ARE YOU SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE?

“Everyone can tell you the risk, an entrepreneur can see the reward”- Robert Kiyosaki

Entrepreneurs are those who have the courage to start up their own organization or business with a primary aim to generate capital and earn high profits. Being an entrepreneur is not just limited to having money and courage, but it also requires some personal traits such as communication skills (listening as well as speaking), patience, critical thinking, analytical skills, risk-taking, judgment & decision making, relationship building and most importantly anger management. The repute or fame of a firm is determined by the quality that it delivers and also the overall personality and behaviour of the entrepreneur.

Mr. Ratan Tata has beautifully mentioned, “No-one can destroy iron, but its own rust can, likewise no one can destroy a person but his own mindset can”. For being a successful person, you need to be open-minded and have an accepting nature, else you might feel you are tied with shackles and will never be able to grow.

Entrepreneurship is a very broad term. It has many classifications and sub-classifications. However, at a personal level, what fascinates me the most is SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP.

Social Entrepreneurship is a combination of business and social causes. Social entrepreneurs aren’t only concerned with the profits but also with the change that they want to see in the society. Their success is also defined by how their business improves the world. Unlike nonprofits, social entrepreneurship still earns a profit, but the focus is placed more on the social or environmental change while earning profit. The major purpose of a social entrepreneur is to bring the change at the grassroot level with his existing business.

In order to understand the concept of social entrepreneurship even better and clearer, let us take an example of Bill Gates. Is he a social entrepreneur? Yes, he is when he initiates philanthropic activities through his charitable foundation called ‘The Gates Foundation’. Hence, it's a combination of charity and commerce. In fact, in India, there are quite a few young social entrepreneurs whom we should be aware of such as- Urvashi Sahni, the founder and CEO of SHEF-Study Hall Education Foundation, an organization dedicated to offering education to the most disadvantaged girls in India. Urvashi Sahni has worked with over 900 schools and changed the life of 150,000 girls (directly) and 270,000 girls (indirectly) with her program. Harish Hande, Jeroo Billmoria, Anshu Gupta etc are some other popular examples.

In the present scenario, when the entire world is dealing with COVID, many businessmen in India have come forward and extended help to the ones in need. This shows how responsible they are when it comes to helping the society. Even actor such as Sonu Sood has contributed a lot in favor of the society during the pandemic. He has helped the migrant workers across India to reach their homes, showcasing his social responsibility and his sensitive nature towards an existing problem.

In a personal context, my father, who is an inspiration for me to become a social entrepreneur in future, extended help to various people by distributing food in the slums.

DRISTI is a non-profit organization with a concept similar to Social Entrepreneurship in the sense that it strives to help the needy ones. It works as an NGO extending support and help to the underprivileged kids and women of our society. Being an intern at DRISTI is helping me learning a lot of life skills, and also thinking something out of the box. Working with an organization like DRISTI that supports a noble cause doesn't not only help me grow as a professional but also as an individual with a moral mindset.

THANK YOU DRISTI!!

BY: Tripti Agarwal