The Role of Social Enterprise for Community Development in Southeast Asia
Lesson from attending and winning YSEALI workshop final presentation 2022
Recently, I participated in Youth Southeast Asia Leaders Initiative (YSEALI) regional workshop sponsored by the federal government of the United States of America. As a part of the US missions to ASEAN, this workshop is held to bring together young leaders from Southeast Asia countries annually. These selected youths gather, collaborate and discuss prominent societal issues existing in their respected countries, such as civic engagement, economic empowerment as well as social entrepreneurship, education, and environmental issues.
I was selected along with hundreds of Southeast Asian youth leaders to attend a three days workshop theming civic education for good governance that was taken place in Manila, Philippines. Before attending the in person workshop, there are couple online classes that I had to attend with other participants. We were occupied with practical knowledge such as creating an effective community engagement toolkit for social impacts. Quickly I learned from attending this workshop is the opportunity to meet and exchange ideas, cultures as well as customs with these talented young leaders who have made real impacts in their home countries.
One specific issue that we all share similar experience to is global pandemic covid-19. For the first time in its history, Indonesia holds G20 presidency and the message is clear “recover together recover stronger.” As a youth ambassador, I too bring the spirit of community empowerment as the main campaign to discuss together with other Youth leaders at YSEALI. After witnessing first hand the economic scarcity experienced by lower income family especially those in marginalized community and women in remote areas of Indonesia, I introduced an idea to empower community through social enterprise and other social massive actions to help rebuild the community.
During workshop, we learned about several key components in creating an impactful project. It is started by simply stating an objective or dream that is desirable. After knowing about our intentional goal, then asking follow up question “why does not this dream exist today?” And then asking again with several “but whys.” The idea is to narrow down specific challenges and create action plans to address the arising issues.
After working along with my team, we decided to present a project called “Financial and Digital Literacy for Mama-mama Papua.” The aim of this project is to implement a three days workshop engaging with local indigienous women of Papua who have a readily skill on making local crafts and interested in selling their products through social media and e-commerce. This intensive workshop will occupy these selected women with necessary skills to run their own online store and using social media to achieve greater engagement with the potential buyers directly.
Another essential lesson learned from the project is our ability to identify stakeholders. These stakeholders can be whoever as long as they are capable of contributing to the successful of the project. Definitely, the engagement of local government and grassroots organizations are essential to be included. One of the reason is to strengthen and foster the relationship between the government and their constituents. In addition, the longterm goal of this project is to see these talented women to be able to sustain their business and empower others to do the same.
The number of covid-19 patients have gradually decreased across the globe and the world is recovering post pandemic. It is our time to work hand in hand and help the most vulnerable community to get back in their feet. Not only to support them financially through grants, but more importantly to provide them with critical knowledge to build a strong financial foundation in the long run. The sustainability of the project is the key to a successful YSEALI program and it is the essential meaning of community empowerment in developing countries.
