XlRI hosted the three-day day GIZ Aarohan workshop on 'Ecosystem development and capacity building for social enterprises in India,' at XlRI campus from August 2.
The workshop - aimed at improving the support infrastructure for social enterprises and incubation initiatives - was anchored by Father Arrupe Centre for Ecology & Sustainability. The initiative was launched by Aarohan Ventures, CIIE in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaftfür Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).
"Along with challenging developmental issues, there are also many social and regional inequalities that are plaguing the socio-economic space; thus, the imperative need for a change in the current traditional approaches taken by the social sector. Even, the social enterprises in the private sector are facing similar problems, failing to attract capital at the early stage; thus leading to difficulties in rapid, scaleable and sustainable growth," said Professor Madhukar Shukla, chairperson of Fr Arrupe Centre.
"The whole idea of the workshop is to develop a conducive ecosystem for these social enterprises, mostly start-ups, without which no sector can develop or sustain. In the workshop, 15 XlRI students got the opportunity to work on financial modelling for social enterprises," he added.
The Aarohan workshop consisted of two parallel workshops on capacity building. Fabric Plus, with weaving factories at Chaygaon, Amingaon (Assam), Dhatrigram (Bengal) participated, along with the likes of FarmFresh100K - that links small farmers with consumers located within a 100 km radius using a hybrid platform - and SuryOn, a social for-profit energy venture focused on developing affordable, sustainable and clean solutions.