Grameen Uniqlo is a joint venture social business aiming to produce affordable quality clothing from locally-sourced materials, generate new employment opportunities for locals, and reinvest profits into the business while solving issues such as poverty, hygiene, and gender inequality.
Before opening the two stores, Grameen Uniqlo had focused on door-to-door sales in farming villages, offering people living below the poverty line an affordable quality product.
Rural sales are undertaken by the borrowers of the Grameen Bank, widely known as the Grameen Ladies. Grameen Uniqlo supplies the product on a consignment basis and the Grameen Ladies earn a commission from sales.
In a related initiative, Fast Retailing collaborated with student volunteers of the St. Luke’s College of Nursing in Japan to organize a health education program for 450 junior high school girls in Dhaka. The program taught them about menstruation and how to use a sanitary napkin. For many it was a first.
Grameen Uniqlo has been selling a reusable sanitary napkin they had developed since 2011.
According to Fast Retailing, the new stores offer over 30 items for men and 10 items for women priced between US$2.50 and $15.50.
“We are pleased to announce today our next step in our long-term commitment to the rapidly developing nation of Bangladesh,” said founder and president of Fast Retailing, Tadashi Yanai, on the announcement of the new stores.
“We reinvest any profits to grow the business, and help to address challenges related to poverty, hygiene, and education. Our aim is to nurture independence and self-sufficiency, and to contribute toward raising the standard of living in Bangladesh.”
Photo from Grameen Uniqlo.
]]>Prague attracts millions of tourists each year. All over the city, and especially from the beginning of spring when the weather gets warmer, tourists gather around Old Town Square, Charles Bridge, and Prague Castle.
If you ask the locals – from a city known for showing visitors its charm – whether they frequent the city centre or other landmarks that tourists are so eager to snap photos of, the answer is an unmistakable no.
In spite of this, a group of twenty locals gathered one Friday evening outside Prague main railway station and could be easily mistaken for a crowd of tourists.
They huddled around Karim, 39, one of Pragulic’s tour guides and an ex-drug addict and gay prostitute who lived on the streets.
“I learned about this tour through my school,” said one participant, who was interested in knowing more about people living on the streets.
Founded by Katarina Chalupková, Ondřej Klügl, and Tereza Jurečková, students from Charles University, Pragulic is a social business that employs homeless people to give walking tours of Prague. The tour, costing 200 CZK (10 USD) per person, is catered to locals who are shown the side of Prague beyond picturesque architecture and who want to understand the part of their city that is little understood.
That Friday evening, Karim brought the group through much of the city’s Old Town just west of Prague main railway station.
Karim, who left Slovakia for Czech Republic as a teenager and lived on the streets in Prague for twenty years, gave the group an overview of how prostitution works. Standing on the corner of Rytířská and Perlová, he points to where female prostitution typically occurs, and on the opposite side where their male counterparts work.
Ever since the early 1990s, after Czechoslovakia dissolved into Czech Republic and Slovakia, prostitution had been on the rise together with the number of tourists to the city. Karim explained that many get into prostution as early as 13.
Over the last ten years, there have been increased efforts in Czech Repubic to crackdown on prostitution. Anti-trafficking measures had been implemented. At the same time, thousands of people remain homeless in Prague and many more are unaccounted for.
“According to official statistics there are 4,000 homeless people in Prague,” said Jurečková.
In the middle of the tour, the group stopped at Café Louvre on Národní, a main road buzzing with tourists. During the 1990s, Café Louvre was a nightclub called Riviera where prostitution occurred. It was also the place where Karim used to work. That evening, he brought the group to the café for a beverage where they got the opportunity to ask him questions.
Karim revealed that he never had a good relationship with his parents – one never accepted the fact that he was gay while the other, who thought that he would live a tough life ever since he was young, was never able to communicate well with him. Karim has a free-spirited personality and didn’t want anyone to dictate him. He left home and started living on the streets at 15, where he got involved in prostitution and drugs for the next twenty years.
When asked what made him break the cycle, Karim explained that a client had given him HIV and that he saw his best friend die from a drug overdose. These led him to think of the more important things in life.
Does he have any regrets? “No,” Karim said resoundingly. And if it wasn’t for contracting HIV, Karim said he would probably still be in prostitution. In total, it took him two years to quit drugs.
Today, he spends most of his time working at a homeless theatre, painting, and giving people tours at Pragulic.
A young teen once asked Karim to show him how to enter prostitution. Although he doesn’t have any regrets, Karim doesn’t want to bring anyone into the business. So when he learned about Pragulic, he wanted to give tours to tell his story and discourage others from entering the trade.
Last year, Hub Prague launched the first Social Impact Award (SIA) for university students to encourage them to look beyond a traditional career and provide them with an opportunity to start a social enterprise.
“We had an idea that homeless people could guide people in Prague because they knew the streets in a different way,” said Klügl.
Pragulic began as a written concept on paper and, after winning the SIA, launched in March 2012.
Although the concept looked good on paper, there were many challenges and risks, such as trying to find homeless guides and wondering whether there would be reliability issues.
“We contacted charity houses and those who work with homeless people long-term,” said Klügl.
The students gave presentations to those who were interested, among them Karim, and now employ five tour guides, each with their own story.
Honza is one guide. “Ten years ago, he was at the top of society, had a very high salary, and was a creative director. And then his wife left him with his money so he ended up on the street. He went to jail because he didn’t pay for their kids. And then he started to drink,” said Jurečková.
While Karim has experience with drugs, crime, and prostitution, Honza’s tour features second-hand bookshops. But what the guides have in common are their willingness to be independent.
For Karim, that’s also why he’s keeping active with theatre and the arts. He explains that no one will give you anything unless you work for it.
“The guides that we’re working with are very independent,” said Jurečková. “For example, they sell Big Issue magazines. They are very active.”
Karim has been off the street for four years now. Still, if you ask about his outlook on life, he will say that he feels the worst is yet to come.
]]>According to the European Parliament, 603 (89 percent) out of 676 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) who casted a vote were in favour of the European Social Entrepreneurship Funds, 27 (4 percent) were against, and 46 (7 percent) abstained.
Similarly, 613 (90 percent) of a total 678 MEPs voted in favour of the European Venture Capital Funds, 24 (4 percent) were against, and 41 (6 percent) abstained.
Background
Following the financial crisis of 2008, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) have been struggling to access the financial capital that they need to grow and flourish.
A joint survey by the European Commission and the European Central Bank in 2011 found that out of the SMEs who have applied for bank loans within a six-month period, 11 percent were rejected, 4 percent were refused because of high costs, and 17 percent received less than they applied for.
In other words, approximately one in three SMEs were unable to access the finance that they had planned to get, despite having created 80 percent of all new jobs in the European economy over the previous five years.
Likewise, social businesses, described as companies that have a positive social impact and social objectives as their corporate aim rather than solely maximizing profit, are growing in Europe. In 2011, they accounted for 10 percent of all European businesses and employed more than 11 million paid employees. But these businesses also face a funding gap.
So the Commission wanted to explore feasible methods to change EU fund rules so that there are no unintended barriers for channeling investments into SMEs and social businesses.
In December of 2011, the Commission proposed two Europe-wide funding schemes: European Venture Capital Funds (EuVECAs) and European Social Entrepreneurship Funds (EuSEFs).
European Venture Capital Funds
Venture capital activity differs between member states in the EU. In some states venture capital is more developed, in others it is less developed. Only nine member states have dedicated rules for venture capital, while the remaining 18 apply company or corporate law to venture capital funds.
If member states were to operate within such diverse rules, high costs and red tape would be among the barriers to venture capitalists raising funds across Europe.
The EuVECAs aims to unlock the potential of venture capital funds to finance SMEs by making it easier for venture capitalists to raise funds across the region. It ensures that member states play by a single rulebook.
The EuVECAs is essentially a designation that venture capital funds and fund managers can use, given that they qualify based on a set of requirements.
These requirements, outlined by the Commission, are that:
European Social Entrepreneurship Funds
Similarly, the EuSEFs aims to unlock financing for social businesses. EuSEFs must focus at least 70 percent of the capital they raise on equity or debt support for social enterprises.
In addition, social entrepreneurship fund managers must comply with the rules set out in the regulation designed to ensure:
To be able to use the designation, the aggregate value of the assets managed in the European Social Entrepreneurship Funds must not exceed €500 million.
Upcoming steps
Under the new regulations, fund managers will need to register with the competent authority in their home member state and can then market their funds to the whole EU. Only professional investors – either institutional or retail – may invest in their funds, provided that the investor commits a minimum €100,000.
Following the vote in the Parliament, the Council is expected to adopt both regulations on March 21. They will then enter into force 20 days after their publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, which is estimated to be before the summer.
Source: European Commission
]]>Through MakeSense, the founders hope to “boost the impact of social entrepreneurs by connecting them with super cool individuals and enabling them to take up challenges.” By nurturing collaboration, they hope their members – nicknamed the MakeSense Gang – will take on the mission to tackle issues in society with sustainable business models.
To date, over 500 people around the world have signed up on the website.
Some events are meet-and-greet while others are workshops that they call “Hold Ups”. A couple of upcoming Hold Ups include a brainstorming session in Bristol on November 20 and a gathering at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford on November 27. Over in Kuala Lumpur, there will be a two-day SenseCamp in early December lined up with talks and workshops.
The open project started in February 2010 by Vanizette and Raguin on their trip to Asia to meet social entrepreneurs.
“We believe in the power of social entrepreneurship and social business to change the world. As a result, through our open project MakeSense, our objective is to accelerate the social impact of social entrepreneurs and help sustain this impact in time by promoting the social business concept.”
Photo from MakeSense.
]]>A mix of loans and equity investments will be funneled into two poultry farms, a bakery, and a plantation of jatropha plants that can be used for biodiesel, offering an alternative energy source while creating jobs for 200 farmers.
The amount invested in each will range from $80,000 to $500,000, and feature loans with interest rates ranging from 6-10 percent.
A social business must have a social mission as an NGO would and generate revenues to cover costs. Yunus’ trip included field visits and a conference examining ways to use his development philosophy to ease poverty in Haiti.
The Germany-based Yunus Social Business Fund, formerly the Grameen Creative Lab, opened an office in Haiti after the temblor in 2010, where the country is still recovering.
Yunus is a Bangladeshi banker known for developing a microcredit program for entrepreneurs who were too poor to qualify for traditional bank loans.
He sits on a board of more than 30 philanthropists, former government leaders and executives that advise Haitian President Michel Martelly on economic matters. Former President Clinton, also the United Nations special envoy to Haiti, is a co-chairman.
Yunus also plans to launch a nationwide social business competition for university students before leaving Haiti on Monday.
Photo from AP/Dieu Nalio Chery.
]]>“We are looking at the creation of social business centres in the universities so that they become a part of the curriculum. We then plan to connect one university with another to help exchange ideas and concepts,” said Yunus.
While delivering a keynote, Yunus emphasized that social business is about changing society more than anything. “It’s a non-dividend company. Over a period of time the investment that was brought into the venture is taken back. Once the investment made has been returned the dividend payment stops, but the company still belongs to the one that funded it. It is solely dedicated to the solving the problem it was.”
Yunus had also pointed out Bahrain’s keenness to back social entrepreneurship initiatives and provide funds for micro projects.
Photo from Yunus Centre.
]]>The majority of the bank’s shares and board seats are currently held by female Grameen Bank members, who have benefitted from taking out microfinance loans to form small businesses in order to lift themselves out of poverty.
In the amendment, the government-appointed chairman of the bank, in consultation with the board, will now prepare a three-member panel for the Bangladesh Bank’s (the central bank’s) consideration in appointing the managing director.
In addition, the candidate for managing director of the Grameen Bank must have expertise in the field of rural economy, finance, or in particular microfinance.
“The (proposed) amendment will make it easier to get the right candidate as the bank’s managing director and this will speed up the appointment,” said Cabinet Secretary M Musharraf Hossain.
Muhammad Yunus, founder and ex-managing director of the bank before he was dismissed over a dispute on exceeding retirement age, had always feared the possibility of the government taking over the bank. This had prompted U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s support for Grameen Bank’s independence.
“Now my apprehension has started to become a reality. I am so disheartened that I am unable to express my feeling,” said Yunus in a statement hours after the amendment, reported by The Daily Star.
Currently, Mohammad Shahjahan is the Acting Managing Director and CEO of Grameen Bank.
Photo from Yunus Centre.
]]>For Pamela Yeo, Ng Sook Zhen, and Adeline Heng, it was an opportunity to create a social business out of landmines.
Based in Singapore, Saught began a few months ago as a pilot project in Cambodia where safely neutralized scrap metal sourced from demining organization CMAC is used to make jewelry and sold online. The business uses a co-creation model that adopts the design of artists, designers, and students, and employs artisans from partner NGOs – Rajana Association and Fileo Development Organisation – to handcraft the jewelry. Profit from the sales are reinvested into the company to grow and create more employment opportunities for disadvantaged individuals in post-conflict countries.
The idea for Saught was inspired by locals living in post-conflict countries. The three founders had previously studied and worked in Southeast Asia where they saw first-hand the ingenuity and desperation of local residents in using scrap metals for household goods.
For the company, turning war remnants into jewelry is a symbol of transforming the bad to the good. Their products are organized under three collections – Freedom from War, Freedom from Poverty, and Freedom from Fear. Each is dedicated to represent a specific issue in countries recovering from conflict.
“Communities in post-conflict countries carry a raw sense of hope, and a new freedom,” explains Yeo. “Our hope is that the international community develops a personal stake in the redevelopment of post-conflict countries and the process to rebuild peace.”
Photo from Saught.
]]>Professor Yunus and the President of SK Dream of Japan, Kazuko Sumino, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Friday at the annual Social Business Forum Asia in Fukuoka, Japan, held this year July 20-22.
The social business will be an automobile workshop and auto mechanic training centre in Bangladesh that uses Japanese investment and technology. Sumino is the founder of SK Dream, an organization that supports disadvantaged people. Her husband’s family established the famous Autobacs chain stores all across Japan, with annual revenues of $3 billion and over 500 stores in Japan.
Sumino became intrigued by the concept of social business since Yunus’ visit to Japan in July 2011, and had since discussed the possibility of setting up a social business in Bangladesh along with carrying out a feasibility study for an auto mechanic training centre.
The joint venture will offer training in auto mechanics at various levels of proficiency. It also aims to produce spare parts in the future. The business is expected to begin work in Bangladesh in June 2013.
]]>Grameen Schneider Electric aims to provide access to electricity and develop associated services for disadvantaged people in Bangladesh. The official signature for the creation of the company took place June 19, 2012 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), on the fringes of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (“Rio +20″).
As a social business, Grameen Schneider Electric does not generate losses or dividends to its shareholders and adapts the mechanisms of the market economy to the poorest people to bring sustainable solutions to their situation. The profits made by selling access to energy solutions will be fully reused to develop and expand Grameen Schneider Electric offer throughout the country.
Currently, 1.3 billion people still lack access to energy. By 2013, Grameen Schneider Electric aims to equip nearly 200,000 households with home solar systems based on the solutions already implemented by Schneider Electric in Senegal, Nigeria, India, or Madagascar. Subsequently, the company will build on Schneider Electric and Grameen Shakti teams to conceive innovative and adapted solutions for water pumping or renewable off-grid power generation.
In this initiative, Schneider Electric and Grameen Shakti is supported by the Schneider Electric Energy Access (SEEA) Fund, which aims to support the development of entrepreneurial initiatives around access to energy and have an impact on people’s lives at the Base of the Pyramid (BoP). SEEA is funded by Schneider Electric and its employees, as well as institutional investors, including the Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations and PhiTrust Active Investors.
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