Be your own boss while helping others

By Nickky Faustine P. de Guzman

Some are destined to be secretaries. Others are called to be teachers. Many choose to be nurses. While our education system provides freedom of choice when it comes to what career a student can pursue, Dr. Cielito Habito, professor in the Department of Economics at the Ateneo de Manila University, said it only aspires to create employees.

“The ambition is to work for somebody else,” he said during the Bank of the Philippine Islands (BPI) Foundation’s young social entrepreneur convention and awarding on Oct. 6.

Plush & Play’s fruit-themed stuffed toys

While not everyone is fit to be an entrepreneur and be their own boss, he called for a general education reform where students are taught to have entrepreneurial skills, aspire to be greater, and to think out of the box, while also helping the country economically and socially.

An employer himself, Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala, BPI chairman of the board, agrees with Mr. Habito. “Our general education, at least, doesn’t encourage social entrepreneurship,” he said.

Some schools even prohibit students from expressing their entrepreneurial spirit by selling homemade chips or handmade bags, said Oliver Segovia, a young social entrepreneur who is the founder of the e-commerce web site AVA online group. He himself used to sell food items while still in grade school. He defines entrepreneurship as the “pursuit of opportunities regardless of resources currently controlled.”

So what’s stopping someone from starting his own business? The men said it’s not about the lack of funds or resources. “For me that’s bullshit. It’s about the lack of ideas,” said Mr. Habito.

There are actually many willing funders and mentors — if one knows where to find them. One example is businessman Joey Concepcion III’s Go Negosyo and its “angelpreneurs,” or entrepreneurs who teach budding businessmen how to grow a starting venture.

“Funders are willing to shell out capital as long as your business idea is strong, unique, sustainable, and creative,” said Mr. Habito.

There is also the BPI Foundation’s Sinag program, which recently awarded cash prizes to young social entrepreneurs with compelling stories for them to boost their business pursuits.

PLAY AND PROFIT
The grand winner of the Sinag competition was Karaw Craftventures, the project of a group of friends who thought of marrying fun, profit, and social service. Paul Andrew Orpiada, 24; Leciel Ramos, 25; Ailen Bigay, 30; and Alexis Tablante, 23, started the company in 2012.

Karaw Craftventures — “karaw” is a Bicolano word that means “to play” — is a design hub that upcycles scrap materials like rags, old clothes, and spare buttons into plush toys, accessories, key chains, and apparel, among other items. Its flagship brand is called Ragpet Project, which helps women inmates from the Naga City District Jail by providing them with sustainable livelihood activities.

The friends thought of helping the inmates after they saw the conditions they lived in while on a college immersion program in Ateneo de Naga. Mr. Orpiada thought that while persons with disabilities and senior citizens are marginalized and neglected by society, prisoners are even more underprivileged because few non-governmental organizations support them. Prisoners are judged negatively in and out of prison, plus, he said, there is a lack of social organizations that work on their rehabilitation.

“The Ragpet Project develops their skills so that they have something to do when they get out of prison,” said Mr. Orpiada, who had a plush toy dangling from his shirt.

The project started with 11 inmates and has grown to 36.

“They create crafts on their fee time,” said Ms. Ramos, who also wore a Ragpet brooch on her dress during the awarding ceremony. The inmates can make 40 plush toys a month, she said. They get at least 15% item’s price. This teaches them how to save. The toys are sold at P85 to P2,000.

Ms. Ramos said some of the designs come from them and the inmates also create their own.

Another brand under Karaw Craftventures which was born from the creativity of the artisan jail mates is Muñequeta, from the Spanish word muñequita or “little doll.” The small dolls are the expressions of what the prisoners want to have in life — good health, good luck, and prosperity.

All the brands under Karaw are sustainable, environment-friendly, and contemporary.

Karaw Craftventures received P500,000 and a six-month mentorship to grow the Naga-based business.

PROUDLY PINOY
Philippine social entrepreneurs are not necessarily Filipino. In 2011, Frenchman Fabien Courteille decided to visit the Philippines, specifically the province of Bulacan, to do a case study on Gawad Kalinga (GK) as part of his social entrepreneurship studies. He fell in love with the country and decided not to return to France.

“Gawad Kalinga has people that are driven, with integrity, all with one common dream. This got my interest,” he said.

After a year, he founded his own social enterprise called Batang Bayani International Inc., together with his Filipino friends. The business is behind the Plush and Play brand of vegetable-themed stuffed toys which are currently sold at Toy Kingdom.

“We are the only and first local brand sold at Toy Kingdom,” said Mr. Courteille, “so that alone differentiates us.”

Plush and Play aims to provide livelihood for the GK women and their families. The brand’s production manager Fe Decandario, whom Mr. Courteille fondly calls Tita Fe, has been his host since he first set foot in the country. He said he wanted to give back to his adoptive mother.

“It’s all about the mothers. I want to improve the life of my GK beneficiary. I thought that bag and shoes are saturated, so why not make toys because there are 40 million kids in the Philippines? Plush and Play is proudly Filipino with local humor,” he said.

The stuffed toys have catchy names like Manny Pakwan, Jessica Saging, and Pan Talong.

There are currently 22 mothers who stitch each toy. “The mothers own the company,” said Mr. Courteille, who speaks fluent Tagalog. He told BusinessWorld that he found the Philippines and France almost the same and did not feel alienated — but “the challenge was to trade my baguettes for pan de sal,” he said while laughing.

On a more serious note, a start-up business deals with problems with production capacity, materials, and marketing, among many challenges, he said. “It’s just the passion and purpose that keeps us going.”

According to Mr. Courteille, the company wants to restore the Filipino tailor livelihood, pride in craftsmanship, and promote children’s right to play, one stitch at a time. One of its goals is to provide jobs for 500 families by 2017.

Plush and Play received P200,000 and a six-month mentorship to boost its growing business.