Social Entrepreneurship as a Key to Development in the Philippines
Written by Justin Hakuta
Launched in 2001 with the brothers’ savings and a loan from Unlad Kayaban Migrant Services Foundation (Unlad), a social entrepreneurship-focused NGO, Best Choice produces two varieties of pancit (canton or bihon, thick or thin) as well as fruit preserves of coconut and different beans used to make the popular Filipino desert halo-halo, literally mix-mix.Now self-sustainable, Best Choice has a full-time staff of 22 and has managed to fill a niche market supplying supermarkets and department stores with freshly made noodles and halo-halo ingredients, all while beating off the competition’s cost undercutting by providing a superior quality product and service with a smile.
Migration Nation
The Filipino economy is heavily dependent on remittances, or money sent home from workers abroad. It is an oversimplification to say that this alone contributes to a stagnant local economy. But a dependence on international labor markets where close to a million workers per year, including many of the country’s best and brightest, seek employment elsewhere has an undeniable impact on the local economy’s productivity and ability to generate new jobs.
Studies have shown that OFW savings are generally spent fulfilling the basic needs of the family: improving housing, funding educational opportunities for children, and starting or investing in small businesses such as sari-sari stores (your local bodega shop) or money lending businesses. The issue with starting businesses is that many OFWs lack the technical or financial skills required to run a successful operation.
Best Choice is an example of a need being identified, in this case a lack of noodles and fruit preserves, and met with sound business skills and know-how. Best Choice is an example of money being used to not only generate profit for an individual and his/her family, but also to create jobs where previously there were none, and share the wealth. It is a glimmer of possibility for the Filipino economy that the billions of dollars pouring in from abroad can be used towards creating local employment opportunities, where perhaps one day Filipinos will be able to choose between staying in their country or moving abroad for work out of preference, not necessity.
A For Profit Non-Profit
Unlad Kayaban Migrant Services Foundation (Unlad) is a humble non-governmental organization (NGO) with grand ambitions. Tucked away in a quiet Metro Manila neighborhood next to the University of the Philippines, Unlad is one of the organizations at the forefront of social entrepreneurship in the Philippines.Unlad originates from migrant labor roots. In 1989 its founder and current Executive Director, May-an Villalba, a former teacher, established the Asian Migrant Centre in Hong Kong, which focused on legal assistance and crisis intervention for migrants. Invariably after each case, migrant workers would look for a new employer no matter how harrowing their experiences had been because they had no job opportunities at home and their families depended on them for income. The only option was to find a new job abroad and pray for an employer who would not abuse them.It was this lack of opportunity and vulnerability of migrant workers that spurred Ms. Villabla to build a mechanism whereby migrants could work abroad in the near-term, but create long-term opportunities in their hometowns so that they would not have to migrate for lack of work or money. In 1996, Ms. Villalba formed Unlad Kabayan to become the dedicated vehicle to develop this concept in the Philippines.
Social Entrepreneurship & Human Trafficking
You may be wondering what this has to do with human trafficking (trafficking). Why, if I am conducting a study on trafficking, would I spend my time interviewing an organization that deals not with migrants who have been enslaved, abused, and exploited but instead with those who have finished their overseas contracts and are returning home looking for ways to maximize their earnings?
Trafficking is the product of a number of factors including poverty, poor education, lack of jobs, feminization of migration, organized crime syndicates, government corruption, and low awareness of trafficking at all levels of society. One of the major factors driving migration, and as a result creating a large population that is susceptible to trafficking, is the lack of local job opportunities. Many communities in the Philippines are rife with unemployment, not from lack of demand or motivation but from lack of jobs. The urban centers such as Manila in the north and Davao in the south offer some possibilities, but the demand for jobs far outweighs the supply.
While jobs can be scarce in the Philippines, particularly to those who have not attended a big name university, the global market is hungry for low-skilled, low paying jobs such as domestic and agricultural work that may be viewed as undesirable to those living in the developed world. Globalization has brought countries and economies across the world closer together. A country like the Philippines, who’s economy is based largely on exporting labor, has reacted to this increased connectivity by meeting international demand for these low-skilled jobs.
While this provides opportunities for the unemployed, it also creates a large population of migrants who are vulnerable to trafficking and exploitation at the hands of dishonest recruiters, corrupt government officials, and scheming employers. Further, the nature of jobs like domestic work, where a woman is placed into the home of a family and potentially cut off from the outside world, creates a risky environment for the maid who can be abused by the employer away from the public eye.
Trafficking is a problem that reflects a variety of issues in a culture and an economy such as a patriarchal society and widespread corruption. This is why a holistic approach to combating trafficking that includes social entrepreneurship is needed. Anything less would be incomplete.While donations and charity are still needed to address socio-economic issues, social entrepreneurship and the services offered by Unlad are integral in stimulating the local economy and combating trafficking, potentially putting more than 10 billion dollars worth of annual remittances to productive use that could benefit individuals, communities and, if effective on a large enough scale, the country.
Transforming Waste into Profit
The material in question is coconut, the husks to be exact. Coconuts are harvested for their meat and juice, not for their hard shells, which traditionally are discarded to form heaps of what resemble brownish skulls.
Macabre imagery aside, Davao Oriental Coco Husk Social Enterprise Inc. (Davao Enterprise) is generating serious business. Processing coconut husks into fiber which is used to make anti-erosion nets (for which Unlad won an Ashoka Changemaker Award in 2005), handicrafts, wallpaper, bed fillings and more, Davao Enterprise has found a truly productive use for an abundantly cheap resource that was previously discarded and left to rot.Launched in 2004, Davao Enterprise was incubated by Unlad and a local development NGO, Kalumonan Development Foundation. It is an example of an enterprise that corresponds to Unlad’s vision of social entrepreneurship: economically sustainable, gender-fair, protects the environment, practices accountability and transparency, and promotes the community’s health and well-being.
About the Author
Justin Hakuta is a U.S. Fulbright Scholar currently studying non-governmental organizations combating human trafficking in the Philippines. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University (2004, B.S. in Decision Science), Hakuta has worked as a researcher at the Midtown Community Court in New York City helping formulate policy to reform the criminal justice system and continues to pursue his interest in human rights and social entrepreneurship by collaborating with organizations like Unlad Kabayan.
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