Business & Money | Tuesday 29 January, 2019 3:21 pm |

At the end of the pilot edition of the Badiri Social Entrepreneurship Programme (BSEP), 13 socially-driven UAE-based female entrepreneurs are equipped with the knowledge, guidance and expertise they need to start-up their social enterprises, or take existing businesses to the next level.

 

This is all thanks to Badiri Education and Development Academy, the education and capacity development arm of NAMA Women Advancement Establishment (NAMA) who added this 10-month course last year, in partnership with UK-based School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE), to their already existing entrepreneurship development programmes aimed at creating the next generation of professional women in the UAE.   

 

During the graduation ceremony, the 13 BSEP graduates presented on how, through this 10-month course, they developed and matured ideas to drive and grow their respective social enterprises. Among them was Emirati national, Maitha Ali, a born volunteer and community development enthusiast, who started to give back to community in her own little ways since she was a teen. From her life experiences, the idea of “Nashama UAE” was born in 2014 – a social enterprise dedicated to raise awareness amongst young students about the virtues of volunteering.

 

Ali remarked: “I wanted to develop my initiative and take it to the next level. BESP was the perfect incubator for me and my peers because it offered us the perfect training ground to turn our ideas into feasible businesses. The programme developed our skills, exposed us to leading social enterprises in the UK and India, and offered us the chance to bounce our ideas off business leaders, mentors and peers in the field, who filled us with valuable insights.

 

Another BSEP graduate, Nurse Najat Ould Haj, took it upon her shoulders to educate women about the importance of breastfeeding. Her years of experience working with women and children gave her the necessary expertise to advocate, however, she needed an incubator to transform her social work into a sustainable business.

 

Her project “AMLAC” envisions a chain of interactive and user-friendly centres that will educate, generate awareness, encourage and support breastfeeding.

 

“Once I joined Badiri, all the missing parts started falling into place. The knowledge and experience we gained through the training programme and the field visits set me off in the direction I needed to go in order to pursue my passion and transform it to a full-fledged operation. This opportunity has transformed me as a professional and as a human being. The way I operate as both are very different now – closer to my liking and aspiration,” she said.

 

Present at the graduation ceremony, HE Reem BinKaram, Director of NAMA, said: “Today, we are among 13 young women who are more confident now than they were a year ago on their journey of social entrepreneurship. We are proud of the big strides they took on their challenging journeys, learning how to merge their socially-driven values and business objectives together to develop feasible entrepreneurial business models.”

 

HE BinKaram emphasised: “BSEP is a platform deigned to nurture brave entrepreneurial ideas. Here, women’s natural predisposition towards supporting social and environmental causes are transformed into plausible business ideas, followed through with practical learning that allows them to put their ideas into tangible and actionable perspectives. We encourage more female entrepreneurs to apply to be part of BSEP 2019, and turn a new leaf in their journey of social entrepreneurship.”

 

Mr Alastair Wilson, CEO, School for Social Entrepreneurs, UK, was among the graduation ceremony attendees, who delivered a presentation on how SSE has been fuelling the social entrepreneurship environment in the United Kingdom, Canada and India through its 12-schools network, by offering socially driven people the learning they need to follow their dreams and create a positive impact in society. He also said that in the UK alone, there are 70,000 social enterprises that contribute UD$ 33 billion to their economy. “40 percent of these enterprises are led by women,” he noted.  

 

The 13-member cohort of BSEP’s debut edition were trained on the ‘action learning’ ethos of BSEP and SSE, which took them on field visits to UK and India, to gain insights into some of the most successful social entrepreneurship examples in these countries, as well as receive first-hand information from SSE alumni on how they can build their rationale for purpose-driven start-ups.