Social Enterprise: Connecting Globally, Working Locally
The drive of social entrepreneurs and determination to channel profits into community development projects appears to be a worldwide movement. As you can read from recent Watipa blogs, the spirit and practice of social enterprise is thriving.
Future posts will look more in depth at some of the social enterprises we visited in Cambodia, including the National War Remnants Museum in Siam Reap, that commemorates and teaches about the violence of the past, and channels profits and the energy of volunteers into a local school for disadvantaged young people. Another post will explore a model of ecotourism, the Elephant Valley Project in Modulkiri Province in Cambodia, that provides a sanctuary for rescued and contracted elephants in partnership with the local indigenous community.
For Watipa, we are still trying to find our place with others who work globally and act globally (in terms of our social impact)… but in the meantime we are learning from and sharing with a diverse and inspiring group of locally focussed social enterprises around the world.
It’s been a busy month for Watipa. Highlights have included working on
- designing a curriculum to work with sport (soccer) and development to combine knowledge with empowerment for young people to access comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) services,
- preparing to pilot the SRHR training for sport and development in South Africa, and then roll it out in Zambia and Zimbabwe,
- volunteering with a elephant sanctuary and learning about ecotourism in Cambodia, and
- reviewing training processes to reduce stigma and discrimination related to HIV in Jamaica.
Keep up-to-date with our thinking, work and new ideas through our latest blogs:
- Cambodia: Cambodia: Buy Social
- Global: The thoughtful traveller