YSSE: A cradle for social entrepreneurs

Publish: 4:13 PM, September 15, 2018 | Update: 4:13 PM, September 15, 2018

Md. Arifuzzaman
When millions of young people are running behind the typical jobs, thought of being a social entrepreneur at that time would have been so sinful to many. Several foreign aid-based organizations have come forward to establish the concept of social entrepreneurship in Bangladesh. They disbursed capital, extended cooperation as well as encouragement and organized workshops to help social entrepreneurs. But it proved to be quite hard for them to understand the pulse of the youth on the social entrepreneur’s perspective so quickly. Even a few years ago, the concept of social entrepreneur in the country was like an orphaned baby. In the year of 2015, some young entrepreneurs formed the country’s first youth-oriented social entrepreneurship based organization “Youth School for Social Entrepreneurs”. The organization is working relentlessly for the last three and half years with the social entrepreneurs and striving to develop an excellent educational platform for them.
“Youth School for Social Entrepreneurs” also abbreviated as YSSE can be dubbed as one of the most promising youth led organization for social entrepreneurs. Since 2015, it has been working as a support center for social entrepreneurs with a mission to create social entrepreneurs by nurturing them through training, counseling and monitoring that will create large-scale job and social action following the sustainable development approach. Youth has the potentiality they don’t wait for the opportunity. They either grab it or create it. Organization like YSSE is always prepared to guide them in the right direction of entrepreneurship to elapse the curse of unemployment through solving social problems.
Till date, YSSE has been able to create impact on the lives of more than 32000 concerned people through launching close to 100 programs and training sessions. More than 30 entrepreneurs have emerged with the support of the organization. YSSE has spread its initiatives beyond the national boundary which is now spanning over 23 countries. Since its inception, YSSE prioritizes on women entrepreneurship.
Successful women entrepreneurs are promoted, recognized and inspired through different programs of YSSE. Through these types of attempts, impacts are created on the society to promote women and youth empowerment.
A group of young volunteers are still working to build a “one stop service” for social entrepreneurs under the prudent leadership of organization’s founding president Sheikh Mohammad Yousuf Hossain. On several occasions, Yousuf represented the country on foreign grounds and highlighted the success stories of local social entrepreneurs and “YSSE” to the world.
As a nonprofit organization YSSE aims to expand its programs in future with more creativity, potentiality and sustainability. It promises to make value oriented entrepreneurs and determined to equip them with skill sets to tackle the challenges of the 4th Industrial Revolution with sustainable business model. In future, YSSE hopes to bring more facilities with the succession of its previous works.

The writer is a Management Trainee at YSSE.