Kiva started in 2004, with only 7 loans. 6 years later, Kiva has grown into a large organization specialized in providing microcredit worldwide. As of today Kiva and their Field Partners have coordinated loans to over 386 000 entrepreneurs for a total value of $ 151,198,050.

If you’re interested in supporting a Kiva entrepreneur, go to the website and browse the profiles of entrepreneurs and loan requests and select which one you would like to support. It’s up to each lender how much money to invest, from as little as $25 to the entire amount of the loan. It’s fun, rewarding and easy. Thanks to Kiva’s website you can follow your transaction and its impact on the person you support.

To learn more about microfinance visit http://www.cgap.org/

A Fistful Of Dollars: The Story of a Kiva.org Loan from Kieran Ball on Vimeo.

I am currently spending a couple of weeks in Guatemala, a country facing many social and environmental difficulties. From my earlier two years of working here I know how great the needs are in the local communities, why I was very excited to come across Ecofiltro, a social enterprises providing sustainable solutions to some of the challenges typical for Guatemala and many other poor countries.

Ecofiltro is a clean water solution invented in 1981 by a Guatemalan scientist by the name Fernando Mazariegos. Today Ecofiltro has a daily impact on the lives of people in over 14 countries. About 20 years after the initial work, Ecofiltro was recognized by the World Bank as it won the coveted Marketplace Award in 2004. This impressive innovation is made out of local materials such as clay and sawdust and its construction provide clean drinking water in a ecological cost-effective manner, as an option to boiling or chlorinating water. Ecofiltro has been purchased by organizations such as the Redcross, CARE, UNICEF, International Plan, USAID, Doctors Without Borders and the European Union. The benefits of Ecofilter are numerous:

• Ecofiltro can provide 22 gallons of drinking water a week, enough for a family of 5 or 6
• Usage ensure significant savings over purchasing bottled water and allows use of water from any source, including contaminated rivers and lakes
• Reduction of illness among family members and disaster prevention since its use can prevent widespread health problems from drinking contaminated water after earthquakes, floods and hurricanes
• Reduction of deforestation in the user country, as firewood is not needed to boil water

To achieve efficiency and a deeper impact in at community level Ecofiltro also provide training programs in health and hygiene. If you want more information, donate money or buy your own Ecofiltro visit the website.

Josefin Uhnbom
SE Forum

Between the 2nd and 5th of June, over 1700 people from all over the world gathered in Leksand, Dalarna for the 5th Global YES Summit ”Rework the World”, a collaboration between the Tällberg Foundation and Yes Inc. Participants ranging from grassroots organizations and top politicians to representatives from global corporations. The conference was meant to serve as a forum between world leaders and smaller entrepreneurial organizations – social entrepreneurs – from all parts of the world, with a focus on sustainable strategies and actions needed to create work and employment through entrepreneurship.

To be honest, it was an overwhelming experience! An event like this holds so much potential and therefore also certain risks for disappointment if expectations are not met. And there were some non-substantial speeches echoing “Yes, let’s change the world”, and “this is the time for change”. Words and slogans that tend to have little practical meaning, which is why I think they should be avoided to give room for more constructive conversations.

But there were many moments of true clarity, coming from real life-examples of people who already have achieved exactly what the whole event was about. With their words in my ears, I left inspired and eager to get back to work, because that – I believe – is the only thing that truly makes a change. If anything, this conference reminded me of the value of action.

Two of these stories really stood as they illustrate how intertwined action is with learning and how many strong ideas come from facing obstacles and difficulties. The first was that of Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistanian woman who survived being raped by four men in a society that condemn the women, and not the rapist. Rape is considered so shameful that there are even women who commit suicide as an option rather than bear the disgrace.

Mukhtar chose to live and decided to take her attackers to court. At her first encounter at the police station she was asked to write her name, but as she was illiterate, she had to give them her fingerprints instead. She was humiliated, but also struck by the realization that knowledge is power. Mukhtar continued to fight for her rights and in the end she was offered a bribe, as a compensation for the suffering she’d been put through. She didn’t want to trade money for silence but just as she was about to turn the bribe down, she heard herself say; “I don’t want the money; I want to build a school”.

Today she runs several schools and the Mukhtar Mai Women’s Welfare Organization, teaching boys and girls to be free and equal. She wants to provide them with knowledge and education, so that they too, can act.

A similar story is that of Majora Carter, founder of the Majora Carter Group. She’s an extremely accomplished force who devoted herself to changing the unsafe areas of Bronx, enabling people to be proud of their homes and feel safe on the streets. Her mission included engaging the local community through creating jobs and training programs for people.

My point is this; you need to learn to be able to act and you need to act in order to learn. Mukhtar Mai didn’t need an education to realize the power of education. She started a school to provide people the skills and education that she felt she was lacking to be in control of her own life. Majora Carter understood that action leads to knowledge, that learning by doing is education in itself. The people she chose to employ for her city-planning projects were not technical experts, but they learned through their work and as she phrased it while defending the local’s rights to be involved in the actual execution of the makeover; “We live here, we are experts too…”

Mukhtar Mai and Majora Carter have two more things in common; persistence and courage. Maybe these are characteristics that one cannot be trained in, they’re simply choices that you have to make when facing traumas and challenging situations.

So I say be brave, and don’t give up. And make sure that all your learning opportunities are focused on building skills that promote action. Words and slogans are great, but action is everything!

Josefin Uhnbom
SE Forum

BlastBeat Education UK is a social enterprise whose mission is to provide a self sustaining organization that can support and grow an International framework for youth community building, social entrepreneurship, creativity and learning whereby young people can, through their own decisions and actions, learn the basics of community social interaction, teamwork, creative, and business skills both on and offline.

BlastBeat utilizes music and multimedia to create a world of empowered entrepreneurial youth working for positive social change.

The Blastbeat mission is threefold:

• Nurture young entrepreneurial and new musical talent.
• Educate and empower young people.
• Inspire young people to be more socially conscious.

 
Find out more about BlastBeat at www.blastbeat.org.

Det nystartade svenska nätverket Cradle Net arrangerar stort C2C-event 29 april

Ur pressmeddelandet:

Kan du tänka dig en värld där allt du gör och konsumerar ger positiva ekologiska fotavtryck?
En värld utan avfall?
Cradle to Cradle gör den världen möjlig.

Den Nya Eko-industriella Revolutionen börjar torsdagen den 29 april kl 18.00 på Konstfack. Då får vi för första gången i Sverige höra den världsberömde tyske kemiprofessorn Michael Braungart, av Time Magazine utnämnd till ”Planetens hjälte”, berätta om det banbrytande konceptet Cradle to Cradle.

Cradle to Cradle (C2C) är en ny men självklar tanke; att förvandla avfall till näring i eviga kretslopp. I naturen existerar inget avfall – varför ska vi människor vara sämre?

Några exempel på C2C-produkter är glasspapper som smälter i rumstemperatur, bryts ner biologiskt och innehåller växtfrön. En fabrik som drivs av förnybar energi och som släpper ut renare vatten och luft än vad som tas in. Blöjor som du kan lägga i komposten och som kan bli biogas.

Under kvällen visar klädskaparen Matilda Wendelboe m. fl. upp världens första Cradle to Cradle-kollektion – kläder som du kan slänga i skogen eller ge tillbaka och få ut nya efter användning.

Dessutom finns möjlighet att delta i workshops med kreatörer, entreprenörer och organisationer som alla strävar mot nya lösningar där Waste = Food.

Tid: 29/4, kl 18-22
Plats: Konstfack, Stockholm
Begränsat antal platser!

För mer information och hur du anmäler dig till eventet, besök cradlenet.se

GlobalFOCUS is a global non-profit foundation dedicated to reducing the world’s carbon dependency and building a better, more sustainable tomorrow. They do this by running and supporting projects (40 to date) that, in a variety of ways, reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Based in Sweden, the organization was started by four graduate students from Uppsala University in 2007, and has been funded by the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF). Today it has offices in Sweden and China, supported by researchers and project managers from all corners of the globe.

Among its many projects, GlobalFOCUS’s work in the cleantech sector and in China is particularly noteworthy. Released in 2008, the much-lauded 12 Climate Entrepreneurs (12CE) Report, for example, has attracted significant media attention and has been noted as an important source behind the inclusion of climate innovation in the Swedish 2009 national budget. Similarly, GlobalFOCUS’s office in China has hosted a series of popular competitions among Chinese youth on climate change and environment issues. Currently, a GlobalFOCUS Center is being set up in China’s “Solar Valley,” the sustainable city currently being built outside Dezhou by one of the most dynamic and interesting Chinese cleantech innovators, Himin Solar Energy’s Huang Ming.

Once a month we are inspired by social entrepreneurs in various fields. A big thanks to all SE BAR speakers of 2009. Check out these amazing change makers:

PeePoople, Camilla Wirseen

Cradle to Cradle, Mattias Ohlsson and Magnus Hedenmark

Wiminvest, Anna Edwall

Social Initiative

Mikrofinanshuset Andreas Ullsten

Solvatten Petra Wadström and Claire Wigg

Swedish sustainability foundation Aapo Säsk

Mikrofinanshuset Andreas Ullsten

Ideas for change Daniel Daboczy

MEST (Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology) Ylva Strander

Telge Kjell Hasslert

GUEST ENTRY

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There is a public call for tax relief and policy changes in Sweden to motivate corporations, as well as private donors, to support donations for research and charitable organisations (Regeringskansliet SOU 2009:59). Tax relief on charitable giving is the most important funding driver for the third sector in the UK and in the US.

Personally, I believe it would open up a tremendous opportunity also in Sweden to better integrate business with all of its stakeholders in society. It would be an important aspect of encouraging businesses to develop a broader and more efficient CSR strategy, in particular the SMEs, who currently may not think they can afford to do so.

Several high profile people have written articles in the daily newspapers to urge the government to vote for the proposition in order to stimulate the growth of social entrepreneurship. Among them is the director of the Fondation de Luxembourgh, Tonika Hirdman, in Dagens Industri on January 16^th. 

As much as I appreciate the proposal, in the debate things do get mixed up.  As a social entrepreneur, business is my focus. Not charity. The “social” aspect of my enterprise is that I wish to use my business acumen and my capital not only to generate a profit, but to actively strive to make a positive social change. It is in the mission of the company, in its measurements and affects all aspects of managing costs and income. It would also confuse the purpose of my operations, if what I do is labelled philanthropic, since I wish to reach a level of self-financing and profit where I can grow and develop just like other entrepreneurs.

In my role as consultant I have both started several social enterprises and guided other organisations that wish to contribute financially, but also with their products and services. They always want to make clear upfront that they do not wish to see these projects as philanthropy. They point out that they see it as taking their social responsibility.  Even so, in practice it is common that companies encourage employees and customers to fund raise for example, and that could benefit from the proposal.

For long-term engagement with the third sector though, I see two problems. First, the donor cannot expect anything in return. How do we then have a dialogue about the impact? Second, donations are an easy, but over time not very effective way for a business to engage with the third sector.

We need to call for additional economic incentives that consider the whole picture – today social enterprises often operate more like business than charity.

/Ruth Brännvall, Founder Njord Management Consulting Ltd

GUEST ENTRY

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These words were spoken by one of the greatest leaders of our time. I fully agree, if you deep inside feel that something needs to be changed to the better, you must embody that change yourself in order to make a real difference in people’s daily lives.

It all started when I got back home to Sweden from a period living and studying Business and Mandarin in China. I had travelled around the South-East-region of Asia and saw the hardships that poverty created.  After my homecoming I ignited my passion, Africa’s Potential, during the Winter of 2007, when I received a Scholarship from SIDA, where my mission was to identify the characteristical features of potential entrepreneurs in the Ugandan village of Bubulo, and in corporation with Chalmers in Gothenburg install solar-panels in order to electrify the village and create job opportunities together with local entrepreneurs that weren’t just passive bystanders but active entrepreneurs. More than 150 entrepreneurial jobs were created and more than 3 000 people receive today water on a daily basis from a water-station which is driven by these solar-panels.

After my stay in Uganda, a relentless passion for going back to Sub-Sahara to “boost” more African entrepreneurs was initiated, due to the fact that I saw that the aid that reached these areas only killed entrepreneurship and was breeding inactivity in the Sub-Saharan societies.

During the year of 2010 Africa’s Potential will be involved in many “job-creating” projects in Sub-Sahara and especially East-Africa. I’m going to act as an Adviser for Stockholm School of Economics and their Business Labs international expansion to East-Africa. I’ll also be involved in a project regarding organizing the African Diaspora in Sweden when it comes to “brain-gain” to their home countries, as well as “match make” some of the Rwandan entrepreneurs I got to know in November with Swedish equivalents.

I’m also promoting the success stories of the African continent, which the western-oriented media channels very seldom publish or never promotes. There are plenty of success stories, but very few that reach the masses. My mission is also to make the public aware about the current aid-issue – that trade and not aid initiatives will empower and build the Sub-Sahara region.

This is my life-conviction, not a two or three year project, to “boost” local African entrepreneurs in order to increase competence, “brain gain” and trade to the Sub-Sahara, in the fight against poverty and corruption.

Please, don’t forget! The truth is that YOU also have the same ability to create “greater-good” to the societies’ most pressuring problems. All you have to do is to take that first initial step! 

Morakozee chaniii, (Thank you very much in Kinyarwanda)

/Emre Gürler, Africa’s Potential.

P.S. You can follow Africa’s Potential’s mission on Twitter, Facebook as well as Linked-In.