Our social entrepreneurs have been working hard to develop their social enterprises. Here’s a round-up of what they’ve been up to over the past few months.
Our Remainders: Philippa Holmes
Pre-Christmas was an especially busy time for Philippa as she geared up to host Auckland-based event, A. Social Impact Summit, in November. The Summit gathered dozens of people from across the food industry to explore food security, food sovereignty, and the food system in Aotearoa (New Zealand). At the Summit, Philippa launched Our Remainders; the social enterprise project supported by All Good Ventures (formerly known as Aspargove). She describes Our Remainders as a journey to create products from ‘waste’ or ‘what’s remaining’, and using these to help contribute towards food security across the country. The next exciting step for Our Remainders is a design sprint, where Philippa and other stakeholders will work through critical business questions to refine the concept further. Watch this space!
Morningside Urban Market Garden: Jason Dodunski
Over the past few months, Jason has been working on some exciting new projects. He and the MUMG team have developed Grow At Home Microgreen kits to help locals cultivate their own nutritious snacks. Each kit comes with organic compost, seeds, and growing instructions. These are now for sale on the Open Food Network store, so make sure to check them out! They have also been refining the The Grow Cartel, a separate neighbourhood seedling subscription project, with seeds grown by the MUMG team and delivered directly to subscribers’ doors. The team is also excited to launch Growing Together; an neighbourhood compost hub for local Eden Park residents and businesses. This new project is a compost drop-off and collection service intended to reduce food waste going to landfill. Jason is looking forward to helping refine all three initiatives in the coming months.
OneDay Health: Nick Laing
It has been a full-on few months for Nick and the OneDay Health team, with the occurrence of a scabies outbreak continuing to affect Ugandan communities to this day. OneDay Health centres are in-fact some of the only facilities with the correct drugs to treat this condition, and the team continues to work hard to care for those presenting with scabies and other conditions. According to Nick, one of his recent highlights is seeing Lira-based centres (a city in the Northern Region of Uganda) treat a record number of patients: over 300 in one month alone. On the whole, OneDay Health treated over 30,000 patients last year with more than 67,000 patients treated since inception. Nick and the team are pleased to have identified three new rural areas to expand into this year, with an aim to introduce 20 - 30 new health centres. Watch this space! You can donate towards the life-changing work they do via their website.
The Good Karma Co: Bhavisha Kumar
Bhavisha has spent the last few months dipping her toes into some new candle-making territory. She created dozens of candles for wedding favours and designed a gift-box friendly candle for wholesale to gift box businesses; both of which she says were new and rewarding experiences. Over the Christmas period she was excited to see a noticeable increase in candle sales, with referrals to her website from Facebook and Instagram up by 330% compared to the previous quarter. With significantly more candle-making practise and sales under her belt over the silly season, she’s increasingly confident in her ability to make retail quality candles and handle the logistics side of things. Hence, the next step forward is to look for a small boutique stockist to showcase her brand.
Find out more about our social enterprises on our Ventures webpage. Or watch our latest video to hear in their own words what they do.
