with Brenda Brenda is larger than life
she is so passionate and so loving and
so caring Brenda is a mother a wife a
u.s. Navy officer and a social
entrepreneur
Brenda’s passion goes beyond for anyone
and everyone but the thing that she is
most passionate about is victims of
3287 individuals are either kidnapped or
sold every single day but it’s not just
the numbers that motivate Brenda Brenda
is passionate about helping victims of
human trafficking because when she was
13 years old
brenda was abducted by a pedophile
Brenda was this person that abducted her
was someone she knew someone she trusted
someone who promised to take her to the
fair but instead took her to a hotel
room and forced himself on her for hours
and hours he kept her in that hotel room
and then said he was going to kill her
he took her into his car and was driving
to another location when miraculously
his car broke down he knew he had to go
back to the hotel and so he started
driving that way trying to get the car
to start and while he was doing that her
family and and his wife was looking for
Brenda for hours and hours they were
frantically searching for her and when
they reached the hotel they were all
there he knew he had to let her go and
that saved her life that day years after
this
Brenda started becoming a victim
advocate for especially helping victims
of human trafficking but she told me she
didn’t feel fulfilled in what she was
doing she wanted to do so much more and
that is why she chose to be a social
entrepreneur
she chose to start Joel world where
which is an organization that empowers
artisans and designers from all over the
world who have been victims of human
trafficking slavery poverty you name it
and that is how she wants to create a an
actual sustainable change in our
community social entrepreneurs like
brenda combined their purpose and their
passion with real innovative creative
and social solutions to the real
problems that we have today social
entrepreneurs are creating solutions to
our economic problems our social
problems and also our environmental
problems so why do I think we need to
end social entrepreneurship if it’s so
awesome and people are doing all these
great things well I believe that we need
to end social entrepreneurships though
the way it is perceived today right now
social entrepreneurship conscious
capitalism profit with a purpose all of
these things are treated like buzzwords
and they’re not internalized the way
they need to be I believe that we need
to get to a stage culturally and
societally where social entrepreneurship
is so intertwined with the idea of
entrepreneurship that they become
synonymous I want to help create a world
where every business that get started is
the social enterprise so that no
business that get started is a social
enterprise I know that may sound a
little tricky so let me explain think
about it like this if a company is in
today’s world if a company gets started
and is focused on the community we look
at that differently we look at it in a
very positive light but if every single
company that was started did that every
single commute every single company
would be community driven and so it
would no longer be a differentiating
factor instead it would be the norm and
that is what we need today so when I
share this these ideas with some people
they
tell me I am overly optimistic but last
year the end of 2017 I actually spent
some time in Oxford in the United
Kingdom and let me tell you every single
entrepreneur I met there was a social
entrepreneur and that really broadened
my mind to the possibility that if this
can be a possibility in Oxford we can
bring that anywhere so today I want to
share with you three social enterprises
that I was able to encounter and
experience homelessness is a massive
problem not just in Oxford but in a lot
of different places all over the world
there are so many different solutions to
this problem but one of my personal
favorites is called greater change
Alec’s a former University of Oxford
student studied greater change which is
a social enterprise platform that
enables people to give cashless
donations that go directly to a homeless
person every homeless individual on his
platform is extensively vetted and has
created a detailed plan that you can
look at you with while working with a
social worker and so Alex is targeting a
very big issue that we see today which
is transparency which is actually a very
motivating factor for a lot of different
social entrepreneurs another amazing
social enterprise is called Fung Greek
kitchens hungry kitchens was started by
Kyle who just got his PhD from the
University of Oxford and his research
actually focused on obesity in fact Kyle
told me that two-thirds of the adult
population in the United States United
Kingdom and also Australia was either
overweight or obese and he looked at
that as a massive problem that he wanted
to address another problem that he
thought was daunting was the refugee
crisis as of today’s sixty five point
three million individuals are displaced
and Oxford has a significant refugee
population so he decided he was going to
start Fung Greek kitchen
which is a social enterprise and a
catering service that employs women
refugees that are new to the oxford
community and the food that they make is
healthy it’s nutritious it’s delicious
and all his customers are extremely
happy so by creating a social enterprise
to address both of these problems he is
impacting the community in a positive
way the third example I want to share
with you today is was started by a group
of individuals who are just as
passionate about beer as they are about
social impact and so just like anyone
else would do they started a brewery
they in fact employ people from the
prison system in the United Kingdom
things are a little different there so
in the United Kingdom if you’re
incarcerated for a non violent crime you
can actually get a day pass that allows
you to go out and work the problem is no
employer wants to hire someone who is a
current prisoner and even after they are
they have served their time and are out
of prison nobody wants to hire them and
they one of the reasons that they cite
is because this person doesn’t have
enough work experience so tap social
movement employs people from these from
these prison systems and gives them a
job so gives them a purpose gives them a
source of income and after they are done
serving their time they actually help
them with recommendations and with
connections I was able to meet Collin
who is actually part of the prison
system and is also working with top
social movement and he expressed his
immense gratitude for this organization
and all the work that they have done for
him the social entrepreneurs are doing
all these incredible things and
obviously I’m not even though I am an
advocate for social entrepreneurship
there’s still a place for nonprofits
especially those that are extremely
innovative and are trying to do awesome
things today a local example is
metropolitan ministries in Tampa who’s
recently started a cookie dough place I
don’t know
and if you’ve been there but it’s
delicious it’s called donation and all
the profits from this place go back into
metropolitan ministries another example
of social enterprises partnering with
nonprofits is fearful foods which is
based in the United Kingdom but they and
they are also based with food the food
that they serve to their customers in
the United Kingdom is from specific
different cultures including India and
all the profits that they make are then
invested into their nonprofit partners
back in India social entrepreneurs are
doing so many awesome things for our
community today and yet there are people
that are going into this only because
it’s the new cool thing and I believe
that this is what we need to change so I
am NOT a cook I’m not currently an
entrepreneur but I am part of the social
entrepreneurship movement and I want to
share with you today three different
ways that I was able to become a part of
this movement and how you can become a
part of it as well
the three things that I did were invest
highlight and organize so in terms of
investing as a college student funds can
be very limited but I am able to invest
my time my skills my passion and any
other resources that I have by doing
this I was able to help a bunch of
different social enterprises all over
the world and help them with their goals
and their missions so if you do have the
financial capacity you should most
certainly help them out financially but
if you connect with the cause you can
also give them your time and your
resources the second way was to organize
and to educate I am very big on creating
awesome events that can educate people
through about my messages like my
passion for social entrepreneurship and
so when I was in Oxford I actually
organized the hot price competition
which is a student competition focused
on social entrepreneurship and here
locally in Tampa I am the coatrack
captain for the social enterprise track
the Champa based startup week
I tried I believe that we should that
social entrepreneurship is a message
that we need to convey to anyone and
everyone so just two days ago I was
talking to 3rd graders about the
importance of social entrepreneurship
and social impact finally in terms of
highlighting and giving credit where
it’s due I created a Facebook live show
where I interview social entrepreneurs
who are and talk about the awesome
impact that they’re having in their
community even though I use social media
extensively in my advocacy for social
entrepreneurship I believe that we need
to go out there and do so much more than
that
if your social actions start and end on
social media then you are part of the
problem because social media is behind a
screen you’re not actually going out and
engaging and I highly encourage everyone
to do that I believe that if we were all
to get together and build and actually
work hard to make this movement get read
this movement everything that we needed
to be today then we could create a world
where social entrepreneurship isn’t just
a buzzword but in fact it will be a global norm