Hope from the Educated

At the SBS, Human Nature co-founder Dylan Wilk says that giving jobs to the poor is not enough be a Social Enterprise. We must respect their dignity as workers. As business owners, we are responsible for our staff’s career, emotional, and spiritual growth. Human Nature has a “No Firing Policy” because the staff’s mistakes are the management’s failures in skills training and values formation. They regularize all their employees to improve their family’s quality of life.

Hope from the Poor

All companies should embrace Corporate Social Investment (CSI). “Companies should invest in bringing people out of poverty because it expands the marketplace,” Tony Meloto says. CSI is not a charity. GK Enchanted Farm develops the poor’s talents and forms their values through employment and education.

Social entrepreneurs tap the “Genius of the Poor” and develop innovative products and services. Frenchman Fabien Courteille started Plush and Play, the first Filipino toy brand. In collaboration with his community’s mothers, he develops various stuffed toys. These are available in Toy Kingdom.

GK Enchanted Farm launched the School for Experiential and Entrepreneurial Development (SEED) in 2014. Collaborating with French educators, this course trains top public high school students to become Agripreneurs, not mere farmers. Included in their curriculum are landscaping, agriculture, business, and French.

The SEED students are given hands-on experience on all aspects of agriculture and business. They learn to raise various livestock and grow their own vegetables, fruits, and herbs while profiting from these.

“There is no better time to be in the Philippines than today. The Philippines has one of the fastest growing economies in Asia. The world wants us to succeed. By tapping the genius of the East and the West, we will unleash the Genius of the Poor,” Tony Meloto said as he closed the Social Business Summit 2016.