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Social Entrepreneurship: A way to overcome privilege
Overcoming privilege - Local Life
by Lilit Gevorgyan
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Social entrepreneurship focuses on social issues such as poverty alleviation, women’s empowerment, protection of women’s and children’s rights, environmental issues, treatment of waste products, social inclusion of vulnerable groups - in short, overcoming privilege and bringing about positive change in society.
But what is “privilege”?
Some of us are exempt from social attitudes that plagues other people connected with their race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, sex, disability, educational backround, physical appearance, religion, age, class.
Natural disasters, wars, famine, epidemics, global warming etc., exacerbate this problem and create additional difficulties for some people making them refugees, unemployed people, non-native speakers, poors. These problems are challenging governments and corporations, and they never can solve all these problems.
I believe that social entrepreneurship is one of the ways to alleviate these problems.
What is the Social Entrepreneurship: Definition
Social entrepreneurship is all about recognizing the social problems and achieving a social change by employing entrepreneurial principles, processes and operations.
It is all about doing research to completely define a particular social problem and then organizing, creating and managing a social venture to attain the desired change. The change may or may not include a thorough elimination of a social problem. It may be a lifetime process focusing on the improvement of the existing circumstances. 1
In 1990s has been implemented a new concept of business management, which strive to uphold the ideals of people, planet and profit (sometimes described as “people, planet and prosperity”). That places value on social and environmental responsibility as well as the company’s bottom line.
Social entrepreneurship focuses on social issues such as poverty alleviation, women’s empowerment, protection of women’s and children’s rights, environmental issues, treatment of waste products, social inclusion of vulnerable groups - in short, overcoming privilege and bringing about positive change in society.
These entrepreneurial leaders operate in all types of organizations, large and small, new and old, religious and secular, non-profit, for-profit and hybrid. These organizations comprise the ‘social sector’. Profit making is an aspect of this concept but it may not be the sole purpose of the organisation. After all entrepreneurs need capital to carry on with the process.
Differences in Business and Social Entrepreneurship
Business Entrepreneurship / Social Entrepreneurship
More about the individual / All about collective efforts for society
Aims at producing goods and services / Aims at producing goods and services that can serve the community and solve a problem
Focused on the market, demand and trends/ Focused on a solution-oriented approach to a social problem
Measures performance according to profits /Measures performance according to the impact made
The purpose is to satisfy customer needs, excel and earn profits. / The purpose is to promote their cause and improve the society
“Social entrepreneurship aimed at identifying opportunities that are aimed at increasing social wealth. Compared with the business, which aims to make products and services for people, social entrepreneurship goes further to look at the need to foster a lasting tackling of the problem at the socio-cultural level.“ 2
It is estimated that there are around 690 registered EU defined social enterprises in Greece, established according to the three institutionalized forms of social enterprise. However, not all registered enterprises are actually operational (it is estimated that only 30 to 50 per cent of the registered Koin.S.Ep.s are actually operating). 3
Naomi: The social component of the organization
NAOMI (Ecumenical Workshop for Refugees in Thessaloniki), is a non-profit social organization founded in 2016, aiming to support refugees and asylum seekers in Greece for their socioeconomic integration.
The holistically designed Textile Academy program with more than 270 participants in activities per year (2021), provides training on sewing skills, career counseling, Greek language courses, soft skills and environmental awareness.
The attendants (professional and non-professional), are empowered to participate in social and economic life and are prepared for their integration in the Greek labor market, within the textile industry and all relevant professions.
The Textile Academy, part of the NAOMI Ecumenical Workshop for Refugees, is closely interrelated with the Emergency Aid Program as well as the Textile Production Department with refugee employees.
The core principle “Fair Jobs and Peace for All” indicates NAOMI’s position on the right of access to work under fair conditions, which is applied with its 4-6 employees in the workshop. Through sponsored projects, the Production Department creates products according to the principles of sustainability and circular economy (reduce-reuse-upcycling). The first series of products, “Remember IDO- MENI”, was created by using clean blankets from the refugee camp at the border with N. Macedonia. Since then, many more products have been created by reusing and upcycling sail fabric, bicycle inner tubes, used cloth fabrics, as well as materials donated by various companies.
We Interviewed the head of the Textile department of Naomi:
Can you tell me about your department please, what is the main purpose of that?
The first of all the goal of the Textile department of Naomi is to create workplaces for refugees.
We hire people, they are already professionals from their countries and we hire them in proper conditions with a Greek law of course and try to prepare them for the Greek market. That means that they learn a lot of new things, for example, new techniques or new machines, that they don’t have in other countries and we make through this work integration, professional integration in the Greek market. This is the first goal that we have. That’s why we work together with the social department, they have an academy, that prepare also people, and if we need someone for work, if we are need someone for working place, so we ask first of all them, if they have somebody, that they think that he is professional enough to work for our Textile department.
Do you cooperate with other companies to know about vacancies?
No, we don’t need this, because all the time Greek companies call us and ask if we have people for working, because it is very difficult last years to find people, who knows sewing, they are young people, they want to work at textile companies in Greece, so we don’t have to look after, we need more people, so we can help them to find job.
How many beneficiaries do you have now?
Mostly we have between 3-6, it is depends on the orders we have, how many work we have, and of course from the place, because now we have very small place here in Naomi, so we tried to find some new bigger places and we can have more people, and also in case of the pandemy a lot of time we could not to have a lot of people, because of the place was very small.
We have two departments in Naomi, one is for learning how to sew from the first class until professionals. And the second department, that is our Textile department, we only hire people to work for the Textile department. We produced three different kinds of things. One is our own collection, that means that we sell products with a lot of projects that we are working on and our own collection. The other one is the one we make for people in need.
We also work as a “normal” company, we take orders from the customers and then we also produce for them.
We interviewed one of the beneficiaries of the Naomi as well:
How did you know about Naomi?
OK, I knew about Naomi from a friend.
What’s the role of Naomi in your life?
At the beginning i was not a professional sewing person, I knew something about sewing, but not professional, so I started coming for lessons here, in Naomi and within sometime I became a professional, and now I work for Naomi.
What do you do in Naomi?
Naomi employed me to work here and my role is to sew. When we have orders, I help to cut, to design, and work with materials. And for example when we are making t-shirts, I have to cut and then sew.
How long did you learn sewing?
A year.
How long have you been working here?
I have been working for six months now.
Is the salary enough for living? Are you satisfied with your job?
It is not enough, but we are managing, it is good for beginning.
1 What is Social Entrepreneurship, Prachi Junela, 2015 https://www.managementstudyguide.com/socialentrepreneurship.htm
2 How social entrepreneurshi p is changing the world, 2021 https://www.isdm.org.in/blog/how-social-entrepreneurshipchanging-world/?utm_source=adwords&utm_ medium=grants&utm_campaign=social_entrepreneurship_ blog&utm_campaignid=17173992185&utm_ adgroupid=136738319735&utm_ creativeid=596510281846&utm_matchtype=p&utm_ device=c&utm_network=g&utm_keyword=need%20 of%20social%20entrepreneurship&utm_ placement=&gclid=Cj0KCQjwjvaYBhDlARIsAO8PkE2_ i7U3w6skRaQD_GU9VfBQTHTMjL1aQg68DnPbVXSydFaA89HJxcaAvpaEALw_wcB
3 A map of social enterprises and their eco-systems in Europe, Country report, Greece, European commission, 2014 file:///C:/Users/Home/Downloads/SE%20mapping_ country%20report_Greece%20final.pdf
