WCIC and CSR Lanka partner to develop economy through social entrepreneurship

CSR Lanka and Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce (WCIC) organised a webinar on ‘Economic Development through Social Entrepreneurship’ recently. 

The eminent panel comprised well-known professionals from the industry, namely, CSR Lanka Chairman Chandula Abeywickrema, Vidullanka Director and CSR Lanka Director Rizvi Zaheed, NiluTea Founder and CEO Nilushika Jayaweera and Selyn Director, Business Development Selyna Peiris. Global WiLAT Chairperson Gayani De Alwis who is a Board Member of WCIC and Director of CSR Lanka moderated the forum. 

We are living in unusually challenging times. COVID-19 is severely changed individuals, economies and businesses. However, as businesses and citizens start to look towards the ‘new normality’ after COVID-19, considerations related to the environment, social and governance (ESG) as well as sustainability issues are rising up the agenda. As we move through the current pandemic phase we see the transformative CSR and sustainability agenda becoming even more relevant.

As identified by the World Economic Forum Social Entrepreneurship is the most sustainable model to build inclusive economies, livelihood development, driving movements for social inclusion and environmental sustainability. Sri Lanka has experienced significant loss of employment due to the effects of COVID-19. Recognising that the country needs a recovery pathway we identified that the social entrepreneurship would be the most suitable solution to the current economic downturn and unemployment crisis.

Taking much more proactive and coordinated approach, CSR Lanka and Women’s Chamber of Industry and Commerce (WCIC) organised this webinar to share knowledge and improve existing entrepreneurs as well as to encourage social entrepreneurship in the country.

Commencing the session De Alwis posed a question about the difference between the entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship. 

Abeywickrema, answering the moderator’s question, said that the entrepreneurship is an initiative where somebody identified the need in the market place and creating business to cater that need. Social entrepreneur is the person who looks at the social or environmental problems and creates some innovative product or service to resolve or tackle the problem. Social entrepreneur is a person who can create certain scalability and economic empowerment socially and environmentally. He further said that good thing is that, it is not a kind of a nonprofit entity but it is a profit making business while taking care of social/environmental problems and create impact and responsible revenue generation.

Peiris sharing her thoughts said: “core of the social entrepreneurship is social or environmental impact, so we differentiate very much from Corporate Social Responsibility that is not core business. We at Selyn produce handloom products which are in fashion, home, toys, etc. That is our product but what we do to do it differently is that we work with women who are in an age category where they have very high risk in migration as domestic workers to Gulf. If we are not able to give them the job opportunity within Selyn in a manner that is conducive with their lifestyle their only option will be to migrate as domestic worker. In our business model at Selyn, women have been given space to work from their home, to have flexible working hours or to work in a part time manner. So there is no point in time that where we change this business model in order to maximise our production. We focus on profit, products, people and planet which are integrated in this model.”

Zaheed, responding to a question on “how do we create a positive cash flow on a decent margin and to ensure more entrepreneurs getting in to the industry and ensure a surplus for growth?” said that in agriculture space in Sri Lanka, women dominates 30%. Sri Lanka has been trying various attempts to develop agriculture sector and to contribute to the economic development of the country. 

“The use of technology be it nano technology, biotechnology, artificial intelligence etc., is increasingly entering to the agriculture space. With the COVID-19 pandemic situation, suddenly there is a need to ensure food security, the use of E-commerce to make produce available to large number of people and increasingly the need for food that builds immunity as well to overcome COVID-19. That is where I think opportunity lies for people to cater for the surpluses. So there are interesting opportunities to increase the cash flow, the key here is linkages through agri driven value chains and lot of work has been done to create opportunities to explore new businesses.”

Jayaweera shared her inspiring journey as a social entrepreneur. She shared her life story on how she transformed herself from being a domestic worker in Singapore and later by getting enrolled for classes and studying entrepreneurship enabled her to start a social enterprise, ‘Nilu Tea’. She later went on to give back to the society her learnings to empower women by setting up a NGO ‘Emerging Hope Lanka’. 

She went on to say that 10% of the profits of Nilu Tea goes to the Emerging Hope Lanka. Through this NGO she mentioned that she intends to empower women through education and mentoring. To date she supports 55 mothers from various provinces in Sri Lanka and provide them with an education on micro business and provide financial support through micro investments. 

In conclusion she said: “I do not tell them what to do, but I ask them what they can do, what they can do from their own environment, how they can grow their businesses and how they are going to do if a competition emerges, how they are going to be different from others and how they are going to improve their businesses to be unique and sustainable.”

Concluding the forum De Alwis said that the mindset of the entrepreneurs especially women needs to change. “We need to encourage them to develop form one level to the next level, but most of the entrepreneurs are not ready for this change.” She further said that to address this issue WCIC is conducting many trainings and skills development programs to improve and develop women entrepreneurs so their business can be more sustainable. 

The webinar was sponsored by Hatton National Bank (HNB) and official newspaper partner was Daily FT. The forum was well attended by CSR Lanka and WCIC Member companies and from other reputed corporates of the country, Entrepreneurs and members from various NGOs. At the session participants had the opportunity to engage and ask questions, to share their thoughts and interact with speakers. 

CSR Sri Lanka is the apex institute of a business network of companies that work towards to bring the sustainability into their business DNA who works for developing sustainable solutions for social, economic and environmental problems that create sustainable value to stakeholders. Today, they are progressing with building collaborative trust among companies on corporate sustainability and responsibility with strategies and actions, which will be implemented through corporate solidarity on sustainability of businesses. 

WCIC is as an organisation of business and professional women, which created, to help urban and rural women develop their entrepreneurial skills to better their living standards. They promote mutual cooperation between business women in Sri Lanka through networking and programs focused on women in business and trade, with the ultimate aim of having a positive development in Sri Lanka.