Social Entrepreneurship – People for people

Social entrepreneurship is an altruistic act of individuals and organizations to benefit the society on social, cultural or environmental issues. They deal with contemporary social problems and aim to mobilize the available funds and resources towards the same. In present times, a substantial degree of social entrepreneurship activities are channelized through social media. Income is also significantly dependent on contributions through the Internet made primarily via social media and social networking websites. Through such initiatives, individuals succeed in extending help to large section of public and connecting with like-minded people. Income generation is important but plays a secondary role; the primary role of a social entrepreneur has always been to implement innovative and creative ideas to solve relevant social problems.

There is no clear definition of social entrepreneurship; and hence diverse types of organizations are linked with it, such as non-profit charities, voluntary sector organizations, profit making organization which has integrated charitable work with their business model or non-governmental organizations. Job type may vary from social work to community development, to entrepreneurship and environmental science.

People have even started to turn profit making enterprises into social enterprises. Being from the heritage city Jaipur we have come across prominent faces active in this field. One of the individual associated with social entrepreneurship is Ms. Gagandeep Kaur, founder of Superhuman Race. Pvt Ltd., who has developed a way to channel big corporate’s CSR (corporate social responsibility) funds resolving current social issues while maintaining total transparency with regard to allocation of funds to all stakeholders. Other prominent individuals associated with social entrepreneurship are Akhtar Hameed Khan and Mohamaed Yunus who won a Nobel peace prize for coming up with the idea and implementation of the Grameen Bank.

Things are always seem easy and pleasant until one attempt to do them. Crowd funding and raising donations may looks easy but there are some unique problems which come with the territory. Difficulties for every social entrepreneur stem from the fact that raising investment is not easy. People are sceptical of organizations working as non-profits or for-profits, which forces the entrepreneur to tap on their personal assets and grants from government to continue their work. Another major challenge is low profit margins which many a time leads to slow progress and eventually a change in the character of the organization to a for-profit entity. This shift almost always comes with resultant loss of their goal of benefiting the society.

Despite all these problems social entrepreneurship is the future of the world. It plays a crucial role in addressing and solving social issues. The best thing about it is that it is for the people and by the people in a most selfless manner. Social Entrepreneurs have made it evident that success is not defined by financial gains but by positive impact and positive approach towards the social issues.

DIVERSITY-The Art of Thinking Differently Together

That was the first day of My MBA College. Jaipur welcomed me with the warmth of 45-46 degree Celsius. When I landed I was struggling to make out whether to fight with the climate to adjust or with the taxi drivers who were fighting amongst themselves to take to the campus.

When I reached the campus I was impressed by the magnificent building and infrastructure. After going through the formalities, I was assigned a hostel room (that I chose double occupancy). There comes one of the most awaited curiosities of hostel life …… “Who is going to be my roommate”. It was on the second day that Warden Sir walked into my room with a boy of similar age as mine and introduced him to me as my roommate. He was a short and plump guy who had small goatee beard that elongated his chin, by name Pariksith Singh from Himachal Pradesh. There was a formal handshake between us with a formal greeting. After the initial conversation I came to know that he is a sort of easy-going person who does not take everything seriously and who did not express that level of interest in the topics that I was deeply in love with.

In simple he was, is, and seemingly would be absolutely opposite to me. But I still liked the whole conversation, because I was in love with the destiny that brought us together in spite of all our dissimilarities. Exactly at that point of time a thought crossed my mind. Actually diversity is the great concept that is contributing astoundingly to the beauty of the whole country, rather to the whole world at large. It was actually at that point, the interest to dwell on this topic was triggered. However this was just a trailer of the movie and I was expecting the whole movie once I visit the class room where I would get to see and interact with people who are different in language, color, and nativity and most importantly in the way they think. I was excited and nervous at the same time, excited because I was going to meet different people, nervous because of the fear that I may get the reality check regarding my abilities.

However my expectations weren’t let down, I could get to see the beauty at the first glance, the beauty of whole country in a single classroom, my classroom. In spite of all our differences we were all bound by an invisible thread of unity which came out of diversity. That is the reason they say, strength lies in diversity not in similarity. So basically, diversity is the art of thinking independently, yet together, by understanding one another’s uniqueness. It has become inherently important to value diversity, not to make all of us same but instead to help us embrace the differences that make each of us unique.

Right from the ancient times it has been clearly evident that various races of the world interacted and traded with each other which breeded unity among the human civilization. Exactly this is what Gandhi ji said “Our ability to reach unity in diversity will be the beauty and the test of our civilization” Truly speaking, when I see the beauty of diversity right in my class, it thrills me when I imagine the scale of beauty of diversity in the whole country. We may have different languages, cultures and different skin colour, but we all belong to same human race which binds all of us together, that amazing beauty of diversity that I have been talking about all through this article.

Finally I would like to conclude saying diversity is not a characteristic of life, it’s integral and imperative to life as much as nature and humanity is!

Ganesh Chaturthi Celebration in IBS Jaipur

The birth of lord Ganesh is celebrated in the form of Ganesh Chaturthi every year. This year on September 2nd we the students of Jaipur campus are blessed with an opportunity worship and offer the garland of love and gratitude to lord Ganesh. Before we begin our preparations for end semester examinations.

Lord Ganesh’s idol is always revered as harbinger of good luck and prosperity. So, we instilled two idols of Lord Ganesh, one in the college and another in the hostel. So that we all could pray from the bottom of our hearts to remove all the obstacles in our journey towards success.

Aarthi was performed two times a day which signifies the burning of all our mistakes of that day we never want to be repeated again. Unforgettable are those days when our esteemed faculty members offer their obeisance to lord Ganesh and bless us for our success in all our endeavours. The most wonderful part of Ganesh Chaturthi is the spirit of togetherness that binds all of us together in spite of all our differences. According to me all these festivals come to remind us that there is a beautiful life which we fail to see as we are preoccupied with our mundane and routine life. I always believe that God never created us we humans created God for the fear of sin. But definitely there is an energy that is guiding all of us indirectly to our destiny, some of us call that energy as Ganesh, some of us again call that as Jesus Christ and remaining of us call if Allah. But the energy is one and the same. And now the next question arises “Why is that particular energy is only with human beings and not with any other creature?” (because I haven’t seen any animals celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi……)

The answer is very simple we humans are the only beings who are gifted with two unique abilities namely…

  • Ability to think
  • Desire – which is eventually, along with evolution been converted into greed.

Animals will only fight for their survival but we humans will fight not just for our survival but also for at least upcoming next generation’s fitness and survival. Unfortunately, or unknowingly we are creating dangerous place to live in. To avoid this is the exact reason why these kinds of festivals are often celebrated to remind us that its is a high time that we change. For example,Lord Ganesh’s idol is will, be submerged in the lake or ocean after 15 days. Because it reminds us that nothing is permanent. But we are living as if we are never going to die till eternity but unfortunately that’s is not the case. We all had brought our death along with us right from our birth. So, the only option that is left is living peacefully and letting others live peacefully
Finally, I would conclude saying that the energy that I was talking about has gifted us with one more ability, that is the ability to choose We can choose to be happy, rather we can choose to be in love with life which is the key for eternal ecstasy.