Community help for the poor

I REFER to the report “Support firms that boost the underprivileged’s lives” ( The Star, Sept 6). I would like to congratulate the Government for undertaking the initiative to introduce Impact-driven Enterprise (IDE) accreditation for social enterprises, NGOs or start-ups whose programmes or economic activities for the B40 have produced high quality products and services.

This accreditation would identify genuine social enterprises and NGOs who are driven by compassion and empathy to help the poor. It can also help to prevent the people from falling prey to unscrupulous social purpose organisations who exploit the poor to gain our sympathy to elicit donations.

More importantly, the accreditation would pave the way for corporations, philanthropists, and charitable foundations to use their corporate social responsibility (CSR) funds to undertake social procurement of the products and services or invest in these social enterprises or start-ups whose business models are impactful and sustainable to help the B40.

Consequently, the support through social procurement or investment would ensure that those in the B40 group continue to have gainful employment to supplement their household income and uplift their livelihood. It is a better option than merely giving donations in kind or cash which is a one-off transfer payment to help the poor without teaching and imparting the skills they need to become self-reliant and financially independent.

The IDE accreditation should not be used only by corporations or charitable foundations but can also be adopted by government agencies to undertake collaboration with social enterprises, start-ups, social entrepreneurs and NGOs to implement the social inclusiveness policy for the B40.

Instead of inventing new wheels to help the B40, government agencies could use the IDE accreditation to identify reliable and well-managed social enterprises, start-ups or NGOs who could implement creative and result-oriented projects or programmes to help poor farmers, people with disabilities, single mothers, women entrepreneurs, etc.

The role of the government agencies would be to provide funding, determine the targeted outcome and constantly monitor each project or programme to gauge its effectiveness.

There are many success stories, including the Kechara Soup Kitchen ( pic), which provides food and basic aid to the homeless, and Batik Boutique, which organises poor single mothers to sew batik products for export. These success stories show that the solutions to many social issues are being developed every day at the grassroots level.

Government agencies should recognise and support these efforts instead of supplanting them. Hence, instead of expending development funds to design programmes that may duplicate the efforts undertaken by NGOs or creating new programmes, the Government should harness the latter’s leadership and cadre of dedicated staff, social workers and volunteers who have creative skills, entrepreneurship and compassion to plan and implement sustainable and result-oriented programmes for the poor.

The new modus operandi of incorporating social enterprises, social entrepreneurs and NGOs as active strategic partners would herald a better public delivery system that could achieve our social inclusiveness policy for the poor.

The Government alone cannot handle these huge challenges, and the delivery system of social service and welfare benefits as well as empowerment of the poor must be a shared responsibility. The key to success is creating a framework for collaboration as poverty, hunger and unemployment are complicated problems that need a multi-disciplinary and collaborative solution.

It would be beneficial to recruit champions from government, the business sector, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists and NGOs to spearhead this collaborative partnership, which would bring together the grassroots experience and passion of NGOs, the creativity and drive of social entrepreneurs, and funding from philanthropists, corporations and the Government.

This means that we are seeking community-driven solutions to plan and implement social inclusiveness programmes and activities that would create a bigger impact on the target groups. The rationale is creating ownership of the programmes and projects by the community who will be the main driver of this social change. It is a bottom-up approach to seeking solutions and not the old top-down way of government agencies determining the solutions and implementing the programmes.

The time has come to adopt this approach as the days of government agencies having the answers for all social issues are over. The goal of social inclusiveness is integrating the underprivileged group into our society by empowering them to be economically independent and self-reliant, and the way to achieve this is to come up with community-driven initiatives imbued with kindness, passion and compassion as well as the creativity to make an impactful social change.

DATUK WEE BENG EE Tumpat, Kelantan