Week 16 - IS THIS SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP?

Image from http://www.socialenterprisebuzz.com

Look at that - it's a boating school! How cool is that?!
(it kind of reminded me of something...)

Image from www.icollector.com

Anyway, jokes aside. While I am still in complete awe at this remarkable creation, here's some background information on it..

When Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan was young, he found the monsoon floods in his Bangladeshi community very frustrating as it prevented him from travelling to school.  Due to the lack of proper transportation in riverside communities, the residents there did not have access to latest information and learning opportunities.

This problem kept on circulating in Rezwan’s mind, and in 2002 he found an innovative solution for it. Through Shidhulai Swanirvar Sangstha, which is the Bangladeshi non-profit organisation that Mohammed Rezwan himself had established in 1998, he introduced the solar-powered floating schools in north-western Bangladesh’s flood prone region of Chalan Beel.

This simple but extremely effective solution which involved equipping boats with books and computers, and later powered with solar energy is fully furnished, and then used as a teaching space for the village students. The boat can also be used as a form of transportation for the students to and from their homes. These children are no longer deprived of an education as a result of this boating school.

Mohammed Rezwan’s initiative has impacted the lives of 70,000 children and has been recognised worldwide.  From being awarded the Citizen Based Initiative Award of Ashoka Innovator for the Public in 2002, to being noted as Social Entrepreneur of the Global Philanthropy Forum 2006 (US), Rezwan’s floating school project has been praised for its uniqueness and impact.

While Rezwan is being awarded as a social entrepreneur, does this make the boating school a social enterprise?

Image from www.sodahead.com

I believe it's a no... He did not start this boating school as a profit-making entity, therefore it is actually a social innovation. Social enterprises are in fact social innovations as well. So what we're seeing here is that social innovations form the broader category in which social entrepreneurship happens to fall under.

 

 

"Children can't go to school, so we thought the school should come to them." - Abul Hasanat Mohammed Rezwan

References

Nightingale, K. (2007, June 22). Developing world projects toast of the town. In scidev.net. Retrieved on 2 February 2013 from http://www.scidev.net/en/news/developing-world-projects-toast-of-the-town.html

Tasnim, A. (2012, November 22). If the children can't go to school, then the school should come to them. Social enterprise buzz. Retrieved on 2 February 2013 from http://www.socialenterprisebuzz.com/2012/11/22/if-the-children-cant-go-to-school-then-the-school-should-come-to-them/