Renato Mercado had worked as an assistant architect for 15 years in Saudi Arabia. Last year, he got a one-month leave and was finally able to visit his family in Laguna province after four years.

Upon arrival, he was shocked to know his family was in disarray. His wife was not able to save a single centavo from the remittances he had been making; his eldest son was a drug addict.

For Renato, all the sacrifices and years of hard work was for nothing.

This story is a familiar refrain for many families of overseas Filipinos workers. The social consequence of this continuing migration of Filipinos has been broken families and problematic children who grow up without the proper guidance of parents.

Mai Añonuevo, together with other overseas Filipino worker (OFW) returnees, decided to form Atikha, a nonprofit organization that aims to provide economic and social services to overseas Filipinos and their families. Atikha is currently active in supporting families of OFWs in the provinces of Batangas and Laguna.

Among its most successful program is the Batang Atikha Savers Club, in which children of OFWs are taught the value of saving money while providing an outlet for these children to express their talent through arts and crafts workshops.

Teaching children of OFWs to save money is very important since it is usually these children who spend on unnecessary luxuries such as new cellular phones. The parent often gives in to these whims as a means of trying to make up for their absence.

Another initiative by Atikha is providing financial literacy and entrepreneurship training to the families of the OFWs.

Studies show that it is often the parent that is left behind who needs to be educated about where to invest the remittances that are sent by the parent who is working abroad. Through these training programs, Atikha helps minimize horror stories similar to that of Renato’s family. Atikha is an example of how social entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurs can help promote a better quality of life here in the Philippines.

Social entrepreneurship is defined as developing innovative, scalable and sustainable means of solving social problems using the skills that are also used by an entrepreneur.

Mai and her friends are examples of social entrepreneurs who looked at the problems faced by families of OFWs as an opportunity for them to be able to develop a holistic program that would be able to help these families cope with the absence of one or more members. Social entrepreneurs are individuals who act as change agents for society, inventing new approaches and pattern-changing solutions to our most pressing social problems.

Another example of a successful social enterprise is Rags2Riches (R2R), which helps provide rag-makers in the Payatas area of Quezon City a better quality of life by helping them to make innovations on their products. Before R2R was established, these rag-makers, who are also mothers, would only make one to two pesos per rag and most of the profit would be made by the middlemen who sell their rags to different department stores.

When R2R was established by a group of young professionals and the Simbahang Lingkod ng Bayan, they provide these rag-makers direct access to the market enabling them to earn up to 500 percent more than what they used to earn.

Aside from this, R2R was also able to convince fashion designer Rajo Laurel to help them develop different types of products using the rags. Among the products that Rajo developed were bags, purses, wine bottle holders and yoga mat holders. By developing these new products, the value of the rags is increased resulting in added income to the rag-makers.

Now, these mothers of Payatas are able to have enough money to put food on the table at least three times a day and send their children to school. These rag-makers continue to be part of R2R as they are often consulted by the management team on the future plans of this social enterprise. Since it started its operations last year, R2R has already sold more than P1 million worth of rags and helped more than 40 families live a better quality of life.

Currently, there are a few institutions that are pushing for the development of more social enterprises and social entrepreneurs here in the Philippines.

Among them are the Ateneo de Manila University School of Government (ASOG), which runs classes, seminars and training programs to interested individuals and organizations.

One of its main projects is the yearly Future Leaders of Asia Forum (FLAF) on Social Entrepreneurship which introduces social entrepreneurship to student leaders from colleges and universities all over the Philippines and Asia. The top social enterprise business plans that were conceptualized by the participants of the FLAF were given small startup funds by Coca-Cola Foundation to be used to implement their plans.

Aside from this, the ASOG also runs a youth social entrepreneurship training program in Marikina City with Greenwich Pizza and the Jollibee Foundation.

The Greenwich-YLEAD program provides training, mentorship and startup funds to youth leaders in Marikina City to enable them to create social enterprises that will help alleviate problems in their communities. Last 2006, Ashoka, the world’s leading organization that supports social entrepreneurs formally opened its operations in the Philippines.

Ashoka-Philippines, which was founded and is currently led by Antonio La Vina, a former undersecretary of environment and natural resources, aims to identify budding Filipino social entrepreneurs to provide them with financial support and access to the Ashoka global network of other social entrepreneurs.

When one is chosen as an Ashoka fellow, he is given a monthly living stipend for three years so that he can work full time on his social enterprise without worrying about his or her day to day living expenses.

The first batch of Ashoka fellows from the Philippines is expected to be announced early next year.

The author is director for Youth Leadership and Social Entrepreneurship at the Ateneo de Manila University School of Government and program manager for Ashoka-Youth Venture in the Philippines. Send feedback to +632 4265657 or email harveykeh@gmail.com.