BUILDING TIES. The Ateneo, Gawad Kalinga, the National University of Singapore and Temasek Foundation are working hand in hand to train people for sustainable entrepreneurship. Photo by Kat A. Mallillin.
MORE BENEFACTORS than originally planned have been trained for the setting up of sustainable enterprises, made possible by a collaboration between the Ateneo, the National University of Singapore (NUS), Gawad Kalinga (GK) and the Temasek Foundation, an investment firm and philanthropic organization based in Singapore.
During the collaboration’s media event last June 22, NUS Business School Project Head Lam Swee Sum said that through the hard work put in by all partners, they have met and surpassed expected outcomes.
“We [initially] set up to train eight curriculum developers from two schools in Ateneo. We exceeded this target and trained 12 curriculum developers from four schools: School of Social Sciences, John Gokongwei School of Management, School of Humanities and Ateneo School of Government,” she said.
The three-year collaboration between the Philippine and Singaporean parties promotes “social entrepreneurship for sustainable development” in two dimensions.
As a curriculum development program, the collaboration designed an undergraduate module for the School of Social Sciences and the School of Management. Starting this school year, Entrepreneurship for Sustainable Development has been offered in the Ateneo as a cross-listed elective. “The need right now is to create jobs and employment through entrepreneurship,” Lam said.
The collaboration also holds a “train the trainers” program that provides workshops for GK leaders in some 2,000 communities throughout the country.
The program was able to train 24 participants in the first run of workshops in May 2011. Some 70 GK stakeholders have already been trained in total, and 50 more will be targeted for 2013.
The collaboration was made possible by an in-kind grant amounting to approximately P19.8 million. The Temasek Foundation will also be involved in the determination of the collaboration’s outcomes. The said foundation has a focus on “multiplier programs”—in this case, GK leaders trained under the collaboration would go on to train those working under them.
Success in others
Temasek Foundation Chief Executive Officer Benedict Cheong said that the success of the collaboration would be shown through its participants. In particular, Development Studies Program Director Leland dela Cruz said that the desired outcome is for GK to be able to dole out social enterprises.
Seven out of the mentioned 24 participants during the first batch of training in 2011 have already rolled out their own enterprises.
Angel Supetran Jr., head of the GK Center for Social Innovation in Iloilo, said that the workshops taught him the basics of entrepreneurship and the importance of one’s environmental assets. His project proposal centered on virgin coconut oil and coconut sugar production.
The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and the provincial government funded Supetran’s project with P500,000 and P130,000, respectively.
“When I presented [my] concept papers to the provincial administrator, he appreciated it because [there were many projects being implemented] before which [were] not really sustainable,” he said.
On the other hand, Kevin dela Cruz, also a participant and a student from the University of the Philippines (UP), was granted P50,000 by Colgate’s Rock Ed and Fresh U Project for his initiative to establish small enterprises among the urban poor living inside the UP campus.
Dela Cruz said that these newly established social enterprises are earned-income activities that will help solve social problems.
Paradigm shift
GK Founder and Chairman Tony Meloto (AB Eco ’71) said that part of addressing the social problems of the Philippines is to inculcate a paradigm shift in the mindset of the Filipinos.
“We have to raise a new generation of Filipinos who are wealth creators at home, not job seekers. They should not just be the resource that makes rich countries richer,” he said.
He added that the new generations should be composed of patriots, and not just professionals or politicians.
This is exactly what Supetran, speaking from his own experience, encouraged the GK residents in Iloilo to do: to harness their skills and become employment generators rather than employees.
“Our work as Gawad Kalinga, as an Atenean [and] as a Filipino is to really see big power in small people,” Meloto said.
He also said that the poor are the greatest untapped wealth of the country, pointing out that helping them would make for a sustainable and productive community.
Asians working together
The cross-cultural collaboration between the Philippine and Singaporean parties embodied the idea of solidarity in a time Meloto called the “Asian age.”
Cheong said that the Temasek Foundation values its partnership with the NUS, the Ateneo and GK as it builds a friendship that could open up more possibilities.
Dela Cruz shared that all collaborating parties got to learn how each institution viewed poverty and social entrepreneurship. “Singaporeans are very structured in the way that they approach things. The Filipinos are more free-willing,” he said.
Accordingly, Cheong admitted that the solutions in Singapore would not necessarily work in the Philippines.
“I think it is not right for any outsider to make a comment about [another] country’s development or state of enterprise. I am not a primary stakeholder of this country,” he said.
Cheong said that Filipinos would have to figure out and decide for themselves the solution to their social problems. However, he maintained that, as mutually supportive partners, the Philippines and Singapore will continue to share good case practices with each other.
