Copy this Collection1. What are three to six key points or impressions that you will take away from these stories?
- Not only can persecuted peoples be a strong workforce to help both parties involved but, they can also be the best idea generators due to their different set of experiences.
- Sometimes returning to the original time consuming processes of our ancestors can prove beneficial for the environment and our health as well.
- The power of music can extend to all living organisms and in addition will return to aid in the mutually beneficial relationship between animals and humans.
- Humans love to help not only others in their community directly, but also in an indirect way in which they receive little to no praise for their actions.
- Cost effective solutions for individuals can also serve to form a sense of community that is inherently strong due to the common issues that brought the individuals together.
- Social issues affect a broad range of individuals and social ventures not only serve to help correct these issues, but also to bring people of common ground together.
2. Write a 200-word reflection that engages, analyzes, critiques, expands upon, and/or questions what you read or listened to.
The stories that I choose to read this week were all based around my individual passions of cooking, music, and community. The first article was new farming practices that return to the old methods in order to produce successful yields and combat climate change. In this article Syrian refugees not only benefitted by receiving farming jobs which helped the social issue of inequality, but they were the lead idea generators for the project which shows that everyone has something to offer. Continuing, the article about the man playing music for dogs demonstrates that humans show compassion to others with no hope of a return. These dogs being calmed will eventually promote their adoption and in turn benefit the owner that adopts them as well and the musician does this with no desire for reciprocation. The final article about the toy loaning system shows the importance of social ventures bring the similarly effected together. We often see social ventures for their primary goal, but we overlook the strong sense of community that they can create which is arguably more important than the assistance they provide. These stories demonstrate the deeper meaning of social ventures as they provide a much larger benefit than the assistance they provide to individuals.
3. Share your reflections on your experience reading, watching or listening to the solutions journalism stories. Did you learn new information; gain new understanding; see things with a different perspective than you had in the past? Did the stories reinforce an idea or thought you'd previously had? Did you meet new people, or learn about opportunities you were previously unaware of?
In reading these articles I did learn of new businesses and the novel solutions that they are implementing to combat varying social issues. These stories provided a new prospective on the issues as I had never looked at the deeper workings of what the social ventures provide those effected. The story about the musician and the dogs reinforced my thoughts that individual action can be magnified for good. For example, the dogs that were soothed by the musician will eventually be adopted and in turn serve as a better emotional support system for their owner. I was unaware of the large presence of music soothing distressed animals and this intrigues me greatly as a result of my deep passion for music. I will now consider joining this cause through the ASPCA platform that the article provided. These stories were extremely thought provoking toward my social entrepreneurship beliefs.
4. Were there other stories this week that you’d like to give an “honorable mention” -- that you enjoyed, but were not your top choice to share?
The main story that would be included on my "honorable mention" list was a story speaking to churches avoiding the stigma of HIV. I had seen the effects of this in my own church back home so to read this article was interesting. I also felt that it connected to Melinda Gate's speech that we heard from the lessons this week when she talked to the sex workers overseas. While this story brought up interesting points I felt that the other three articles better represented my social entrepreneurship interests.
5. What else would you like to share?
I believe that this website is an interesting way to spark new aspects of innovation that pertain to social entrepreneurship. I would be interested to know how big of a presence prominent social entrepreneurs have on this website. The concept of this website would prove beneficial to forming a strong community amongst social entrepreneurs in order to help each other. If social entrepreneurship think tans would utilize this website I believe it would be extremely beneficial.
