The
chapters I read this week are a lot more interesting than the other chapters.
The first chapter was about how the organization Ashoka, an organization that
help social entrepreneur achieve their goals, find qualified social
entrepreneur. They said they look for four essential qualities to being an
entrepreneur, creativity, entrepreneurial quality, social impact of the idea,
and ethical fiber. They also discounted writing ability. It was strange to me
at first that they discounted writing ability but the more I think about it, it
did not matter if you could write something persuasive to get money or grants
because that will not change the fact whether your motivated to make social
change. I feel that the hardest thing to determine is ethical fiber because
anyone can show a good ethic during an interview but have little to none moral
principles, but as I read more the way they analyze these people are very
intense. They go through multiple interviews to determine if they possess this
characteristic. After reading that, I wondered if I had the qualities they were
looking for but I questioned if I really did because this group took it so
seriously that the effort I could put in will nowhere match their expectations.
The other chapter is about the a woman trying to change the health care system in Brazil. She noticed that it was pointless in curing someone of a disease and sending them back to the same place where they got the disease without anything that could protect them. She saw this mostly in the slums of Brazil so she decided to start lobbying for change. I see these types of problems where we only solve the initial problem but not the core of it. Like charity, it only funds the solutions to feeding a couple of hundred of people but it will not solve world hunger. Finding the problem of why a certain group of people don't have food is necessary to create a permanent solution. A lot of time we look for the easy solution but it will still lead to same the problem occurring again.
You've hit upon one of the most important issues for social entrepreneurs: how to help without making the situation worse--or, perhaps, how to help in a way that will have long-term, positive effects. So many aid projects solve short-term problems only to leave long-term problems intact. This is challenging: you need to really, really understand the situation and the culture well enough so as to not fall victim to outside assumptions, as the case study from Brazil makes clear.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you're thinking about this stuff. As I've mentioned before, this would be a great area of entrepreneurship for you to venture into.