Social entrepreneurship is crucial part of Sri Lanka’s development
An ordinary villager on Thursday clearly illustrated what social entrepreneurship, a new kind of entrepreneur being actively promoted in Sri Lanka, is and on occasion how hard it is to become successful.Kumari Darmaratne from Wanaraniya, a remote village in the Matale district, was speaking at a forum that discussed ‘Social Entrepreneurship, Social Innovation and Social Value Creation’ held at the BMICH.She spoke for nearly one hour detailing her struggle to create a water supply scheme for the Wanaraniya village single-handed that made the audience spellbound, at this workshop.
It was organised by the Department of Industrial Management, Faculty of Science, University of Kelaniya alongside the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies (BCIS) and Competency based Economies Through Foundation of Enterprise (ECFE). Ms Darmaratne said that some 10 years ago the villagers of Wanaraniya suffered without water and they had to walk long distances to fetch water.Using women power combined with her determination and leadership, she first organized a women’s group ‘Vishaka Women’s Society’ (VWS) rallying round all the women young and old in the village and planned to block the ‘Bambarakiriella waterfall by constructing a dam across it – invariably a herculean task.
The main thrust of the Wanaranya Water Supply scheme was to build the retaining wall across Bambarakiriella, laying a 4 mile (6 km) long pipeline and constructing storage tanks which the local Pradeshiya Sabha (PS) estimated at Rs. 4 million to have individual pipe water connections to each and every household in the village.Though the PS promised, the assistance never came. But with commitment and determination, Ms Darmaratne urged the villagers to make an initial payment of Rs. 1,000 to give them pipe water connections and also Sarvodaya Rural Technical Services for technical support.
She explained to the audience how hard it was to counter efforts by certain villagers who sabotaged the project by removing the pipes on the same night they were laid. Farmers in the village thought that when the Bambarakiriella is blocked they would not get water for their cultivation purposes.Overcoming all the pressures and difficulties in 2001 through the VWS she was able to complete the project base and launch a water supply to several homes as the first stage. Though VWS struggled with time and money it was able to provide all the water needs of 180 households, proving what women-power is and what social entrepreneurship is all about.
Ms. Darmaratne said that VWS members dug the pits to lay the pipes and also attended to lot of hard work to slash the cost considerably. With this hard-earned success, VWS has ventured into other entrepreneurial activities.Dr. Ranjith Cabraal, BCIS mentioned that Ms. Darmaratne’s achievement is unique, not only in Sri Lanka but also to many countries where the entrepreneurial ability of many are not properly identified and therefore her activities should be documented as a case study for the benefit of the community.Dr. Jay Jayawardena, Associate Professor, Strategic Marketing, University of Queensland,
Australia speaking on ‘building sustainable organizations’, said that the business models in social entrepreneurship could be conventional non-profits, social enterprises and social business. He said that conventional non-profit enterprises should have the social purpose and the satisfaction of the donors to contribute to the cause and serve markets – clients, donors and volunteers, etc. Social enterprises could be trading for a social purpose – businesses with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profits for shareholders.
The other resource person at the workshop, Chaminda Rajakaruna, Executive Director, Sarvodaya Movement discussing ‘Developing Social Entrepreneurship in Sri Lanka’ spoke about how the Sarvodaya movement started first based on the Shramadana Movement and has now enmeshed the whole country involving social entrepreneurship.Discussions also on the state sector involvement in social enterprises on a large scale but that they are also involved in heavy corruption. Dr. Cabraal suggested that if the issue of corruption is taken away from the state sector social enterprises then the benefits to the society would be doubled.
On the sidelines of the workshop, the Business Times asked Dr. Jayawardena whether there is any way out to eliminate corruption in the state sector social entrepreneurship. In response, he said that it would only be possible with a determined political leadership.He said that corruption is minimal in western countries and pointed out that there should be checks and balances and the classic example in Asia is Singapore because that country has overcome corruption due to firm political leadership.Ms. Chandani Dias Abeygunawardene, a participant indicated that all the corporate entities have the programme ‘Corporate Social Responsibility’ (CSR) but she suggested that CSR should be incorporated into the corporate plan. As an example she pointed out that in Cargills Consumer Market Chain, CSR is part of its corporate plan and is successfully progressing.