. HSBC’c move to a new HQ at Canary Wharf consolidated 13 offices into one site, leaving 3,000 tonnes of office furniture surplus to requirements. The bank’s deal with social enterprise GreenWorks meant that instead of sending the furniture – equivalent to 178 doubledecker buses – to landfill, it could be redistributed to schools, charities and community groups.
If you’ve ever watched a programme like Dragon’s Den, you will know that intellectual property – or IP – can be worth a lot of money, especially when you’ve got an international patent for a great new invention. But research and technology can be hugely valuable to society and the environment too. Paul Harrod (pictured above left) introduces a new project designed to develop such ‘social IP’ All universities engage in technology transfer: developing the research and technology generated by academics through the creation of new businesses and licensing opportunities. Google is the most famous example of a university ‘spin-out’ business, and Stanford University’s equity share in the searchengine giant has netted it several hundred million dollars. However, there has been a tendency to view technology transfer simply as a means to plug the gap in university funding. There is merit in this, but in my view there are much bigger opportunities, and enormous scope for developing new businesses with social and environmental benefit. After all it is the taxpayer who invests billions of pounds a year in university research. Do we want more for our money than just published outputs in learned journals? Social IP is a new project developed by the SETsquared Partnership, jointly 30 Trailblazers
run by the Universities of Bristol, Bath, Southampton and Surrey. It seeks to develop the world-class research and technology generated by some 6,500 academics into new social enterprises. Most academics wish to ‘make a difference’ with their work, and some of the most promising opportunities have the potential to bring significant social and environmental benefits. By aligning the best entrepreneurial talent and strong institutional backing from four leading universities, we feel this is an exciting proposition. Early examples of projects we have supported through the Social IP project include a ‘forward-osmosis’ technology that can generate clean drinking water from almost any supply creating huge possibilities for disaster relief; text to local language speech via mobile phones in the developing world; early screening of pre-school children for special educational needs; land-slide prevention and mitigation;
and a care-alert system for severely disabled people. We believe there are enormous opportunities for young people to harness their academic interests for social good. Ian Anderson’s SensaGest business (see case study) is a great example, and there are many more. Maybe you will aspire to emulate those who invented the MRI scanner or discovered DNA? Or maybe what will motivate you more is taking that discovery forward and making it a reality. Our universities contain a national asset base of unexploited ideas and opportunities, many of which could make fundamental differences to the lives of some of the most vulnerable people in our society. Maybe you could be the person that unlocks one of those discoveries and makes it real? n For more information on the Social IP project, please contact paul.harrod@bristol.ac.uk
Trailblazer interview: Ian Anderson
“When you break an arm or a leg, life as you know it may pause but it will quickly resume once the plaster comes off. However, when you break your neck, removing the plaster and callipers is just the beginning of the long road to readjustment. I broke my neck eight years ago in a road traffic accident. This meant I had to change my job, my home, my car, whilst adjusting to life in a wheelchair. I decided that the best way to tackle this was with a
change of career and I therefore applied for a computing degree course at the University of the West of England. Upon the successful completion of this course I applied to do a PhD in the field of mobile and wearable computing at Bristol University. During my PhD I have studied the feasibility of integrating computing equipment into simple things such as he clothes we wear. I became increasingly aware of the applicability of mobile and wearable computing technology as a means of addressing some of the issues I, as a wheelchair user, encounter on a day-today basis. In November 2005 I first started to realise just how big the gap between good idea and successful business actually is. Our first aim was to secure some initial funding. We therefore entered the 2006 Bristol New Enterprise competition. In July this year I and two colleagues won this competition and within the week formed the company SensaGest Ltd. We have a simple aim – promote independence. We have developed touch sensitive interfaces for enabling the control of domestic devices. In effect we have replaced buttons with gestures that can easily be performed by people with minimal hand dexterity. One application might be a hospital patient able to call a nurse, or turn on the TV, or request a drink of water. Once living back at home a wheelchair user could control many of the devices in their house through gestures on a touch-pad built into their wheelchair. Looking back over the last eight years I still find the fact that I am now solving problems I first became aware of when I broke my neck a little strange because I’d never set out to do this. But when I think about it this is what being an entrepreneur is all about, fusing knowledge with personal experience. I like the idea of being a social entrepreneur, and knowing that my work could make a difference to others whose lives have been changed forever. Knowing my research, and now my business, can make a real difference is a huge motivating factor.” n 31
Trailblazer interview: AMY CARTER, 28
Young Social Entrepreneur of the Year, co-founder of Bespoke Experience In August 2002 Amy and her partner Neal Allcock created Bespoke Experience, a fair trade tourism company, established to use tourism to sustainably relieve poverty and protect fragile environments in some of the poorest areas of the world. Bespoke invested in Northern Mozambique in 2003 and opened Guludo Beach Lodge in the Quirimbas National Park in November 2004. The lodge was designed by an award-winning architectural firm, constructed using local materials, techniques and labour, and developed to ensure that the presence of each guest actively benefits the local community and environment while staying in rustic exclusivity on a deserted white beach. The local community of Guludo has a population of 1,300. Life expectancy is 37.8 years, and under-5 infant mortality is 29.5%. Guludo Beach Lodge employs 55 local staff who support over 500 family members, with one-third villagers in Guludo itself supported by Guludo Beach Lodge salaries. Amy’s impact on the local
community where the first resort has been built is best summed up by the chief of the village who said: ‘Before Bespoke arrived, everyone was hungry. Now no-one is hungry. Soon everyone is going to get really fat!’ Amy was named ‘Young Social Entrepreneur of The Year 2006’ at this year’s Edge Upstarts Awards. Her passion and drive lies in the perfection of a model for fair trade tourism that relieves poverty and protects the environment. On social enterprise, Amy says: “I think social enterprise is an extremely exciting area. I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else. It’s stimulating, dynamic and I’m learning about every single aspect of the business from charity law to marketing and sales. But at the end of the day you don’t have to be just driven by the bottom line. You have an extra drive and passion for what you’re doing, because you’re changing things in a very real way.” n www.bespokeexperience.com
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Social enterprise is an extremely exciting area... You have an extra drive and passion for what you’re doing, because you’re changing things in a very real way.
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amy carter