Transcript
Speaker: Welcome to our first episode of YYY Podcast by Social Marie.
Speaker: You can call me Jose and I'm your host.
Speaker: Today we are traveling to Hungary, a country with almost 10 million inhabitants and seven neighboring countries.
Speaker: including Slovenia, where I live.
Speaker: In the following minutes, you will listen to two great stories of awarded social entrepreneurs speaking about inclusion, personal development, business sustainability, the value of community, and the importance of taking action.
Speaker: But first, can someone explain to me the name Social Marie?
Speaker: Let's make a long story very short because it wasn't so easy to find the right name.
Speaker: I asked a lot of friends and they had very good ideas and suggestions.
Speaker: They said, let's say Crocodile Award or Flower Award or Pinguin Award.
Speaker: But I didn't like that.
Speaker: It was funny, funny ideas, but I didn't like it.
Speaker: In my mind, there was always...
Speaker: The big example of Oscar, actually it was the only one I knew as an award.
Speaker: And I thought, I would like to have a name, but it should be a woman's name.
Speaker: So then we were looking for a name, which is well known in all these six countries we are working for the future, because at that time it was the beginning.
Speaker: And, you know, I could take, I don't know, Jennifer, Simone or Petra, but I thought Maria would be a very common name, but it was too Catholic for me.
Speaker: So I called it Marie.
Speaker: And also the word social and innovation should be in this name.
Speaker: And I don't know, innovative Marie, it was so hard.
Speaker: But social Marie, it was very fluid.
Speaker: So we liked it.
Speaker: And in the description, we say a price for social innovation.
Speaker: So I think we could find a conclusion and everybody was happy.
Speaker: But when I found out then in Vienna, Marie is also synonym for money.
Speaker: I was not so happy anymore because the money is not the important thing.
Speaker: Although I know that they appreciate the money.
Speaker: Because for us, it is much more important the value of this price, how they
Speaker: how to get well known for this.
Speaker: So the people have to know they are very, very engaged persons who try to find.
Speaker: They fail and try to find again as a solution for their problems.
Speaker: And so, but I think Social Marie is a funny name and I like it.
Speaker: I like it too.
Speaker: Thank you so much.
Speaker: That was Wanda Moser-Heindel.
Speaker: She's the founder of Social Marie.
Speaker: I met Betina in the beautiful city of Osiek in Croatia.
Speaker: We participated in a workshop organized by Social Marie in coordination with the team at the Museum of Personal Stories.
Speaker: The elephant in the room was a profound question we all tried to answer.
Speaker: How can social innovation initiatives thrive under harsh conditions?
Speaker: I was impressed with Bettina's wisdom, humility, and contagious love.
Speaker: She inspired me to learn more about social inclusion, and I found there is so much I need to learn.
Speaker: Here's Bettina herself, ready to share some of her story with you.
Speaker: I am Bettina Pocai, and I'm a Hungarian Roma woman.
Speaker: And I think that my passion is in education.
Speaker: And that's why I work in educational NGOs so far, two of them.
Speaker: My first question to you is, why did you start?
Speaker: Maybe how did everything come to be as it is today?
Speaker: How I became a social innovator, if I can call myself that,
Speaker: is that I started to work at Utsuro My Informal Educational Foundation.
Speaker: I worked there for two years and before that I was a volunteer from 2015.
Speaker: So it's been a long time.
Speaker: And the walking tour that I will call myself a social innovator by is a pretty interesting thing that immediately
Speaker: But I mean, the whole organization, what it's doing, the whole mission and everything was like a calling to me.
Speaker: I felt like, oh my God, like I want to do this, even though I was very reluctant on even trying to come in contact with anyone from the organization, because I felt that I had so much on my plate already.
Speaker: But then I got convinced and I went and I felt like I felt a click.
Speaker: I felt like I wanted to do this.
Speaker: That's where I belonged.
Speaker: And it gave so much response and answers to my questions that I had for my own.
Speaker: So what I needed solution for is that during my work as an educator, I had, and as a Roma educator,
Speaker: I had issues with finding common grounds and helping children find common grounds, even on the playground, because they were constantly talking about their differences and ethnic differences as well.
Speaker: And because of who I am and the children that I worked with, I was constantly feeling that this is not okay, that people are treated in a...
Speaker: in a different way, just because their skin color or because they have a different surname or they assume who they are because of their ethnicity.
Speaker: So of course the whole thing started because of my own experiences and because I was like, okay, I can, I was super young.
Speaker: I was like 16 when I started doing this, but I still felt like I can handle this, but I'm not sure if I want the children to handle this.
Speaker: But I did not have the tools to have them facilitate their problems and also just to, hey, it's not okay if I just, or it is okay, but it doesn't mean anything for someone to say, hey, that's not all right what you're doing because I don't like it.
Speaker: That's not how it works.
Speaker: It works in a way that
Speaker: that I should be able to say, why is it not okay?
Speaker: And what, like give you tools as well, how to change those things that you are doing.
Speaker: It's not just a me problem, it's everyone's problem.
Speaker: So I didn't have the tools.
Speaker: And one day I was like, I was organizing a camp for kids.
Speaker: And I was like, this is my opportunity.
Speaker: to invite whoever I want.
Speaker: And I will do that.
Speaker: And I think that this is a problem that Roma and non-Roma kids are not, are not playing together on a playground or like having harsh words towards each other.
Speaker: I didn't want it that anymore.
Speaker: So I was like, I'm going to invite this organization that I heard about briefly in a conference once.
Speaker: So I did that.
Speaker: And that was UTSU Foundation.
Speaker: And when the volunteer who was coming to our place to give the workshop, she was like talking to me about how I should be in the group because of what I'm already doing.
Speaker: And I was like, I told you, I do not have anything, no time for this.
Speaker: And this is too much for me.
Speaker: So I will find the time for like my work and my studies, but I'm not able, like I was like 18, I don't know, 20.
Speaker: something around that.
Speaker: And, and I was like, I have, I have enough to do.
Speaker: But they did not let me go.
Speaker: So every week there was a phone call.
Speaker: Hey, hey, do you want to call?
Speaker: And just to be honest, I was like, if I go to one of these trainings, the cause will stop.
Speaker: And, and that was my aim with it.
Speaker: And then I went to the training
Speaker: And it was super bright people talking about like very interesting thing about communication, about how the society works and everything.
Speaker: And I was like, wow, this is actually not bad.
Speaker: I should make time for this.
Speaker: And then the first time I went to give a workshop,
Speaker: I remember the exact room, the space, everything, and I have terrible memory.
Speaker: So when I say that, you know it was a big deal.
Speaker: So I went there and it was a super interesting conversation about being Roma and non-Roma and how does it work in the society.
Speaker: And I was young and I was constantly thinking about those questions and I by any means did not have the answer to those questions, but I was a slightly older than those kids.
Speaker: So I had a little bit of idea of what's going on.
Speaker: And they were asking the right questions, not just the ones that I was asking before.
Speaker: And they were so eager to learn and know everything about the topic
Speaker: And the foundation has this amazing methodology with pictures and with the non-formal educational methodology.
Speaker: And I was like, this is it.
Speaker: I wanna do this.
Speaker: I wanna talk to people about all of this because the kids are like, it's not just in a workshop of time, like one and a half hours, you are changing attitudes and like all of that.
Speaker: It cannot be done.
Speaker: But this is my favorite thing is that I say that I'm like a gardener.
Speaker: I plant seeds.
Speaker: And then, of course, the garden is big, so I might have to leave.
Speaker: There are many, many times that I'm not crossing paths with those children or those young people.
Speaker: that I met ever again.
Speaker: And I have to make sure that I'm planting a seed and in the right conditions that when the sun and the rain comes and when the wind comes, like I can be kind of sure that the seed is growing.
Speaker: So yeah, that's why I started to do it because I wanted to find solution for something that I experienced that I went through.
Speaker: And after a while, I was so committed.
Speaker: Really, that was my main thing that I did besides school and work is that I gave all my time to this place and another one.
Speaker: And I think that I made a great progress and it helped me understand myself.
Speaker: And I started to get more involved
Speaker: in the foundation's work.
Speaker: And yeah, after some time, I just left as an employee and I'm just helping out with the walking tours that we offer in Budapest about Roma culture identity in the 8th district of Budapest.
Speaker: And I work now for another Roma organization full-time that is
Speaker: It's also about education.
Speaker: We are helping Roma young people into higher education.
Speaker: We have two other educational programs as well.
Speaker: This is the Roma Verzitas Foundation.
Speaker: And I love doing it.
Speaker: I just love doing it.
Speaker: It's being in a space where you feel completely accepted, heard,
Speaker: and all of that, and if I can provide that for other young Roma, then I'm super happy.
Speaker: In other words, you started as a social innovator because you remembered how your childhood as a Roma child was, and you wanted younger generations to begin with less discrimination among themselves and others, and also to decrease the effects of ethnic discrimination in the development of individuals.
Speaker: At first you found it hard to trust others to cooperate, but you saw their authenticity and joined their efforts.
Speaker: After years of working, why did it work?
Speaker: I think that there are, um, there are a few things that, that are most definitely on the recipe of why, why does it work?
Speaker: And, um,
Speaker: And yeah, the first one is, it's not by far not the most important one.
Speaker: But I think that you somehow got to be fresh.
Speaker: Like with the energy, you got to be fresh.
Speaker: And with the ideas, you got to be fresh a little bit.
Speaker: But we are living in a time and an age where like people crave constantly new things, which has the good and the bad side as well.
Speaker: But I think that's really important.
Speaker: And the second one is personal stories that I find that people are always also interested in.
Speaker: So it has, again, the good sides and the best sides.
Speaker: So when you are trying to prove yourself professionally and especially young Roma and everyone just thinks about or asks you about how did you grow up?
Speaker: Well, that's not an easy thing to go through or pass through.
Speaker: But this is what I learned from all of my work is that personal stories are super important for ourselves, for the community, for everyone.
Speaker: And this connects to the third one is that you are never alone.
Speaker: You heard about Ubuntu, right?
Speaker: And yeah, so that's what I'm trying to get.
Speaker: So you are not alone.
Speaker: And we are, or I am because we are, because everyone is there.
Speaker: So more like trying to find places and people where there is less of a competition and more like a connecting.
Speaker: I think that these three are super important.
Speaker: And when you give yourself, you are showing who you are and how does that work?
Speaker: connect to whatever you do.
Speaker: I think that people do like those kinds of things.
Speaker: So your recipe for success focuses on three main components, fresh ideas, personal stories, and a sense of being one with others.
Speaker: Well, I try to think of it like that, yes.
Speaker: I like personal stories very much.
Speaker: I learned that when we tell our stories authentically, without agendas, raw and from the heart, we can create human connections through empathy.
Speaker: Sharing stories is an act of courage that can inspire us to accept ourselves as we are.
Speaker: In your story, it is evident that you had a call and decided to act.
Speaker: But from my experience, the path of social impact or social innovation isn't easy.
Speaker: Why abandon other opportunities and persist?
Speaker: Yeah, you know, I think about this question more and more nowadays.
Speaker: Why am I not, especially, this is what she said, why am I not leaving the
Speaker: because for more money or for more, I don't know, benefits that I could get for my work, or why am I not, like, I don't know, outside of the country already?
Speaker: That's what people also ask me from time to time.
Speaker: And I'm not sure that I have, like, I have a clear answer to that question.
Speaker: But what I can say is that, again, comes back to community and belonging.
Speaker: So I feel I belong here and I want to do something for that community that I feel that I belong to.
Speaker: And there will be always people who, who do the similar or same things that you do for the community.
Speaker: But unfortunately now I don't think that we are living in the luxury to not do anything.
Speaker: So,
Speaker: So every time I think about it, why am I doing it?
Speaker: I think about the future in a way that I know that social change is not a short process.
Speaker: It's not something that sometimes, and especially in the topic that I'm working at, in relating to Roma and Roma people in the society,
Speaker: and their oppression and systemic racism and all of those things are present for like in Hungary for 600 years now.
Speaker: Those are not going to change in my lifetime just because I want it to be changed because there were so many others who wanted it to be changed.
Speaker: And we are always just getting a little bit closer, like a baby step closer, but I'm fully aware that what I'm doing
Speaker: is I'm seeing some fruits of that work that I do, but the main one that I work for, I will never see that fruit.
Speaker: And I fully know that.
Speaker: So when I talk about this to my friends, oftentimes they ask me, but then bye.
Speaker: And of course, it can be all the small things that are still happening to me during my day-to-day life about the work I do, when there is a, I don't know, a smile, when there is, you know, a success that we can celebrate together that we are rarely doing, by the way.
Speaker: I hate that.
Speaker: We should celebrate the little successes too.
Speaker: But I know that even if I do this small thing today and I do it tomorrow and I do it the day after tomorrow and I have impact on people and people have impact on me, I strongly believe that this society can be changed for the better in a long time maybe, but it will be changed.
Speaker: And for me, that's worth it.
Speaker: Well, maybe I would say this one thing because I heard it so loudly from what you were saying is that it's not a problem if people have prejudices and misconceptions.
Speaker: It's not a problem.
Speaker: This is how our brain wired.
Speaker: We cannot make boxes and fit everything into boxes.
Speaker: So that's kind of normal.
Speaker: But when we have a box that we guard so fiercely that no one is really getting there to open it, and we are also like hiding it away in a corner of our mind and just trying to protect it with all kinds of ways, that's
Speaker: That's not necessarily okay.
Speaker: So in 2023, I think we are, but it doesn't really matter.
Speaker: This is a timeless, timeless thing.
Speaker: So, but we are in societies when I believe that it's open, being open and openness are like a true value.
Speaker: And I would love everyone to get to those boxes in all kinds of topics.
Speaker: and try to work with them.
Speaker: Maybe it feels like those belong to Pandora, but I believe they are not.
Speaker: So while opening those boxes, they, I think will be more like Christmas gifts.
Speaker: Surprising, fun, inclusive,
Speaker: Yeah, so that's what I wish for a lot of people to get to those boxes, open them, get help to get it opened.
Speaker: All kinds of people are there for you to help.
Speaker: And that's it, yeah.
Speaker: Are those boxes our fears, our ignorance?
Speaker: What do you mean by that?
Speaker: Yeah, it's a combination of two and many other things.
Speaker: So our perception of people of like, let's say, and we could give an example of any nationality or any ethnicity that people have a little bit of or no information about, because that's also very important because from what, when we have no information, but we have a little bit of fear, you know exactly where that's going.
Speaker: All kinds of imaginations that are making our life
Speaker: harder.
Speaker: So it's ignorance, it's fear, it's the lack of information.
Speaker: It's the media picture that it's giving us, like what we read, all kinds of information that we gather together, that it's based on not necessarily our experience.
Speaker: Of course, it can be experienced as well.
Speaker: But in general, just it's the lack of understanding of certain social structures and processes that are going on.
Speaker: So I always tell to people, you give me one stereotype about Roma people, doesn't matter which one, I would be able to tell you historically and sociologically why that stereotype.
Speaker: is in motion, why it's in place.
Speaker: So, yeah, I think that those boxes are the combination of fear, ignorance, lack of knowledge, all kinds of things that of course I know it's hard to get there, hard to try and open them.
Speaker: But we need to do something with them because otherwise they are just
Speaker: We're going to have a lot of those boxes in the back of our minds.
Speaker: And that's not giving space for many other good things that should be stored in there.
Speaker: Social entrepreneurship is very diverse, and I think that getting the right mix of talent, purpose and technology can be a recipe for scalable impact and social innovation.
Speaker: But balancing a successful business and achieving social change can be challenging.
Speaker: That's why I'd like you to meet Albert, co-founder of Munch.
Speaker: Hey, this is Albert Bechstein from Budapest and I'm one of the co-founders of Munch, the food-saving app in the central and middle of Europe.
Speaker: I'm an entrepreneur for six years or maybe a little bit more and
Speaker: I'm actually the first one in my family who started a business and everyone, everybody was working in the helping sector.
Speaker: They were doctors, teachers, and they were doing a lot of volunteering.
Speaker: So it was kind of in our blood.
Speaker: But also I decided to go to a business school, which was kind of a
Speaker: surprising decision in my family and they didn't understand how business and helping others can come together.
Speaker: And so I had to give it some thought, what I want to do and how I will help people and why is it important for me.
Speaker: And I just realized if you are starting Impact Entrepreneur
Speaker: or if you are starting an impact business, then you can actually have even bigger impact than having a job in the daytime and doing some volunteering in the afternoon as a hobby, as you can fully focus on your mission.
Speaker: And if it's sustainable from a business perspective as well, and you can have some revenue and you can hire the best people,
Speaker: the impact can be enormous.
Speaker: And if you are doing something good and people pay for it, that's the best.
Speaker: So this is something I had to learn and also change my mind that doing volunteering, it's amazing, but having a passion and having a job, which is also impactful and your job can be your hobby and your impact mission, then that's the best thing I can do in my life.
Speaker: Your family has inspired you to continue with their legacy of helping others.
Speaker: And you decided to go through the startup path and build a business.
Speaker: Why did you choose to start as a social innovation startup?
Speaker: When I was working on my last startup, I realized that
Speaker: Having a good idea and doing the pitch and having some investment is not easy, but it's doable.
Speaker: But keep doing it for years and wake up every morning, go to the office, work until late at night.
Speaker: You cannot just do it for money, or at least I cannot do it just for money because it's probably...
Speaker: In a risk reward assessment, it's not the rational decision.
Speaker: It can be too stressful.
Speaker: A lot of challenges will come.
Speaker: And doing a business has to be something more than just making money.
Speaker: And this is what I realized.
Speaker: And for everyone, it can be a different mindset and different journey.
Speaker: But at least for me and for my co-founders, it was extremely important.
Speaker: So I had to pick something what I would do.
Speaker: Even if it was not a good business, but I will pick it because it can be a good cause and also a good business.
Speaker: And these two can come together.
Speaker: And we have this framework, the three-way sustainability.
Speaker: I briefly talked about the financial sustainability and also the
Speaker: The environmental sustainability is a pillar of this framework and also the social sustainability.
Speaker: And if we have these three together and we can find it in a business, then it's something what we can happily work on for years.
Speaker: And this is how we picked the food waste topic.
Speaker: as it has a number of social and environmental impact, but we can also make a good business on this space.
Speaker: The framework you use to identify business models with potential is very interesting.
Speaker: It is based on three aspects, financial sustainability, environmental sustainability, and social sustainability.
Speaker: Tell me more about the importance of people and community at Munch.
Speaker: What we do is we are saving food from restaurants, supermarkets, and every food businesses.
Speaker: And we sell the surplus food from these for a significant discount, usually around a 50% discount.
Speaker: And people can pick it up in person after they purchased the surprise boxes in our mobile application.
Speaker: And this is actually what we do.
Speaker: But it's not just a mobile application, but it's also a community.
Speaker: And the community part is probably the most important part of our business.
Speaker: We have a network, more than 70,000 people.
Speaker: members in our community, Facebook community, and they are posting photos.
Speaker: If they don't like some food, they are sharing it with others.
Speaker: They are giving tips each other.
Speaker: And they also share some stories, some munch stories, because it's also about the personal connections, which
Speaker: Organizes a community for the people who care about the environment for a sustainable urban living.
Speaker: And this is the soul of our company.
Speaker: And if you are experimenting with something, be involved and we ask questions and having a strong community and what can give you a mirror, can give you feedback and just keeps it alive.
Speaker: It's crucial for us.
Speaker: Munch sounds like a great story, a great case.
Speaker: And I'm very curious, why do you think it works?
Speaker: So we currently have more than 3000 partners in Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary.
Speaker: And the company is going pretty good at these days and they are growing quickly.
Speaker: I was thinking about a lot why this is happening with us.
Speaker: And I think what's special about Munch is that usually when people are starting an impact business or like a sustainability company, then usually these solutions can be a bit more pricey than the traditional choices.
Speaker: If you wanna buy an electric car, if you wanna do something good for the environment, usually it comes with a price tag.
Speaker: What we realized that this doing Munch and building Munch is a good opportunity to democratize a little bit sustainability, make it available in every household.
Speaker: It's not something what only rich people can buy, but everyone can have the mobile application and participate in a simple way.
Speaker: And I don't think that this solution, what we are providing can stop the environmental problems, but it can play a tiny part.
Speaker: And with the community, with about 1 million people in our platform, they can
Speaker: actually have some thinking about and they can participate in an easy way.
Speaker: And once the sustainability message is in their mind, then they can make the other steps to form and transform our future.
Speaker: Munch uses technology to give access to anyone in the territory as it covers to participate in sustainability practices without paying a premium.
Speaker: That sounds great.
Speaker: Tell us more about how was the process of growth?
Speaker: So having the, having the right team, the right co-founders is key, I think.
Speaker: And what I did, I was just,
Speaker: talking a lot about my ideas, like many people going for events where I could find some people who are thinking about starting something good.
Speaker: And I was very lucky because when I was once talking about Munch and my vision, and I was even showing some demo version of the application,
Speaker: Someone in the crowd whispered that he's also working on something similar or like, or want to start a food based business.
Speaker: I just approached him and we started a conversation and two weeks after we decided to build this company together.
Speaker: And that was one of my co-founders and we are four co-founders and we had a shared understanding
Speaker: on what kind of business we want to build.
Speaker: And that could have not happened otherwise if we are having different ideas.
Speaker: But actually, it was not an easy thing to understand what's the framework we're going to work with.
Speaker: So we spent the first month after publishing the application with a lot of debates on what are the values of the company.
Speaker: And every year we are checking
Speaker: in on, on what changed and if it can be true to our values and being very conscious about it.
Speaker: I think it's extremely important.
Speaker: I a hundred percent agree with you.
Speaker: Team alignment is easy to ignore, but the essential for growing a healthy organizational culture.
Speaker: Knowing that Munch is growing doesn't mean it is easy to run.
Speaker: And I guess the option for doing something different is always there.
Speaker: So why to persist?
Speaker: So I think we are in a good moment, although it's also very challenging.
Speaker: We're hiring a lot of people.
Speaker: We have some investors.
Speaker: We have to...
Speaker: talk to and negotiate the deals and everything.
Speaker: But it was not like this for a long time.
Speaker: It was very tough.
Speaker: And until you reach the tipping point in a marketplace like ours, it's so many uncertainties.
Speaker: And you just believe that everything will come together at some point and it will just work.
Speaker: But the numbers don't work.
Speaker: The partners, they don't want to sign.
Speaker: And it's a lot of hustle.
Speaker: And I'm totally aware that this will happen again.
Speaker: So there are ups and downs and we have to collect all the energy from the good times to survive the bad times.
Speaker: And I also have to be grateful for the moments when we are in the flow.
Speaker: And why we keep doing it is that we have so many great ideas.
Speaker: And we also have a... And that's a huge temptation for all the startups.
Speaker: They have great ideas.
Speaker: They want to do everything at once.
Speaker: And this way they...
Speaker: can lose focus sometimes.
Speaker: So we created a list of things we are not talking about for one year.
Speaker: And then we, when we come together and the founder offsite retreat, then we reopened the list and the list is just getting longer and longer.
Speaker: And we have a lot to do in this food waste space,
Speaker: In a lot of countries and a lot of ways in households, in producers, in retail, a lot of food is wasted and we have a job to be done.
Speaker: So this is what keeps me going.
Speaker: And also the community aspect of the whole thing.
Speaker: When you are seeing the impact that people like it, people use it, you are helping people and that keeps me going.
Speaker: Thank you so much, Albert, for sharing your story with us.
Speaker: It always feels great to hear and feel the unstoppable energy of entrepreneurship.
Speaker: Thanks again.
Speaker: Before anybody else, I showed these two interviews to two very good friends and I recorded them in a discussion about what they think about them.
Speaker: Are you curious?
Speaker: Here they are.
Speaker: Hello, I'm Zsófia Tornóczi and I am the Hungarian coordinator for Szociálmári.
Speaker: And besides that, I am also a trainer, organization developer, and I work for different projects and different organizations.
Speaker: I hope to support social innovators this way.
Speaker: Hello, my name is Živa Lopatic.
Speaker: I work as a coordinator from Social Maria in Slovenia.
Speaker: Besides that, I also run the Fair Trade Movement in Slovenia and I am a co-founder of Cooperative, which is seen as a social innovation in itself, since we are working with a very common material, coffee, but we do it in a little bit different way.
Speaker: I'd love to learn what captured your attention the most after listening to these two amazing stories.
Speaker: For me, I was really inspired by both of the projects and mostly on a personal level.
Speaker: From the first project that we've heard, Utsu project from Bettina, I love the way that she explained that in a way it was first her own experience and her own needs that she started from.
Speaker: and the need that she wanted to be accepted and to be understood.
Speaker: And then she had some kind of a calling.
Speaker: And I love the way that she told us, she told you that
Speaker: She was making lots of excuses, but for me it was really interesting that she couldn't really fight those excuses and that this inner calling somehow was more important and more significant in a way that then she was kind of pushed to become a member of Utsu and eventually arrived and that she is now at a good place.
Speaker: So it was a journey for her, really.
Speaker: What about you, Ziva?
Speaker: Zhaofi, I totally agree with you.
Speaker: I had the same feeling that captured my attention the most as well.
Speaker: I loved the thing that she said that
Speaker: the solution she came up with was actually coming out of her own challenges.
Speaker: And I was also captured by her last sentence when she explains that even though she has other possibilities, that even others are forcing her to see other possibilities, she cannot go away from the things that she's doing now, which is actually the basis of social innovators' work,
Speaker: in the whole world, I mean, everywhere.
Speaker: So it's something that really connects social innovators, I think.
Speaker: Yes, I really think that it was nicely put that all of us have lots of stuff on our plates.
Speaker: But still you have to somehow find the place, the time for whatever is your inner drive.
Speaker: And when you are motivated, then you have to find the way how you can do whatever you wish to do really.
Speaker: And for me, the second project that we've heard about, Manch was also somehow the same kind of journey from another direction in a way that Albert was starting different projects
Speaker: startups and he was doing kind of rather businesses and then he had the feeling that that's not enough and he wanted more and when he realized that he was putting all his time and energy into something that okay brings money that's nice but
Speaker: still doesn't really inspire him.
Speaker: Then he kind of went into the same direction as Bettina from another perspective, but then he arrived to the solution that he could have the business and the cause in the same enterprise.
Speaker: So that's really something amazing, I think.
Speaker: What do you think?
Speaker: I totally agree.
Speaker: It's amazing.
Speaker: But what captured me the most was one little thing he said.
Speaker: It was that when, before starting his business, he was talking about it.
Speaker: And there was somebody in the audience who had the same idea.
Speaker: And instead of seeing him as a competition, he approached him and actually they built the business together and it's now successful.
Speaker: And this is also, I think, a way how to approach things and people, not seeing them as somebody who can hurt you or who can do something instead of you, but join the forces and actually together you can be much, much stronger.
Speaker: Yeah, that's great what you're saying, that this is somehow the base, I think, for social innovation.
Speaker: that you see other people as possible collaboration partners and not somebody you have to compete.
Speaker: So that's great.
Speaker: What do you think about persistence?
Speaker: It looks to me sometimes like the path of social innovation is a way of no return.
Speaker: Could you share your thoughts with us?
Speaker: While I was listening to the interviews, I had the feeling that this kind of inner drive of helping and being part of the community and doing something social is very much rooted in childhood.
Speaker: So for both of them, there were some experiences for
Speaker: Bettina, it was how she felt as being Roma in also a non-Roma community and seeing these differences and
Speaker: how she feels in that.
Speaker: And for Albert, I had this feeling of the helper family, you know, that everyone is a helper, that this is also a route from which he then chose another direction, but still he helps in another way now.
Speaker: And I think that this persistence is also there because
Speaker: For both of them, it's coming from the inner, from the inside.
Speaker: And somehow there's a motivation, there's an inner drive, and that keeps them on the track.
Speaker: True, but on the other hand, what they both also stress is the community and belonging and the things that they're doing for the community and that they see the fruits of their work in the community.
Speaker: and it's bringing people together.
Speaker: And this community, I think, is also very important for the persistent part.
Speaker: Because when you are alone, even if you have a huge motivation, even if you know that you are actually solving a huge problem, if it's not recognized within a community for which the solution is meant for,
Speaker: It will, I mean, you cannot go on for a really long time.
Speaker: So you really need that feedback from the community and they both got it and they both appreciate it, which is also very important.
Speaker: You can never take community for granted.
Speaker: A lot of times people started doing that just because, you know, at one point you feel like a little bit like a star or something.
Speaker: And it's like, of course, people want to be around me, but this goes away.
Speaker: If the community is not strong, it goes away.
Speaker: But in both their cases,
Speaker: They didn't come from this type.
Speaker: They came from the appreciation of the community.
Speaker: And I think this is a very important part in persisting in something like social innovation, social economy, social enterprise, or something that you're actually doing because of solving a problem in the local community.
Speaker: There is no doubt in my mind that the path of the social impact entrepreneur, the social innovator is a path full of purpose.
Speaker: So, and that's very inspiring to me.
Speaker: I wanted to make one more question to you and it is what a social innovator should rescue from both stories.
Speaker: By listening also to you, Ziva, and to your opinion, it just got into my mind that I would say that to listen to your
Speaker: inner drive and also to yourself, what is it saying and to listen to the community.
Speaker: So what is the community that you live in saying what needs they have, what are the biggest challenges that you see every day because you are part of that community and you want to live a life, a better life, a life where you can belong to that community and you feel well.
Speaker: and listen to yourself on what you can do, what you would like to do, what you would be mostly motivated doing.
Speaker: So while listening to these two projects, I had the feeling that they're coming from
Speaker: two different directions, but both of them were listening to themselves and then just simply doing it.
Speaker: And what I've learned is that whenever you start with something like that, whenever you start, even if you start volunteering or doing, supporting a group, people doing, helping something, then
Speaker: you have the feeling you want more of that because it really feeds you back.
Speaker: It gives back a lot.
Speaker: And whenever you start, you will know that this is how it goes.
Speaker: If you don't start, if you don't try it out, then you will never really realize that it's giving you a lot.
Speaker: Joffie, I think you said it all.
Speaker: I would just add one small thing.
Speaker: If on top of everything, what you said, Joffie, you can put together also the perspective of money.
Speaker: So making enough money to actually support you as a person, you have a winning combination.
Speaker: You are doing something with purpose for the community.
Speaker: And at the same time, you are making enough money to survive.
Speaker: I mean, nobody will become a multimillionaire by doing social innovations like this coming out of the community.
Speaker: But if they can actually live on it, that they're not just doing it because of the enthusiasm, even though some of the social innovation, of course, are done just and exclusively on the basis of enthusiasm, and that's okay as well.
Speaker: But on the other hand, if you can make money, it's amazing.
Speaker: Thank you, Jiva.
Speaker: Thank you, Sofia.
Speaker: And for you listening to this podcast, I'd like to contact you with Birgit.
Speaker: She knows everything that you need to know about Social Marie.
Speaker: Hello, my name is Birgit and I'm responsible for communication and coordination in Austria.
Speaker: We at Sozialma reward projects that make a difference in the lives of others.
Speaker: These projects have a meaningful impact on people's life and provide the opportunity to make a difference in their communities.
Speaker: So basically speaking, the meaningful focus of our work provides a lot of intrinsic motivation.
Speaker: The emphasis is that these projects are innovative, that the solution to the social challenge is a novel one.
Speaker: So we get to know many great and different projects every year, which makes the work at Sozialmarie very exciting and varied.
Speaker: I am based in Vienna and the cooperation with all colleagues in the countries is very collegial and appreciative.
Speaker: And there is always room for new ideas and growth on a professional level.
Speaker: Our first podcast episode is about to end.
Speaker: And I would like to thank you for listening to it.
Speaker: If you have ideas, if you would like to get in contact with us, please do so.
Speaker: Share your ideas, your thoughts, share contacts, share stories.
Speaker: We would love to hear them.
Speaker: For the moment I'm leaving.
Speaker: I wish you a fantastic day and let's stay in touch.
