WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THE LAUNCH OF OUR NEW ECO-CREATIONS LINE!

Our first eco-creation is a grocery bag made from an unused t-shirt.

WHY TRANSFORM A T-SHIRT INTO A BAG?

For PEOPLE and PROFIT – All profits from our bags will go into creating meaningful employment for youth. According to The United Way of Calgary’s 2011 Vulnerable Youth Report, their need for employment is acute. Research indicates 11,000 possible vulnerable youth that desire employment, but do not have access.

For Our PLANET – In our experience, unless a donated t-shirt is a well-known brand name they get passed over for more fashionable items. They take up scarce storage space in homeless shelters and sometimes end up in the landfill. The more entrepreneurial non-profits, such as ours, have figured out ways to turn them into profits for their programs.

LET US TRANSFORM YOUR UNUSED CLOTHING and TOGETHER WE CAN TRANSFORM LIVES.

JOIN THE SEA CHANGE “DO”NATION!

Got questions? Email us at info@seachangenation.com.

Seemingly ordinary. Except they’re not. They carry inside them the genetic code that will take their species to the next evolutionary rung. It’s destiny. ~Heroes (TV Series), Season 1, Episode 1

by SEA Change Co-Founder, Tammy Maloney

One of the root causes of poverty is our education system’s inability to accommodate the differing learning styles and needs of our instant gratification generation. Rote teaching methods do not inspire, capture the imagination or hold the attention of students today and high school drop out rates are a concern.

To link this to poverty, if youth aren’t dropping out into jobs they are quite likely dropping out onto the streets. In my experience working directly with youth experiencing homelessness either as a youth worker in a teen homeless shelter or as a social entrepreneur with my latest social venture SEA Change Nation, I’ve identified three general categories of street youth.

They come from either (a) families living in poverty and/or chronic homelessness, (b) abusive homes or (c) good homes, but their parents no longer know how to deal with them. What many of these youth have in common is that they have gotten labelled as youth with the harmful and misguided behavourial or developmental disorders such as ODD or ADHD and the doors to the public school system eventually close to them.

I’m not saying ODD and ADHD etc. aren’t real, but they aren’t “disorders”. They are challenges associated with an active mind that when understood could be transformed into gifts that will benefit our society.

Most youth I know who aren’t in school don’t initially complain too much because living on the streets allows for the flexibility, independence and freedom universally desired by teens. In addition, our current mainstream path to wealth and self-reliance – go to school, get a job, and claw your way up the corporate ladder – does not appeal to our instant gratification generation.

The issue is in order to survive, youth become entrenched in street culture realities such as joining a gang, theft, panhandling, selling drugs or prostitution.

“When asked, none of the youth interviewed (during the Calgary Youth, Health and the Street Report) wanted to stay on the street and 90% had goals of gaining better employment, having a family or finding housing. - Calgary Youth, Health and the Street Report (Worthington et. al, 2008)

By the time the youth experiencing homelessness realizes that the illegal alternative to the mainstream one isn’t a path to wealth and freedom for most, the doors to the mainstream are closed to them because of addictions (mainly started by self-medicating their active minds aka “disorders” with marijuana), criminal records (eg: theft under $5000), etc.

The cycle of poverty in our cities therefore continues because their only option is to continue to hustle on the streets to survive.

Contrary to popular belief, this generation isn’t inherently lazy and disengaged. They are just uninspired.

This generation is sensitive, creative, adventurous, risk-taking, compassionate and kind. The need to be instantly gratified exists within them because it is what our society needs to further advance.

Today’s youth aren’t wrong to want to be instantly gratified.

Each generation has a main purpose. If I use my own family as an example, my grandparents immigrated to Canada from Japan. The purpose of their generation was to put their noses to the grindstone and do whatever it took to get their family out of extreme poverty. Their children were mainly left to fend for themselves and pitch in wherever they could.

My parent’s generation, the Baby Boomers, are what I like to call the work ethic/parenting generation. It never crossed their minds to follow their passions. They poured themselves into their work and their children. This became their purpose. Not only did they drill into us that gaining financial security was more important than following your dreams, but they also ensured we had a better childhood than they did by working equally as hard as their parents. I’m certain they were driven in part by a conscious or perhaps unconscious resentment towards their own parents who didn’t pay enough attention to them

Which brings us to my generation, Generation X. I am now two generations removed from extreme poverty. For those in my generation who have children, it is their purpose to ensure their children get to live their lives as an expression of who they are. They don’t put as much pressure on their children to get jobs just for the sake of earning money (because they don’t need the money), they instead encourage their children to discover who they are and follow their dreams. I’m certain they are driven in part by a conscious or perhaps unconscious resentment towards their own parents who didn’t allow them this opportunity

I’m generalizing here, but you get the gist.

First Generation Canadians, Baby Boomers and to a certain extent Generation X fulfilled the important societal role of getting our economy to where it is today. The majority of people have jobs, but the time has come to shift our focus from job creation to wealth, health, happiness and meaningful work creation. Generation X’s “enlightened” parenting style provides evidence for this fact. (Read also: Our Move from Job Creation to Wealth Creation )

Which leads me to the new generation of youth currently in school. Generation Y (also known as the Millennial Generation) or as I like to call them our instantaneous gratification generation’s purpose is to live their lives as an expression of their passions and strengths.

We aren’t supposed to try and change the youth of today to make them more like the generations that preceded them, we are supposed to accept them for who they are and design classrooms and business models that leverage their unique gifts and active minds.

It is EVERY generation’s purpose and responsibility today to evolve our systems so they unleash the hidden and unique passions, gifts and strengths of our instant gratification generation.

But don’t take my word for it, check out this great animate. It was adapted from a talk given at the RSA by Sir Ken Robinson, world-renowned education and creativity expert and recipient of the RSA’s Benjamin Franklin award.

SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP: The Missing Piece to Our Social Policy Puzzle

Written for the Government of Alberta’s Social Policy Framework

by Tammy Maloney

In a province as abundant and innovative as Alberta, we are perplexed by our inability to find solutions for our most complex social challenges. The reason for this is simple. Our society is bifurcated. We are either for-profit or not-for-profit. We live in the midst of a seemingly never ending public vs. private debate and we ALL suffer as a consequence. Our health care system is overburdened. Over 500,000 Albertans access mental health services every year. Suicide is a leading cause of death. 73,000 of our children live in poverty and we spend over $7 billion a year maintaining Albertans living in poverty. The list goes on and on. If the sectors continue to operate in silos, strong relationships, joy, security, good health, love and all other elements of true wealth will remain an unattainable dream for both the rich and poor in our province.

Social entrepreneurship can reconcile the paradoxical nature of our values. Adding it to the Alberta equation will allow us to remain fiscally conservative AND care for our people. It doesn’t have to be about either/or anymore. It can be about BOTH. If we leverage the principles of social entrepreneurship to unite the sectors we can save taxpayer dollars AND help more people.

What is Social Entrepreneurship?

As per the Canadian Social Entrepreneurship Foundation, a social entrepreneur is someone who recognizes a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create, and manage a venture to directly address a social issue (a social enterprise).

Social Entrepreneurs are often associated with a “triple-bottom line” business model that values a blend of social, economic and ecological outcomes (people, profit and the planet).

As you can see from the Return on Investment Continuum below, social entrepreneurship (as represented by the pink boxes) bridges the existing divide between the public sector (including charities and not-for-profits) and the private sector.

used with permission from the Trico Charitable Foundation (slightly modified)

Social entrepreneurship is the missing piece to the Alberta social policy puzzle. Without it, social policy at its best can only maintain the status quo. With its addition, we can build a bridge between the public and private sectors, provide a viable exit strategy for people overly dependent on government social services/charities, end our bifurcation and become the first place in the world that creates wealth, health, happiness and meaningful employment for ALL of our people.

Finding a Specific Gap for Social Entrepreneurship to Fill in Alberta

In 2006, I left a 10-year career in Alberta’s oil and gas industry in order to determine how to use business to end poverty. I obtained a master’s degree in business administration (MBA) with a focus in Social Entrepreneurship from the IESE Business School in Spain. Upon graduation, I joined the William J. Clinton Foundation in Nigeria as Chief Operating Officer.

In 2009, I returned to Calgary determined to find a gap that social entrepreneurship could fill. To familiarize myself with the social justice landscape, I volunteered for 5 different programs at The Mustard Seed and was hired as a youthworker at a Boys and Girls Clubs homeless shelter for teens. In 2010, I launched The Social Entrepreneurship Academy for Change Ltd. (SEA Change) and spearheaded several social enterprise pilot projects with youth I met at the shelter.

Through these experiences I came to intimately understand that just because the “market” doesn’t value Albertans facing challenges such as homelessness, mental health, disabilities, addictions, English as a second language, legal issues etc., doesn’t mean they aren’t valuable. Everyone is born with gifts and everyone deserves a chance to find meaning and self-worth through employment.

Social Entrepreneurship is a Solution, Not a Band-Aid

The number of people dependent mainly on government social services/charities to meet their basic needs could be lessened if we leverage the principles of social entrepreneurship to build an economic bridge between the public and private sectors. In essence, this bridge would serve as a compassionate economy that values inclusiveness as well as profit. It would consist of social enterprises that believe disabilities and life’s other challenges are gifts, not “severe handicaps” or disorders.

I think it’s fair to say Albertans believe people should earn their way, but the barriers to employment some people face are real and cannot be overcome by trying harder or increasing their desire to work. Job training seminars, resume writing support, and job search assistance can only go so far. Business owners in the mainstream economy do not have the training (or the profit margins) required to accommodate people with higher needs. I’ve witnessed people lose hope and resign themselves to surviving on public assistance after failing several times to live up to the expectations of their employers.

To restore their hope, people facing barriers to employment need hands-on, paid work experience in a caring, understanding and continuous learning environment. This will help them gain the confidence required to ease into independence. Success can be increased if wages are paid in trust to the social enterprise and coupled with a structured goal setting and budget process. This approach will equip people with both the long-term planning skills and financial discipline needed to maintain self-reliance.

Building a compassionate economic bridge that employs people dependent on social services/charities to meet their basic needs is a solution. It provides people with a viable exit strategy from their dependence. For people with disabilities, employment in a social enterprise can add meaning to their lives. For people facing other challenges, employment in a social enterprise can end the vicious cycle of living in and out of poverty and/or homelessness.

The building of this bridge has already begun in Alberta. Examples include: (1) Alberta Job Corps, a government led, on-the-job training program, (2) Vecova Bottle Depot, a non-profit social enterprise that employs persons with disabilities and (3) Autism Calgary and Specialisterne (a Danish IT Company), a non-profit/private sector partnership creating IT employment for persons with autism. (Click here to see more examples)

To scale these efforts we need a cross-sectoral collaboration united towards a shared vision of creating meaningful employment opportunities for ALL Albertans.

Imagine adding a social entrepreneurship led “Jobs Next” strategy to complement the existing  “Housing First” philosophy of Calgary’s 10 Year Plan to End Homelessness. In this case, if the compassionate economy helped 150 street youth enter the job market instead of the adult homeless shelter system it would save Albertans approximately $20 million/year. (Based on estimates provided by Tim Richter, Former Calgary Homeless Foundation CEO)

This is the power of social entrepreneurship! It saves money and helps people at the same time.

Conclusion

Similar to Albertans, social entrepreneurship values both social and fiscal responsibility. It’s a healthy marriage of the heart and mind. It isn’t for profit or against profit. It aims to strike a balance between profit and the needs of people in order to create prosperity for ALL.

It’s time to rethink our social policy framework with social entrepreneurship as part of the equation.

First step: Look at the needs of Albertans and determine if they are best met by (1) a not-for-profit model, (2) a for-profit model or (3) the blended model of social entrepreneurship that values profits, people and our planet equally.