Once a month, we profile a young social entrepreneur in our community who answers 5 questions. If you know of someone who should be profiled, let us know!

YSEC Pitch Competition Winner: Neighborhood Basketball Association

Nkem Anizor of Neighbourhood Basketball Association’s B.R.O.S. (Brothers Reaching Our Sons) Mentoring Recreation Program. The B.R.O.S program addresses the lack of positive adult male role models for young, Black males in the Kingston-Galloway community of east Scarborough by connecting young males with role models.

The $1,000 loan from YSEC will be used to teach economically challenged participants entrepreneurial skills by providing an opportunity to earn their registration fee by selling t-shirts. The loan will be repaid within 4 months through t-shirt sale profits.

Read more about Nkem Anizor below.

1. What are you working on and why does it matter?

We are currently working on securing core operating funding to pay at least 2 full time staff and to operate our current programs.

Like many grassroots, charitable organizations, a lack of staff has proven to be a hindrance to our productivity and the growth of our organizational capacity.

Because we cater to a community with a particularly large high-risk youth population, the needs are great, and making sure that we have dedicated staff is essential.

2. What motivates you?

We are motivated by our desire to see an end to the senseless Black youth on youth violence that plague Black communities not only across the GTA, but across North America, and truthfully, the world.  We believe that all youth deserve the opportunity to reach their full potential and that being poor and Black should not be a death sentence.

3. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned recently?

The biggest lesson we’ve learned recently is that despite the rise of emails, texts and social networking, nothing beats face-to-face interaction with people of like mind.

Looking into someone’s eyes and watching their physical reaction to your words helps you to detect their sincerity and prevents wasting time on connections that will ultimately prove to be frustrating if not fruitless.

4. If you could invite 5 people dead or alive to dinner, who would they be?

1. God, 2. Jesus Christ, 3. Nat Turner, 4. Harriet Tubman, 5. Marcus Garvey

5. Best resource people don’t know about?

Our youth are the best resource that people don’t know about.  If you get past token ‘youth input’ and stereotypes and really pick their brains, you’ll realize very quickly how much they know and how much they can offer.

Once a month, we profile a young social entrepreneur in our community who answers 5 questions. If you know of someone who should be profiled, let us know!

YSEC Pitch Competition Winner: Young Urban Farmers Community Shared Agriculture

Christopher Wong and Ronald Ha are on the Executive Team of Young Urban Farmers Community Shared Agriculture (YUF CSA), an organization that turns Toronto’s backyards into a sustainable source of fresh, organic food for community shareholders.

The $1,000 loan from YSEC will be used to purchase a greenhouse to extend their growing season and be repaid within 4 months through community shareholder fees.

Read Christopher Wong’s profile below.

1. What are you working on and why does it matter?

Young Urban Farmers CSA’s mission is to reconnect people with fresh, locally grown food. We do that by converting backyards in productive vegetable gardens and sharing the produce with community members through a CSA (community shared agriculture) program.

As the general manager of YUF CSA, we’re currently planning our operations for our upcoming season, choosing the crops, recruiting volunteers, increasing our land base, and creating the plans for our new urban greenhouse.

Food unites us all and is the basis for our health and well-being. By engaging, educating, and reconnecting people with how and where food is grown, we hope to share with them the joy that comes with eating well and living a more sustainable lifestyle.

2. What motivates you?

As an entrepreneur, I understand that what you put into your business is what you get out of it.

To that end, striving to do my best, working hard to make a difference in people’s lives, and not settling for second best are a few of the things that really motivate me and get me up and out of bed in the mornings. Working with great people and working towards a shared cause never hurts as well.

3. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned recently?

Everyone has a beautiful and amazing story to tell. You just need to take the time to listen, understand, and connect with them before you can uncover it.

4. If you could invite 5 people dead or alive to dinner, who would they be?

A tough choice, but if I had to choose 5, they would be: Warren Buffet, Mozart, Mohandas Gandhi, Will Allen, Bono.

5. Best resource people don’t know about?

Coming from a business background and being an avid reader, many people ask me for business book recommendations.

My favourite resource is  the Personal MBA, whose manifesto is simple: MBA programs don’t have a monopoly on advanced business knowledge: you can teach yourself everything you need to know to succeed in life and at work.

They’ve put together a list of the 99 best business books for you to give yourself a personal MBA. Check out their list here: http://personalmba.com/business-book-recommender/

Once a month, we profile a young social entrepreneur in our community who answers 5 questions. If you know of someone who should be profiled, let us know!

Co-founders of Kaleid - Nadia Alam (left) and Nayani Thiyagarajah (right)

Nadia Alam and Nayani Thiyagarajah are co-founders of Kaleid (pronounced collide, and derived from the word kaleidoscope), a grassroots organization that showcases South Asian arts & culture in Toronto.

1. What are you working on and why does it matter?

I’m currently working on building a grassroots organization called Kaleid. The purpose of this initiative is to create a much needed platform of support in the artistic and creative South Asian community in Toronto and the GTA. We are aiming to do community workshops and events that inspire creavity and change in South Asian young people. For about 20 years, this platform did not exist. Myself and my creative partner, Nayani Thiyagarajah, are working to ensure that this does not continue in the future of South Asian-Canadians.

2. What motivates you?

What motivates me is young people. Being a young person myself, I’ve had my fair share of being neglected or ignored simply because I’m defined as a young person. Young people (the term used broadly) have the ability and drive to reach their dreams. If only they heard more “yes” and less “no”, there could be some amazing things happening all over the world.

3. What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned recently?

In relation to my answer above, I’ve learned to be open to saying “yes”. We live in a society where we’re taught “no means no”, and while that’s important in certain circumstances, nobody tells us “yes means yes”.

We have the ability to make the change we want to see. I’ve grown up my whole life with people telling me I can’t do things. It’s time that young people do things for themselves. It’s time we spread the power of “yes”.

4. If you could invite 5 people dead or alive to dinner, who would they be?

(In no particular order): Lauryn Hill, Gandhi, Bibi Russell, Yuna, Phoolan Devi

5. Best resource people don’t know about?

Toronto Youth Arts Link just launched their website! It’s totally new, check it out: http://www.tyal.ca/

Twice a month, we profile a young social entrepreneur in our community who answers 5 questions. If you know of someone who should be profiled, let us know!

Mike Edwards, Preparing the Trail

Mike Edwards is the Project Coordinator of Preparing the Trail, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to making exercise fun and productive, anytime, anywhere, for anyone, in the most sustainable way possible.

1) What are you working on and why does it matter?

In my spare time, I have taken the initiative to satisfy my personal passion for athletics and the environment – I have developed a website and a not-for-profit program called Preparing the Trail.

Preparing the Trail is using the power of athletics to drive environmental and socially oriented messages in our communities.  This matters to me because in today’s environment, we need to find innovative solutions that engage the public and educate our communities, understanding that accurate unbiased knowledge is the key to stimulating proper action and behavioural change.

I am also currently working full time as a Mechanical Engineer and Green Building Specialist at Enermodal Engineering, helping to make the world a better place by designing energy and resource efficient buildings.  I am also working with YSEC to track the financial and social metrics of our Preparing the Trail program.

2) What motivates you?

I am motivated by optimistic, passionate, hardworking individuals that take the road less travelled.  I think it is important to look back at your accomplishments every few months, and set new goals after you complete the last, using each achievement as a stepping stone towards the next.  I am also slightly masochistic - I feed adversity, and hard work.

3) What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned recently?

The biggest lesson that I have learned recently is that opportunities often present themselves when you least expect it.  Small lessons can be learned from every experience, good or bad.  Adversity can bring out the best in people, and can teach you a lot about yourself.  Know your limits, and test them each and every day!

4) If you could invite 5 people dead or alive to dinner, who would they be?

If I could organize a dinner with 5 people, dead or alive, I would invite individuals that have inspired me and shaped the person that I am today.  I have always been inspired by great leaders that can make others around them better people.

As a kid I was obsessed with Michael Jordan and Wayne Gretzky, there was something about the way they handled themselves in the most stressful situations, leading by example, and elevating their teams’ performance.  I would have a few questions for Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and I would also invite Bradley Nowell, the ex-lead singer of Sublime, the first CD I ever owned and my favourite band, his lyrics have always intrigued me so I would definitely have a lot of questions for him. I would round out the table one of my best friends so that they could enjoy the experience with me, and remind me to stop speaking with food in my mouth.

5) Best resource people don’t know about?

I have recently stumbled upon Mashable.com and Wired.com – lots of good resources for those of you that want to stay up to date with the fast paced technology and social media movements.

Renjie Butalid is the Communications Coordinator at Social Innovation Generation at the University of Waterloo.

1) What are you working on and why does it matter?

I am currently working on a speaker series beginning May 5 in Waterloo, hosted by Social Innovation Generation at the University of Waterloo.

This speaker series will apply the ideas of social innovation to a number of specific sectors and issues – education, youth mentorship, inclusion, collaboration and fostering a culture of change – where each of the five speakers in the series will discuss and share their experiences of operating at the national level to identify and address the root causes of intractable social problems.

For each of these talks, all of which are free to attend and open to the public, we are strategically inviting people from sectors and organizations dealing with each of the issues mentioned above, to begin facilitating discussions within communities of practice around new ways of thinking and taking action, in ways that are more meaningful (especially for young people) and have a deeper impact within the community.

2) What motivates you?

The way I see it, people are inspired by role models, but are motivated by their peers. With that said, I am motivated by the excitement and energy found within this emerging field of ’social innovation’, especially among young people today.

Social innovation in this case, for me, involves new ways of thinking and acting within government, education, healthcare and even more so in the non-profit/charity and business sectors, that will ultimately lead to transformative and meaningful change within our local communities and across society as a whole.

3) What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned recently?

To always say ‘yes’ to things that scare me and to never be afraid to learn something new, you never know what opportunities may arise from these experiences.

Case in point, I am extremely claustrophobic and I’m afraid to be in tight, confined spaces.  That being said, I was always afraid to go scuba diving because of the claustrophobic feeling I assumed I would get being underwater and relying solely on a tank of oxygen to breathe. I went and got my scuba diving license at the end of last year, and found that rather than feeling claustrophobic underwater, it was the most liberating feeling I have had in my life.

This has opened up some new possibilities for me, from pursuing underwater photography as a hobby to exploring sunken wrecks and cave diving.

4) If you could invite 5 people dead or alive to dinner, who would they be?

I would invite US President Barack Obama and the late Philippine President Cory Aquino, my late grandfather Romeo Butalid (whom I never met since he passed away when my dad was in his teens), the late British explorer Wilfred Thesiger whom I have always admired growing up in the UAE, and of course Barney Stinson from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ to lighten the mood. It would certainly make for an interesting evening and great conversation.

5) Best resource people don’t know about?

I am a firm believer in life-long learning and as a result, I find myself watching TEDTalks online very often. By now, most people would have heard of TED and if you haven’t, I would encourage you to check out www.TED.com.

Some other great resources that are very similar to TED that I would highly recommend, include Academic Earth (http://academicearth.org/) and the Khan Academy (http://www.khanacademy.org/).

Ketan Deshpande, a third year engineering student at a city college in India, has become the youngest Indian to join the ranks of the Paragon 100 Fellowship awarded by the Hong Kong-based Foundation for Youth Social Entrepreneurship (FYSE) this year. Ketan got the award for starting a voluntary organisation – Friends’ Union for Energising Lives (FUEL) which works towards creating awareness of entrance tests and centralised admission procedures to colleges for students. The organisation also runs a helpline and conducts workshops giving details of the exam dates, tips on filling forms, preparing for the tests and so on. (Read full article on The Punekar here)

As per the FUEL website:

The organization has been founded with the core principle of making a difference in the lives of many students across the country who need a definite and concrete support to plan their career.

To learn more about the Paragon 100 fellowship – Asia’s most inspiring entrepreneurs and social changemakers – click here.

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YSEC are always on the lookout for young social entrepreneur projects (especially Canadian ones) to spotlight so if you know of any other great ideas or stories (and it could be your own) feel free to share them with us and we may post them on our blog!

What if you could take your local farmers’ market vendors online? Well Foodzie is doing just that.

Take small food producers that are gems of their local communities and give them an online presence, thus expanding their reach, market base and margin. It also allows these small-time folks to battle the bigger guys.

The bigger goal? To help change the way people eat.

Here’s the business model:

Local producers can set up a storefront for free and include information about themselves and the philosophy behind their food. Foodzie, the people providing the service, gets a 20 percent commission for every sale. The customers get access to the good food. It’s a win-win.

According to their website: We are an online marketplace where you can discover and buy food directly from small passionate food producers and growers.

Foodzie were recently profiled on Inc.com’s 30 Under 30.

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YSEC are always on the lookout for young social entrepreneur projects (especially Canadian ones) to spotlight so if you know of any other great ideas or stories (and it could be your own) feel free to share them with us and we may post them on our blog!

It’s always inspiring to hear about what other social entrepreneurs are doing, and to realize that we are not alone in dreaming big and taking action to make our local and global communities a better place for all.

As part of YSEC’s mission to promote social entrepreneurship and to provide case studies of people and organizations making things happen, this is the story of the Fertile Grounds Project.

The Fertile Grounds Project is a bold, not-for-profit educational organization that aims to provide youth with learning opportunities in unconventional and dynamic settings, to enhance their academic and social development, and provide them with the tools and space they need to build an identity in a world where they belong.

One fascinating program Fertile Grounds developed and is rolling out across the USA is “The Hallway” project. Take a look at this short seven minute video that outlines the project:

Hallway Project from Eyal Dimant on Vimeo.

For more info on Fertile Grounds and the Hallway project refer to www.fertilegrounds.org.

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YSEC are always on the lookout for young social entrepreneur projects to spotlight so if you know of any other great ideas or stories (it could be your own) feel free to share them with us and we may post them on our blog!