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The real meaning of social enterprise

 

If Cameron’s new model army is to change Britain, we’ll need my friend Mark

Orginially published in The Independent on Thursday, 12 November 2009

Mark Peters is 32. His parents fostered a number of children, one of whom, John, was

sectioned in his late teens. John’s dispiriting treatment prompted Mark, a community youth

worker and fitness instructor, to set up a social enterprise, Start Again. It homes in on the

particular passion of a young person – in John’s case, playing the drums – to motivate them to

start afresh. In the past year, Start Again, with 10 volunteers, has helped more than a hundred

young people, many coming out of care, to return to education, training or employment.

Mark is a perfect example of David Cameron’s new model army – the one the Tory leader

says will re-boot social mobility; tackle welfare dependency; reduce poverty and re-ignite a

sense of community. He is helped by the Young Foundation, a centre for innovation that also

provides business support and funding to help to grow social enterprises in health and

education, and which merited a name-check in Cameron’s speech this week in which he

referred to the need for big government to shrink while acting as a catalyst for social action.

Cameron is right about the potential alchemy of social action. Credit unions, housing

associations, Sure Start, The Big Issue are all social enterprises, sometimes using market

based strategies to achieve a social purpose.

Often, a social enterprise has a chain reaction. In Balsall Heath, in Birmingham, for instance,

another social enterprise supported by the Young Foundation is Saheli, a gym with extras, run

by Naseem Akhtar and Shebina Gill. Women are prescribed women-only sessions at the gym

by GPs, and the sessions improve health, reduce isolation and lead to much stronger

community engagement. It enhances people’s wellbeing and saves money.

Then there is Working Rite, which also enjoys Young Foundation support. Working Rite, set

up by a former gardener, Sandy Campbell, matches a tradesman with a teenager for six

months, to get him back into an apprenticeship, education or work. It’s a small investment

that brings a significant return.

In a Cameron country, there will be an urgent need for more organisations like the Young

Foundation to act as intermediaries, giving social entrepreneurs a strong hand up. Social

enterprises can indeed deliver miracles, but not without hard graft, and with disappointment

and failure featuring regularly. They take time and do not necessarily come cheap – an

awareness of which also needs to be part of the Tories’ rescue remedy. The creation of

Cameron’s “good” society requires jobs and significant redistribution of wealth.

As Labour MP Frank Field says, Cameron’s speech is a narrative with “a wonderful bold

beginning”. Given an election victory, what will count is how the plot unfolds. Can Cameron

hold his nerve?

 

www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/yvonne-roberts-the-real-meaning-of-social-enterprise-1818877.html

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