Social Entrepreneurship………The Business of volunteering

As usual, I start my day by reading some news websites from around the world. My main focus is the economical and the political conditions around the world, but I also try to fetch for good articles on other subjects as I browse the sites for news.

In the daily asharq-alawsat, one of the leading Arabic newspapers, I read an interesting article on the virtue of social work and the innovative ways entrepreneurs, especially the young, are using to solve the global poverty and social problems. The article is in Arabic, you can find at this link: http://www.asharqalawsat.com/leader.asp?section=3&article=456164&issue=10654

Young minds from prestigious schools such as Harvard and Princeton went out of their usual studies to start up projects to help the poor and the disadvantaged around the world.

Andrew form Harvard business school started his project “Orphans against Aids”, after he saw how young girls in Thailand were forced into prostitution and eventually acquired Aids; his project is helping kids with Aids in poor countries pay for school.

Another student, Jenifer, founded the project “Unite for vision”, very innovative and smart project. The idea is very simple: collect old reading glasses from the US and ship them to Africa. The project expanded and was able to provide eyes treatments for about 200 thousands people.

These type of work is called “Social Entrepreneurship”, these are young people full of energy and ambitions, they see social problems and try to solve them with the most innovative and unusual ways.

Another example is Thuraia from Jordan, she founded a project called “Enjaz”, the project is to prepare thousands of students start their own small business; she says “the only way to change the future is to change the mind of the young people.” You can see her website at: http://www.injaz.org.jo

These social workers got innovative ideas, courage and energy, they could have gone for a profit generating business, but instead they chose to help the other with their ideas.