XII SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A COOPERATIVE PLATFORM BETWEEN THE PHILIPPINES AND FRANCE

XII

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: A COOPERATIVE PLATFORM BETwEEN THE PHILIPPINES AND FRANCE

The Filipinos and the French do not share a common language, culture, or history, but they share a common humanitarian tradition. For Filipinos, it is seen in bayanihan. For the French, it is seen in their active civil society which has given birth to global foundations such as Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), the founders of the “without borders” movement work.

So it was not a surprise that Gawad Kalinga resonated among the French, particularly its youth.

Since 2010, Gawad Kalinga has welcomed over 1,500 French interns and volunteers in various Gawad Kalinga communities all over the Philippines. Every year, the number keeps on growing. In 2017, Gawad Kalinga welcomed 275 French interns and volunteers to the Philippines.

Established in 2003 by Tony Meloto, Gawad Kalinga's mission is to bring 5 million Filipinos out of poverty by 2024. Gawad Kalinga intends to do this in three phases of seven-year periods:

•The first phase (2003 to 2010) focuses on the restoration of the dignity of the marginalized through the construction of Gawad Kalinga villages. As of today, there are around 2,500 villages all over the Philippines and another 500 all over Indonesia, Cambodia and Papua New Guinea.

•The second phase (2010 to 2017) focuses on the creation of enterprises for Gawad Kalinga communities through social business incubators, the first of which was the Gawad Kalinga Enchanted Farm in Angat, Bulacan. After the Enchanted Farm, 25 other incubators are expected to be put up in various Gawad Kalinga communities all over the country.

•The third phase (2017 to 2024) focuses on the scaling up of small enterprises developed in the incubators. An excellent

Figure 234. French volunteers to the Gawad Kalinga (Olivier Girault-GK Europe)

success story is Bayani Brew, a line of farm fresh tea drinks incubated at the Enchanted Farm. Today Bayani Brew is available at Rustan’s Supermarkets.

Now that Gawad Kalinga is in between the second and third phases, the main focus is on social entrepreneurship. Simply put, a social enterprise is one which responds to a social or environmental problem while generating profit. It often targets those at the bottom of the pyramid (BoP), not out of charity, but because it makes perfect business sense to develop solutions and innovations for this large market.

The Gawad Kalinga model clearly resonates among the French, particularly millennials who are just starting their careers.

Everyday, the Philippine Embassy in Paris receives more and more visa applications for Gawad Kalinga interns and volunteers, all eager to make meaningful change in the lives of others, and consequently, in their own lives.

Some of the first Gawad Kalinga volunteers are now back in France, after having volunteered in the Philippines, and they have started putting up their own social enterprises and even incubators

for social enterprises, such as Ticket for Change and MakeSense. Some return to France to finish their studies and then leave again for the Philippines to spend a longer time in Gawad Kalinga.

It has reached a point where the Philippines and France are sending almost the same number of students in both directions. According to the French Embassy in Manila, they issue around 250 student visas to Filipinos every year. According to Gawad Kalinga, they welcome around 250 French interns every year.

While Filipino students come to France to study business, management, engineering and French as a foreign language, among others, French students go to the Philippines to learn about social entrepreneurship. In February 2018, the School of Entrepreneurial and Experiential Development (SEED) at the Gawad Kalinga (GK) Enchanted Farm welcomed its first batch of French students.

The world is changing and the role of the enterprise is changing with it. Profit, sustainability and social utility are no longer mutually exclusive, and Gawad Kalinga has been a pioneering influence in this field, building bridges between the Philippines and France in the process.