Social enterprises: Key to nation’s progress

MANILA, Philippines - There has been a traditional disconnect between profit-making and poverty alleviation. In recent years however, a shift in the conventional business model emerged with the rise of social enterprises  organizations that have a dual purpose of generating income and serving a social purpose.

PLDT, the country’s leading telecommunications company, is taking the lead in empowering Filipinos—particularly the bright-minded youth—to develop sustainable business ideas that would help in alleviating poverty in the country through Project Pagsulong.

“We are all in a position to help,” said PLDT Chairman Manuel V. Pangilinan in his message delivered for him by PLDT Spokesperson Ramon Isberto during the recent awarding of Project Pagsulong winners. “While we are in a business for profit, we also fully realize that we must do our share to improve the lives of our people.”

A competition for social innovation, Project Pagsulong was organized by PLDT KaAsenso, PLDT-Smart Foundation, RFM Foundation, and The Outstanding Students of the Philippines-Alumni Community (TOSP-AC), in partnership with Draft FCB Manila, Go Negosyo, and IdeaSpace Foundation.

The P1-million youth challenge aims to build a new breed of heroes through social entrepreneurship. Composed of 18 to 30 year-old delegates from all over the Philippines, each team came up with viable business solutions to address various social and environmental concerns that their respective communities are currently facing.

“Project Pagsulong is part of our widespread efforts to promote entrepreneurship in line with our enduring commitment to help our people rise from poverty, enabling the nation to move forward and achieve its full potential,” said Pangilinan.

Launched in July 2012, Project Pagsulong received nearly 400 unique entries and shortlisted top 10 teams who came up with the best real-life solutions viable enough to sustain the business as well as serve its social purpose. The team members were subjected to formation, mentoring and coaching sessions with the project’s partner institutions, and even went through a nine-day boot camp last October 2012 at the First Pacific Leadership Academy.

After five months of workshop, mentoring, and business development, a group of 4th year college students from Samar who called themselves the “Power Builders” stood out among the top 10 teams because of the unique idea and was awarded the grand prize to see their business idea come to life.

The ‘power’ behind the mussels

Out of all the unique entries for Project Pagsulong’s inaugural run, the Power Builders’ business idea dubbed Power Mussels won them the top award, gaining the opportunity to implement their project with a P500,000 cash grant along with continued mentoring from partner institutions.

Their business idea saw the silver lining behind the over-abundance of mussel shells (or tahong) in Jiabong, Samar—where tahong farming has become the main livelihood—as an alternative building material to create hollow blocks. Originally a marketing plan for a school project, the team remodeled it as a social enterprise in order to fit the requirements of Project Pagsulong.

“When we visited the site in Samar, we were further inspired to help the community,” shared Maria Katrina Alfante, one of the members of the winning group. “And when our teacher encouraged us to join Project Pagsulong, we recognized how this competition could help us overcome the hurdles including financial and marketing problems we expect to encounter.”

Power Mussels not only delves into green construction and environmental protection, but also ultimately provides extra income for tahong farmers by providing another source of income. The idea was actually an adaptation from the Spanish era when shells and corals were once used as building materials. The team reinvented the concept, making it both economically and environmentally sustainable.

“Project Pagsulong brought together like-minded individuals who share the same values of creating a better future for the country,” said Alfante. Fueling their inspiration to begin the rise of social entrepreneurship through the youth, “we grew even more passionate about our cause after being surrounded by people with a similar vision of helping our fellow Filipinos,” she added.

Other winning business ideas placing second and third, respectively, were Vermicompost by Jhans: The Cordillera Night Crawlers, a business proposal that uses vermicast fertilizer (using vermicomposting worms) as a viable substitute for commercial fertilizers; and, The Spark Project by The Spark Project Team, a crowd-funding platform to support local talents and projects. The People’s Choice Award went to Team Aiho for their online initiative called Careersforhealth.ph that will link health professionals to available and untapped services for a stronger and equitable health system.

The proof of the pudding is now the implementation of the winning projects where the teams would have a whole year to realize those dreams and transform their business plans to actual working social enterprises.

Project Pagsulong returns with a bigger and better Cycle 2 come January 2014.