Social Enterprise Development for Communities

          De La Salle University’s Center for Social Concern and Action (DLSU-COSCA) engages another batch of community members for the Lasallian Social Enterprise for Economic Development’s  (LSEED) Social Enterprise Fellowship Program (SEFP).  The program aims to help enable partner communities and students create social enterprises that are relevant, sustainable and impact driven. This initiative is also part of DLSU’s effort to expand the implementation of LSEED.

       Community members from partner communities of DLSU-Laguna campus and student fellows participated in a series of Online Learning and Mentoring Session held from May to June 2020.   The series of workshop introduced community members and student fellows the concept of “social entrepreneurship (SE) and its characteristics, social innovations, circular economy, and design thinking. 

      Successful SEFP graduates (7 student fellows and 8 community members) were recommended to participate in the Online LSEED Boot Camp for DLSU-Laguna Campus. The Online Boot Camp held last July 18 to 20, 2020 was participated by student fellows composed of Lingap scholars from DLSU-Laguna campus’ partner communities and community members from the Gawad Kalinga-Toyota Village.  The session was facilitated by Mr. Norby Salonga, with support from his Lasallian Mission Office’s co-facilitators/mentors, Mr. Melchor Oribe and Ms. Evelyn Laranga.

        As the COVID-19 pandemic renders everybody’s movement limited (with most areas in the country under enhanced community quarantine) the situation placed most, if not all members of our partner communities in a difficult economic situation, LSEED continues to support a number of initiatives to respond to needs of partner communities such as extending relief assistance and organizing learning and mentoring sessions  using available online platforms.