Social Entrepreneurship - Essay Example

In this respect class, race, ethnicity, gender etc. do not play a role at all. If anything, it is the socio-economical background of a particular individual, and his access to the education and training facilities, that would determine whether he becomes an entrepreneur or not. When it comes to social entrepreneurship, we have any number of examples of striking success of voluntary efforts of individuals whether from the poor or the rich countries. Here, it is the indomitable human spirit to achieve something for the common good that drives such people to social entrepreneurship.

One recalls the stupendous success of Prof. Md. Yunis of Bangladesh and his Grameen Bank, for which he was recently honored with the Nobel Prize. Of course, he is a well-educated person by any standards, but the fact that he hails from a very poor country, the fact that he is a Muslim, and most importantly, the very concept of his enterprise: to lend money without any collateral guarantees, especially to poor women (in Bangladesh and the concept successfully copied in dozens of poor countries around the world) who in turn use it for the purpose of pursuing traditional skills like weaving, basket making, pottery, etc.

, and supporting them at every stage, lends credence to my choice of Pearl 1. In other words, social enterprise to develop business enterprise! The fact that over 95% of the loanees do not default on repayments is a testimony to both ethical values of poor and middle class people as well as the fact that this 95% constitutes, in Susan Davis words, ".every culture, class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability and age." We have many such examples of both business and social entrepreneurship, unencumbered by man-made differences like culture, class, race, ethnicity, gender, etc.

Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, Mahatma Gandhi, Rev. Martin Luther King and Aung Sung Suki in socio-political fields; Indra K. Nooyi, Kiran Majumdar Shah,