International social entrepreneurship/enterprise


Around the world, particularly in locations under economic stress, social entrepreneurship offers the means to meet social needs while providing revenue to workers and community organizations. Micro-finance, social enterprise, and individual social entrepreneurs began to receive worldwide attention at the opening of the 21st century when Mohammed Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize for his socially entrepreneurial Grammeem Bank. The Ashoka Foundation, Schwab Social Entrepreneurship Foundation, and the Skoll Foundation honor individuals around the world for their initiation of entrepreneurial work to meet critical social needs.

Largely invisible in this work are the efforts of young people who often start such work within their own communities, reaching out to populations otherwise neglected by mainstream institutions. Often achieved through the collaborative teamwork of a few caring adults and the energies and ideas of many young people, these organizations address the need for arts, sciences, and early business experience in under-resourced communities. These stories range from dance groups made up of street children in Addis Abba in Ethiopia, robot builders in the streets of Kingstown, Jamaica, and graphic artists in the South Bronx of New York City.
On-going exploration of the social entrepreneurial initiatives of young people in community organizations took place at the first seminar retreat at Brown University in September 2008. The second retreat will take place March 6-8, 2009. Both retreats bring together young people who have had at least two stints of work in community organizations that they either founded or help sustain. Geographic locations of focus in the first retreat were the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, and Mali. Areas of emphasis of these social entrepreneurships were education, health, and environmental reform. The second retreat involves young social entrepreneurs working in Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and the United States.
Noted below are resources by Heath on young people's contributions to social entrepreneurial work in their own communities:

2004. (with Ken Robinson). Making a way: Youth arts and learning in international perspective. In Putting the arts in the picture: Reframing education in the 21st century. N. Rabkin & R. Redmond. eds. Chicago: Center for Arts Policy, Columbia College. Pp. 107-126.
2001. Working with community. In Strategic tools for social entrepreneurs. G. Dees, J. Emerson & P. Economy, eds. New York: John Wiley. Pp. 204-243. (PDF Available (Large*))
2000. Making Learning Work. After school matters 1.1:33-45.
1999. (with Adelma A. Roach). Imaginative Actuality: Learning in the arts during the nonschool hours. In Champions of change. The Arts Education Partnership and The President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Pp. 19-34. (PDF Available(Large*))
1998. (with Adelma A. Roach). The Arts in the Nonschool Hours: Strategic opportunities for meeting the educational, civic learning, and job-training goals of America's youth. Report to the President's Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. Unpublished. Pp. 21.
1998. (with Elisabeth Soep). Youth Development and the Arts in Nonschool Hours. Grantmakers in the arts 9.1:9-16, 32. (PDF Available)
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