The Social-Enterprise Approach to Job Creation

In this week's posts, I will be sharing an article about how a social enterprise helped in job creation.

Article

The article starts off with the story of David, who was addicted to drugs, and ended up in jail. The article then tell us of how David had managed to get help at Community Housing Partnership, or CHP. CHP is a social enterprise that provides accommodation and skills training to their beneficiaries. By doing so, CHP provided David with a job, a place to stay, and they helped him to get off drugs.

The article provides great example of how social enterprises like CHP is able to help the society. The article explains that by providing employees such as drugs addicts, ex offenders with jobs, they are reducing their dependency on government assistance, while at the same time the employees are able to pay taxes.
The author also mentioned how an organization he funded, the Roberts Enterprise Development Fund, is able to help fund start ups for various social enterprises. The author also mentioned, that their motivation for helping social enterprises is to give people hope. He explains that when the social enterprises are providing employees with jobs, they are actually giving them hope to look towards the future.

My opinion

After reading this article, I can agree with what the author is trying to emphasis. He is trying to explain to us how social enterprises can be a viable way to create jobs, while at the same time reduce social issues such as drug addictions. During my first year, I managed to get the opportunity to interview an executive director of Breakthrough Missions, a social enterprise where they rehabilitate ex offenders. As such, I can say that I agree with the points that the author stated in the article. I also hope that in the future, there will be more such social enterprises, who not only help ex offenders, but also provide job opportunities to people such as the mentally challenged, or drug addicts. I feel that everybody deserves a second chance, and realistically, corporate companies would only want to hire the best with a clean record. It is important for social enterprises to provide the opportunities for the needy, and to provide them with hope.

References

Robert. R. George. (2012, September 26). The Social-Enterprise Approach to Job Creation. Retrieved 3rd January 2013 from: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390444032404578010862607298532.html