December 08, 2013
Reviewer: Tazeen Dhanani
Date Published: December 8, 2013
Source: Ladies DC (http://www.ladiesdc.org/2/post/2013/12/social-entrepreneurship-in-the-age-of-atrocities-changing-our-world.html)
Excerpt:
DC spends a lot of time talking about ‘social entrepreneurship.’ It often seems to focus around young people with great ideas for good causes. Teaching leadership skills in Anacostia? Love it. Preventing food wastage in Columbia Heights? Count me in. But what if social entrepreneurship could go a step further and actually help ensure a more peaceful world?
This is exactly what I went to find out at an Oct 30 lecture by Dr. Zachary Kaufman, editor of Social Entrepreneurship in the Age of Atrocities: Changing Our World.
Hosted by the United Nations Association of the National Capital Area’s Human Rights Committee (HRC) and Georgetown University’s International Relations Club, Dr. Kaufman drew on his book to discuss the global obstacles and opportunities that exist in social entrepreneurship, a movement which is on the rise around the world especially among women.
. . .
As the field of social entrepreneurship is growing, women can and should take advantage of the numerous opportunities that are growing with it. In the face of conflict, poverty, atrocities, and other crimes, women who serve as advocates of social change empower other women to follow suit. This can take the form of local trade organizations such as Indego Africa, which provides business skills development and connections to global markets. It can take the form of programs like “Train the Trainers,” where women who are skilled in a particular area (such as health care or education) train local women and pass on their knowledge and expertise. When women in struggling communities are equipped with the technical skills and know-how, they are able to drive real improvement in their communities. When a woman is empowered, her entire community benefits, and in turn future generations reap the rewards and can maintain this cycle of progress.
So social entrepreneurship can be more than, say, connecting DC citizens to their Ward officials through social media (important as that is). It is also a field that can promote peace and stability in dangerous parts of the world, a field where opportunities abound and where those who are interested in making substantive changes in their communities – both on a micro- as well as a macro-level, local- as well as global-level scale – have the ability to do so.
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This splendid book is more than a primer on social entrepreneurship for human rights in the developing world. It is also a compendium of searing testimony about the immense practical challenges that idealistic changemakers can overcome by dint of their unflagging energy, incandescent visions of humanity and justice, and on-the-ground skills and resourcefulness. Zachary Kaufman has performed a great public service in orchestrating this admirable volume about how hope for the future can be vindicated even under the most unpromising conditions.”
