Social entrepreneurs have the best chance of combining social issues and business solutions to bring about greater change in our society today. The challenge, however, is to encourage more people to join the social entrepreneurship sector and equip them with the skills necessary to run successful social enterprises.
One institution that has risen to the challenge is Center for Social Initiatives Promotion or CSIP. CSIP, in partnership with SEDPI, conducted a training course on Start Your Social Enterprise. The training was held in Hanoi, Vietnam from October 11 to 13, 2012. There were 25 participants from 9 different social enterprises. The training gives a brief introduction into the world of social entrepreneurship and discusses different operational models that their SEs can utilize. The training also presents different tools that the participants can use in identifying opportunities, analyzing stakeholders, and recognizing resource needs. By the end of the three-day training, participants presented their social enterprise plans. The social enterprise that was most innovative, viable and high impact would be awarded prize money. The panel of judges were made up of SEDPI and CSIP staff who journeyed with the social entrepreneurs throughout the course.
CSIP is a non-government organization that supports social entrepreneurs in Vietnam. They provide support to social enterprises that are in their start-up and expansion by looking for different kinds of funding to sustain their operations and they harness networks that can offer technical support to these SEs. CSIP aims to raise awareness and mobilize government, other enterprises and surrounding communities to collaborate for the social entrepreneurship sector.
The recently concluded training course is part of the SEDPI-CSIP partnership to strengthen the capacity of CSIP to deliver training course on social entrepreneurship. Under the agreement, SEDPI will provide training of trainers and assist in the training design, module development and pilot test of their SE training courses.
During the three-day training course, both SEDPI and CSIP delivered sessions to the participants. SEDPI sent President and CEO Mariel Vincent Rapisura and Program Officer Denise Subido to train the social entrepreneurs in Vietnam. SEDPI hopes that CSIP can learn different training techniques that will aid them in the delivery of the next training courses.