Social Entrepreneurship Forum » Business

Children Are Us Foundation

Elaine Ng — Wed, 07 Jul 2010 13:52:47 +0000

OUR SPECIALITY:

Freshly baked goods, such as cakes and bread, and western cuisine served by the intellectually challenged, who are professionally trained by vocational teachers and practicing chefs.

THE INNOVATION:

The Children Are Us Foundation (CAUF) provides intellectually challenged young people of age 16 and above with training in skills that are practical in daily life and for work so that they might better integrate into society. At CAUF’s workshops, which are purposefully situated in busy areas of the city where students are visible to the public to dispel public ignorance and discrimination, they learn skills from baking pastries for sale to growing their own vegetables.

Children Are Us also operates cafes, bakeries restaurants in Taipei, Kaohsiung and Hsinchu where some of their trainees are employed. Though workers might not be as efficient, through time and training, they perform their tasks adequately and with enthusiasm. To aid the learning process, tasks are simplified into simple steps where students are assigned to according to their abilities. And through employment, the young ones gain greater confidence and fulfillment in life.

BRIEF BACKGROUND:

CAUF chairman Su Kuo-chen and wife Hsiao Shu-Chen inspired by the sheltered workshops and communities they saw in Japan, brought the idea back home to Taiwan. Impressed by the level of service and quality of the products there, Hsiao, herself a parent of a child with cerebral palsy, was encouraged that with proper planning, training and hard work, her child might too be capable of holding a good job.

With the help of skill training and recipes from the Le Petit Prince Bakery, CAUF opened its first social enterprise, the Children Are Us bakery in Kaohsiung in 1997. It has since grown to operate five bakeries and restaurants in Kaohsiung, Taipei and Hsinchu. As of the year 2000, 51 percent of its funding from its business operations, 25 percent from private donations, 22 percent from the government, and 2 percent from fundraising events or bank interest.

The non-profit organisation, which was founded in 1995, hopes to change the general perception of the intellectually challenged as well as create job opportunities through training them to work in their social enterprises. Children Are Us, too, provides assistance to them in leading an independent life as much as possible and long-term care for them when their parents pass on.

Dialogue in the Dark (DiD)

Elaine Ng — Tue, 25 May 2010 15:13:05 +0000

OUR SPECIALTY:

Led by blind guides in small groups of four to five participants, Dialogue in the Dark (DiD) visitors go through a specially curated route that simulates elements of daily environment in complete darkness.

THE INNOVATION:

By entering the world of the visually impaired, we may best break free of our limited view of them. At DiD, sighted people are removed of their familiar and much relied on sense of sight while the blind take the lead by providing them with expert orientation in the dark.

This method of experiential learning helps broaden visitors’ mindsets with a greater emotional impact – cultivating an interest in understanding and even respecting their blind guide instead of pity and having the misconception that independent living is beyond their visually impaired counterparts.

At the same time, by employing the visually impaired as guides, they are empowered through imparting knowledge of how to employ hidden senses more effectively to their sighted counterparts, and at the same time, they are given the means to sustain themselves financially.

BRIEF BACKGROUND:

DiD, founded by Andreas Heinecke, is an awareness-raising social franchising company that creates jobs for the visually impaired, disabled and disadvantaged globally through the exhibitions and business workshops it conducts in complete darkness.

More than six million visitors have visited DiD in countries throughout Europe, Asia and America since its beginning in 1988, and more than 6,000 visually impaired employees have found a job through the organisation.

RSVP PRoGuide

liling — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 17:26:45 +0000

OUR SPECIALTY

Consultancy services to VWOs, SMEs and other organizations, helping them to become more productive and effective. RSVP ProGuide’s Professional consultancy services include strategic planning, financial management, human resource management and more.

THE INNOVATION

RSVP empowers retired senior citizens to become active in community work and remain active by encouraging them to share their experience, talents and time for the good of the community in this venture. All programmes and projects are spearheaded and carried out by members with the support of a small secretariat staff.

BRIEF BACKGROUND

RSVP ProGuide Pte Ltd is a social enterprise company formed by the Retired and Senior Volunteer Programme (Singapore), a non-profit organization that has more than ten successful community service programmes.