Skoll 10: Don't let social entrepreneur die in vain

The head of social enterprise Partners in Health tonight made a dramatic, and personal, appeal to social entrepreneurs to work together to rebuild Haiti.

Paul Farmer delivered an emotionally charged speech at the end of the first session at the Skoll World Forum on Social Entrepreneurship in Oxford.

He paid tribute to Walt Ratterman CEO of Sun Energy Power International, a social enterprise that in the year since the 2009 world forum has worked with Partners in Health, converting several of their hospitals in Haiti to solar power.

Ratterman lost his life in Port au Prince in the 12 January earthquake that brought devastation to Haiti.

Farmer asked the 700 strong crowd to honour the memory of Ratterman and came to the forum with what he called a ‘shopping list’ of needs for Haiti including everything from a strong disability rights movement for the new generation of amputees to better forestry management to prevent mudslides.

‘Between and among us lie the skills and resources,’ said Farmer. ‘You have what we need or can find it or make it or figure out how to get it.

‘How can a gathering of social entrepreneurs like ours complement the efforts of humanitarians and the Haitian government?’

Farmer's appeal to not only work together but to work with government mirrored discussion earlier in the evening which saw director of planning and information at the ministry of education in Zambia, Felix Phiri, appeal to the audience of social entrepreneurs to work with government for best effect.

He pointed to female education social enterprise Camfed International which works in many African countries and supports individual girls throughout their education as a successful example of this.

That audience also heard from Diana Good and Lance Croffoot-Suede, partners in law at international firm Linklaters who have written a report on Camfed.

The report, launched tonight, challenges the international aid community to adopt international standards based on the same power-sharing practices as the social enterprise and to use the language of ‘client’, which was described as empowering, compared to the disempowering term ‘beneficiary’.

At the beggining of tonight’s grand event at the Sheldonian theatre Saïd Business School dean Colin Mayer said: ‘We want the ethos and values of social entrepreneurs to pervade all we do as educators and students.

‘We believe business should be playing a central role in addressing social and environmental problems and not contributing to them.’

The Skoll World Forum continues tomorrow and Friday.

Learn more about Farmer's appeal at http://standwithhaiti.org/page/content/build_back_better/