British Council recently gave me a rare opportunity to acompany Professor [1] Cliff Southcombe to become a facilitator on the Community Enterprise Wokrshop for 50 applicants of the British Council’s own Community Entrepreneurship Challange (CEC).
The 50 attendees were selected from 600 applicants that sent their community business proposal to the CEC. 30 people will follow the workshop on the first and second day. They have a good concept but not suitable enough for the competition, so hopefully after the workshop they are able to remodel their business towards a more community enterprise.
20 of the participants joined us on the second and third day. These are those who are semi-established, their proposal and community business plan are up to British Council’s standard for a community enterprise. So the materials on the first day are tools for beginers to the community enterprise concept, moderate on the second day, and advanced on the third.
The workshop took place at the Scarlet Hotel Bandung on June 15th to 17th, and with the help of 3 other more experienced facilitators: Mrs.Rini Sudaryani of UnPad, M.B.Junerosano of Greeneration, and Ms.Suci Mayang of The Indonesian Institute.
It was a real breath of fresh air to see so many eager entrepreneurs in one room, let alone to think that there were 600 applicants, meaning that there are more future entrepreneurs out there whether their intentions be community or not.
It was interesting to see what the participant think what to their knowledge a community enterprise is. Some still misses between what a community enterprise is and what an enterprise based on community is. There is a big diffrence. A community enterprise is owned with a majority stakeholder of the community and is used as a mean to uplift the local economy by minimizing the amount of money leaving the community, where as an enterprise based on community are mostly private owned companies that base their business from the community, such as a batik company that uses a workforce from a certain community or a corn company that buys corn from a certain community.
A social/community enterprise is owned by the community, empowering the community to take action, draws funding and power from the community, and help sustain or grow the community’s economy.
For more about community enterprise, you can contact me, Cliff Southcombe or the other facilitators above through the British Council. Thank you for the opportunity, and a great thanks to the BC team that helped us along the way: Mr.Fajar, Mr.Heri & Ms.Dhika.
____________________
[1] Cliff was awarded a plaque with the title “Professor“ on it from a university in Java, and as he has said have caused some hilarity back home – some say the word “Mad” is missing!
Chandra 2.0 