Economics for Poverty

When someone says company, people think profit, growth potential, supply and demaind, market shares etc.

Hapinoy. It's not an NGO, and it's not an outreach program. It's a company. It makes money from it's business, and it's growth potential is great. It helps women all over the Philippines improve the lives of their families, and it brings together a network of sari-sari stores that have the common goal of building better lives for everyone. It is open to new home made products, and open up small scale producers to wider markets. They are not merely a company. They are a social enterprise. (To learn more about Hapinoy, visit (http://www.hapinoy.com)

The problem with companies isn't that they do not have the potential to be social enterprises. On the contrary, as Hapinoy has shown, companies can more than simply money making enterprises that seeks only the growth of it's wealth. It's about paradigms. When companies seek only for profit, they then only see solutions that lead to profit. When they seek to improve the lives of people, as well as make a profit, then the solutions they find leads to a better life for all. What most can learn from the Hapinoy experience is that the problem with market enterprises is that they precisely look at humanity as merely one of two things: producer, or market. We are merely statistics. Market enterprises lack humanity. As Raul Lejano once told us in class, the future lies in networks, or in this case, social enterprises. It is only once we truly get to know the producer, as well as the consumer do we get to truly succeed. Growth comes not merely from the central company but also from the collective efforts of producer, company, and consumer. The whole point of economy is to make like better.