Most of my work in Shanghai focused on marketing initiatives for Shokay, while other interns were more directly involved in the work of Ventures in Development, the nonprofit that is the main shareholder of Shokay. However, I did attend two of Ventures in Development’s Social Innovation Salons, at which a mix of Shanghai professionals and students gathered to brainstorm solutions to current social problems in China. Many people looking to support social entrepreneurship in China ask Carol if she knows of any strong social ventures, but the fact is there are still very few people taking this approach to solving social problems in China. ViD’s Social Innovation Salons aim to fill this gap by sparking discussion and debate – the first step to creating thriving social enterprises in a country where very few currently exist.
ViD’s salons are held every month, and each month a new social issue is discussed. July’s topic was the problems facing the children of migrant workers. Having volunteered at a nonprofit that provides migrant children with after school arts and sports enrichment programs in Beijing, I am pretty familiar with this issue. Essentially, a major trend in China right now is rural-urban migration. When workers leave their home villages in search of employment, they have two choices: they can either leave their children at home with relatives, or they can bring their children with them. However, because of the limitations of the hukou (household registration) system in China, it is very difficult for migrant children to attend decent schools in the new cities where their parents settle. As a result, migrant kids constitute an at-risk group that has trouble assimilating into mainstream society. Many of them end up attending substandard private schools set up in migrant communities, but they still cannot register to take national high school and college entrance examinations outside of their native area. Moreover, migrant families are very mobile, meaning the children have very little continuity in their education.
The first salon ViD held on this topic was at Fudan University. Carol first gave a presentation to a group of American and Chinese students participating in a cultural exchange program. After the presentation, we hosted a salon discussion on the migrant children topic. This salon was kind of an experiment, as it was the first time ViD had hosted a salon with only students. We structured the discussion so that it had two parts – first, participants would determine what aspect of the problem (health, education, discrimination, etc.) they would like to focus on, and then each group would come up with a solution that addressed this issue. Once they had centered on an idea, they would role play different stakeholders challenging their proposal and determine what obstacles needed to be overcome in order to turn the idea into reality. By the end of the salon, we hoped some innovative approaches would have emerged, and even if those ideas never were acted upon, at least the salon would have inspired the participants to think about how they might solve these social problems.
We were somewhat disappointed with the level of discussion at the first salon. It seemed we were introducing too many new concepts – as we listened in on the various group discussions, we overheard some students asking each other, “What is an NGO? What is a nonprofit organization?” Some of the American students had never been to China before and the migrant children issue was a completely new concept to them. The language barrier also made it difficult for American and Chinese students to effectively communicate their ideas to each other. On top of all of this, we were also trying to introduce the idea of a social enterprise and challenge the participants to think outside of the traditional foundation philanthropy/community service framework.
While the level of discussion at the second salon was more informed, it still proved difficult to get people to think differently about the challenge of funding a social program. When asked about how they would find funding for their idea, most of our discussion groups responded that they would seek corporate sponsorship, since companies should be interested in demonstrating their good citizenship and enhancing their public image. The unanswered question: in world with a global recession, many worthy causes and scarce resources, is it really sustainable to rely on the generosity of large companies? In addition, many ideas centered around volunteer and mentorship programs similar to those already in existence that, while they do provide some social services, do not necessarily address a problem at its root cause.
One of the most interesting ideas that emerged from the salon was a martial arts (wushu) center that trains and employs at-risk youth including migrant children. The center would take children off the streets, school them in the disciplines of martial arts, and generate revenue through classes for well-to-do Chinese and expats taught by kids who had reached a certain high level. Several days later, ViD also held a focus group with the goal of further developing this martial arts center idea and brainstorming ways to resolve the challenges raised at the salon. As the focus group reconsidered problems of funding and recruitment, the idea evolved from a martial arts center to a martial arts museum.
It remains to be seen whether anyone will actually act on this idea and attempt to establish a martial arts center or museum that employs the children of migrant workers, but at least the discussion has been started. As the ViD salons show, despite all the buzz about funding models, measuring impact, the definition of “social entrepreneurship” and scaling social enterprises, most people – even those who are aware of and concerned about the social problems - are still very unfamiliar with this new approach. Since the social entrepreneurship field is still so undeveloped in China, ViD has found that it is necessary to start from square one, challenging people to rethink traditional approaches to nonprofit work and development. It is a small but absolutely necessary step towards catalyzing broader social change.
-Danielle
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