It looks like fish. It smells like fish. When unsold and unmarketable, it usually rots and goes to waste. But not so in the fisherfolk community in Iligan, where excess catch of fish in season are collected for livelihood. It’s like chicken dung gathered by another community in Naawan, Misamis Oriental, and coconut husks collected from copra farms by a cooperative of former rebels who laid down their arms for life with society. Rotten fish, chicken dung, coconut husks – all biowastes that can be converted to organic fertilizers that communities can sell and make a living out of. For them, it is a way to resist poverty through their own productive work. But this is just half of the story. Someone helped these communities organize to gather lowly raw materials from their own vicinities. Someone supplies the secret ingredient and process to make fertilizers; someone teaches them how to manufacture. Finally, someone helps them sell their produce. Most of the proceeds stay with these folks and a part they remit to their technology provider, trainer, marketer and business partner. That “someone” is a social entrepreneur named Nanette and her enterprise is called Ecosystems Work for Essential Benefits, Inc. (ECOWEB). Before she empowered communities, she used her education as an agriculture engineer to formulate an inoculant to produce organic fertilizers and pest repellants. I am reminded of the phrase born out of weariness: “so much work for so little.” Social entrepreneurs give this phrase a proud new meaning. They work Read More …