Social Entrepreneurship Programme in Chennai

Written by Christoffer Larsson Tuesday, 06 September 2011 12:11

On August 22 -26, the Wetlands Alliance attended a Programme on Social Entrepreneurship in Chennai, India. The programme was organised by Hand in Hand, a development organisation that aims to eliminate poverty by creating enterprises and jobs. You can read more about Hand in Hand and its collaboration with the Wetlands Alliance here.

The instructor for the programme was Professor Kasturi Rangan, an internationally recognised Harvard Business School professor. His lectures were based on case studies on social entrepreneurs and social businesses from Bangladesh to Kenya. With more than 40 participants coming from across the world and representing both Civil Society organizations as well as the private sector, discussions were active, and it provided an excellent opportunity to share experiences of development work from different regions of the world.

Lectures were combined with field trips to demonstrate Hand in Hand's model and to show some of its impacts on rural communities. To date Hand in Hand has setup close to 50,000 Self-Help Groups that have created more than 800,000 new jobs.

The Wetlands Alliance plans to continue and expand its collaboration with Hand in Hand to share experiences and learn from each other for the benefit of the alliance partners.