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Social Enterprises of Korea
+ Introduction of the Social Venture Incubating Center(down load file)
The Social Venture Incubating Center (SOVEN) supports adventurous, innovative and creative start-ups by youths in their 20s and 30s. It aims to enable the current 10 businesses backed by the SOVEN to become social ventures that create sustainable revenue streams with convincing social missions.
+ Introduction of Korean Enterprises that Participated in ASES
① Beautiful Coffee: Beautiful Store Fair Trade Division
The Beautiful Store started as a social enterprise which runs charity shops to promote recycling and sharing. When it started in 2002, it also launched a fair trade business to sell fair trade items in charity shops.
In 2002, fair trade was not very well known in Korea, but the Beautiful Store and other pioneers such as Fair Trade Korea, played an important role in raising awareness of fair trade.
In 2006, it started to sell Nepali coffee under the name of “Gift of the Himalayas”. Later on, it introduced Peruvian coffee as “Gift of the Andes” and Ugandan coffee as “Gift of the Kilimanjaro”.
The Beautiful Store became a model of successful business with fair trade. Its average annual growth rate is about 250% and it achieved a sustainable business model. The store is now trying to broaden its market by launching new products such as chocolate, black tea, and soluble coffee.
In addition to its achievements in marketing, the store has strengthened direct engagement with producers in Nepal and has contributed to promoting the fair trade movement in various other ways including “Coffee Commandos”, a student volunteer program, and supporting a documentary program, “Himalaya Coffee Road”.
② Dasomi Foundation
Since 2004, this foundation has worked for Kyobo Dasomi Care Services, a corporate social responsibility project of Kyobo Life Insurance which was initiated by the Work Together Foundation. In 2007, the Dasomi Foundation was established as the first certified social enterprise by the Korean Ministry of Employment & Labor. It has become the Korean representative model of a sustainable social enterprise providing social services. It runs and expands a stable social enterprise business model by developing “Care Manuals” to help standardize the quality of services, and by offering caregivers the “Guidelines of the Labor Standards Act”. It now has projects in five regions of Korea, and manages its own long-term care center for its patients.
③ Social Enterprise Network
Social Enterprise Network (SEN) is a partnership of nine business schools, educational and research institutions, foundations and some corporations in Korea, to support the study of social enterprise and to help youth grow into responsible business leaders of the future.
SEN runs three main programs: Social Enterprise Forum (SEF), Social Venture Competition Asia (SVCA) and Impact@Work Program (IWP). Under SEF, seminars, symposiums and conferences are held every year on social entrepreneurship and related topics.
SVCA holds a social venture business plan competition every year for college & graduate students and professionals in Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan.
SEN/SVCA is a regional partner of Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC). Other GSVC partners include UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, Columbia Business School, London Business School, ESSEC Business School (France) and Indian School of Business.
IWP offers opportunities to SEN Student Clubs’ students to follow internship projects during their academic term(s) for experiential learning on social entrepreneurship and related topics.
④ E-um
The social enterprise E-um works under the slogan, “The unification of local society through culture.” The following are various regional re-invigorating enterprises that the organization is promoting by revitalizing interest in our mundane lives through “cultural prisms”, debating problems of the current investments in regional development, and suggesting an alternative new model of regional development.
- The maintenance of Hanok Living Center in an old downtown area to re-invigorate the use of traditional cultural resources
- The establishment of Jeonju Hanok Village enterprise
- The Sky Garden project to revive a thrift market as a lively market that incorporates art performances, education, and youth enterprises with young sensibilities
- Youth Merchant Project
- The Research Enterprise to advertise various assets of agricultural villages
- City-Farm Interchange Enterprise
- Regional re-vitalization enterprises, such as cultural key point establishment, a workshop project with low-income grandmothers and youth designers, and Grandma Studio
- The Ensemble Dari to emphasize communication between social classes
⑤ Haja Center
Haja Center, established 18th of December, 1999, has been operated by Yonsei University as a Seoul Metropolitan Government Consignment Project. Its official title is “Seoul Youth Factory for Alternative Culture”. Haja Center is its nickname. Its mission can be summarized by the following slogans: "Let’s upgrade our life," and "Let’s do what we want while doing what we must." The center also puts an emphasis on the principle of "Autonomy and Symbiosis between People."
Today, Haja Center is providing career design for children and teenagers, and supporting community businesses, including social enterprises for young and middle-aged adults to create sustainable employment. Haja Center currently consists of one daycare center, four alternative schools, several short programs for teenagers, four certified social enterprises and seven preliminary social enterprises in the field of art and culture. Haja Center’s goal is to become a village of people dreaming of a sustainable life where people from various generations learn through creativity, and work for things that are helpful to the earth. The members of Haja Center do interesting activities in order to live better lives based on “Haja Village”.
⑥ Seoul Foundation for Arts & Culture
“Lead all Seoul Citizens to Participate in Arts” (SFAC VISION). SFAC is a Seoul city government-funded organization which was established on March 15th, 2004. SFAC’s mission is the production, popularization, support and promotion of arts & cultural activities in Seoul. It has been a role model since 2004 for arts & culture for the relevant organizations supporting and promoting arts & culture in Seoul.
Today it offers various art & cultural services in the realization of “SFAC VISION”, which is the goal of promoting outstanding artists and developing citizens’ creativity through the following:
· Festivals: Operate and support “Hi Seoul Festival” and other performing arts festivals in Seoul
· Arts Support Programs: Support creative activities of citizens and artists
· Arts Education Programs: Plan and manage arts education programs
· Cultural Space: Manage cultural spaces such as theatres and studios
· Other Cultural Projects for Seoul Citizens: Plan many other cultural projects for all citizens
⑦ Good Travel Inc.
Good Travel Inc. was born out of the work of its parent organization, the international NGO “Asian Bridge”, which has run numerous international training programs since February 2003. Those experiences enabled it to develop the Sustainable Travel Program and subsequently establish Good Travel, Inc.
Good Travel Inc. is recognized particularly for its Eco-Tourism Travel Guide Training, the first of its kind in Korea, in which migrant women participated. In July 2009, it began the Good Travel series in the Mekong River region and an Island Hopping series in Asia. In addition, it is developing Responsible Travels with Korean eco-friendly travel agencies for those who visit Korea. Good Travel Inc. shows travelers a different way to look at the world. The people and nature one encounters while traveling, inspires, awakens and teaches the travelers. It can sometimes be sobering and overwhelming, but can also transform people for the better.
⑧ Reblank
Reblank gives “second birth” to discarded materials such as old clothes, used street banners, paper and discarded sofa leather from repair centers. Reblank’s unique design changes them into attractive and saleable products.
Reblank is a certified social enterprise (No. 55 in 2009) in the cultural sector. It aims to “save energy”. Through its manufacturing process, Reblank works with regional, self-supporting communities by job-sharing with disadvantaged groups.
Since 2008, Reblank has been continuously dedicated to “up-cycling” and sustainable design. Its products are available at the online shop as well as in multi-brand stores in Seoul.
⑨ WooriDongne Inc.
AHN Byeong-Eun started preparing to launch his organization in 2007, after getting together with a group of people with a similar goal of creating a social enterprise that aims to create a hopeful community through living, working, and sharing together with those who have broken hearts.
In September 2007, Mr. Ahn started operating a convenience store as a test drive and eventually established the corporation in March 2008. He launched his initial business as a corporation by operating two footwear launderettes in December 2008, and later opened a cafe in January 2009. In July, the corporation opened a laundry plant and began running the plant together with the launderettes.
WooriDongne Inc. was certified as a social enterprise by the Ministry of Employment & Labor in November 2009. It started the “Hope Academy” project in December, which won the top prize in the National Social Venture Competition hosted by the Ministry of Employment & Labor. Ahn and his colleagues also opened an Academic Institute in January 2010.
⑩ Korean Society for Research on Sustainable Agriculture, Food, and Environment
The Korean Society for Research on Sustainable Agriculture, Food, & Environment, is a civilian research institute founded in 1985 in order to improve the development of agriculture and fisheries, achieve balanced development of urban and rural areas, and provide a humane lifestyle for farmers and fishermen.
Although the conditions inside and outside of the country are rapidly changing, the institute is pursuing the idea of “local farming” which should be applied to the special characteristics of each different rural region as a basis of protecting and developing agriculture.
The institute's recent activities have been focused on the development of local agriculture policy models for local self-governments, while giving expert advice on local agriculture policies to small cities and counties in rural area. The institute is one of the several axes of the agricultural movement of this country. It made a great contribution to the legislation of the Eco-Environmental Agriculture Development Bill in 1997.
The important factors which enabled this institute to undertake many tasks actively were its workers' scientific research and its actual application to real conditions in rural areas.
Local farming based on farmers' self-governing organizations necessarily calls for the development of the consumer-cooperative movement in urban areas. The institute asserts that the consumer-cooperative movement should build up the solidarity among farmers and fishermen and the cooperation between urban consumers and farmers. In late 1997, it also operated a cooperative university, to deepen the understanding and expand the interactions of the people involved. Their main goal is to advocate and ensure that agricultural problems can be resolved through the cooperation between urban consumers and farmers, by creating local farming in rural areas and expanding consumers’ cooperatives in urban areas.
The institute also contributed to the Korean agriculture movement by laying the theoretical foundation of farmers' cooperatives and showing its practical commitment to the movement. In order to strengthen this commitment in quantitative and qualitative ways, it regularly conducts education programs for farmers and urban consumers at the national level, and sometimes at the local level. By setting up agriculture-related events for students and citizens and disseminating proper solutions of various agricultural problems, it is making every endeavor to strengthen the solidarity and cooperation between farmers, students, and citizens.
⑪ iCOOP Solidarity of Consumer Co-operatives
iCOOP Solidarity of Consumer Cooperatives (referred to as “iCOOP KOREA” hereafter) began with six local cooperatives in the Seoul-Gyeonggi area in 1997. Since then it has grown to be an organization with 74 participating local co-ops, almost 80,000 members and approximately 3,000 producers. iCOOP Korea practices ethical consumerism based on three core values : respect for people and labor, food safety, agriculture and the environment. Since 2007, iCOOP Korea has maintained fair trade partnerships with the Philippines, East Timor, Nepal, Argentina and Colombia, importing Mascobado sugar, coffee, black pepper, olive oil and chocolate.
⑫ Seoul Wowbook Festival Organizing Committee
Seoul Wowbook Festival Corp. started in 2005 as a book culture & arts festival. It now does various activities to contribute to the “common future” by creating new social values through books and by promoting the “democratic” consumption of knowledge and information.
Not only hosting Seoul Wowbook Festival every year, the corporation is also developing a “Wowbook Playground Business” that helps children to read books in a more friendly and culturally-attuned way. It holds a weekly “Wow Bookstore” in which publishing companies, local artists, and residents can participate. The corporation also hosts a “Bookshelf of Love” program that provides books to people with low incomes and limited access to books.
By focusing on libraries’ potential role in local communities, Seoul Wowbook Festival Corp. supports library cultural programs and promotes project “In-Library”, which provides consulting on library organization and management. The corporation is specifically focused to enable libraries to act as key facilities of local communities. These libraries can not only provide solutions to communities’ current problems through books, but also function as vital zones to create new values in each community. Furthermore, the corporation is working on “Public Business on Book Culture” to create new values in the community through books and make them cultural assets. Through the provision of libraries and books, the “Bookstore of Tomorrow” project, which was prepared cooperatively with writer BAE Young-Hwan and the Gyeonggi Cultural Foundation, presented a new picture of the library, which acts as a key facility of a community where access to books was previously limited. Aside from this, the corporation is also working on various projects based on community.
Wowbook Festival Corp. believes that a book is not just a commodity but a medium that designs the future and provides cultural diversity. Wowbook Festival Corp. is a growing social enterprise that dreams of a bright future made by publishing companies, culture & arts organizations, and citizens. Books are invaluable assets that help build a common future.
Reference: Asian Social Entrepreneurs Summit
www.asiases.org
Translated: by KIM Gyeol, CHOI Eun-Young, Skye KANG, HONG Yea-Bin
Edited: by Tamara de Mel, HA So-Hee, Marie LEE,
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