Forum scores well with social entrepreneurs - Singapore

Forum scores well with social entrepreneurs - Singapore

ADJUNCT university professor Ben Chan plans to create an online community on social networking website Facebook to tell people about his mission of promoting understanding between Singapore and Indonesia.

He got this tip after attending a forum organised by non-profit organisation Social Innovation Park yesterday.

Social Innovation Park is a non-profit organisation that helps aspiring social entrepreneurs.

Social enterprises are businesses with social objectives, such as providing employment for the disabled. They can also be the business arms of welfare agencies which earn money to support the agencies’ programmes.

Dr Chan, the Singapore director of Indonesian education academy United in Diversity, said the academy creates opportunities for bright young people to talk openly about issues such as forest fires, the sand ban and migrant workers.

More than 300 people - aspiring and existing social entrepreneurs - attended the forum.

They were briefed by the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports on new recommendations announced recently to encourage more businesses with a social mission.

Among the proposals are providing two-year seed funding for new start-ups, a fund that companies could tap to pick up business skills, and another to encourage them to hire the needy and disadvantaged.

The Government will consider the recommendations and respond by next March.

About 60 per cent of 150 social enterprises are set up by voluntary welfare organisations and not-for-profit groups, mostly in small businesses such as hair salons, cafes and gift shops.

Source : Straits Times - 16 Dec 2007

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