The Sociopreneur Initiative

Overview

The NY Times recently ranked Nicaragua as the third best tourism destination for 2013. With brand new hotels and resorts, tourists are increasingly flocking up to Nicaragua’s Pacific Coast. The negative side effects of tourism on children are well documented, commonly affecting areas of protection, health, education, employment, and the environment. Luckily more conscientious tourism companies are also on the horizon. UNICEF Nicaragua is drawing on this corporate social responsibility to establish a new model of responsible tourism for children.

UNICEF has recently joined forces in a unique alliance with Mukul Beach Gold & Spa, the country’s first luxury boutique hotel in the municipality of Tola, in Nicaragua’s Emerald Coast. The idea is simple: using local social entrepreneurs to solve problems affecting children, while creating value for the tourism sector. This is the Sociopreneur Initiative. It’s business with a purpose, and purpose changes everyting.

To make social entrepreneuship work for children, UNICEF will:

• Make an in-depth analysis of the current situation of children in Tola using innovative methodologies (e.g. human centered design). This will help identify problems in critical areas of child development (e.g health, education, protection and water and sanitation).
• Map out potential (business) opportunities found in the value chain of the tourism sector that could be directed to solve those problems.
• Identify local social entrepreneurs to act on these opportunities. Sociopreneur is what we have chosen to call the generous, visionary and innovative local leaders who invest with both their hearts and minds to solve problems related  to children, while leading their own social businesses. UNICEF will provide guidance and mentorship in social entrepreneurship to these inviduals.
• Mobilize global actors to engage in a global brainstorming of solutions and help the sociopreneurs on the ground kickstart their social business. UNICEF Nicaragua is acting as a connector among a diverse range of actors, thinkers and potentially investors to generate collaborative solutions for children.
• Prototyping solutions. UNICEF will support sociopreneurs develop their business models, testing and improving ideas, hence contributing to the development of at least two startups in Tola.

This initiative is different from top-down approaches of corporate social responsibility because it is based on in-depth research and collaboration between a wide range of actors. Instead of having one person deciding where investments will go, all actors contribute with their personal expertise or resources, and work together to co-create innovative solutions for social problems affecting children.

It’s also a different development model. Profitable social business is both a means and end, with local entrepreneurs taking the lead as business owners and agents for change.