Empowering Local Communities: An Interview with a Social Entrepreneur

I met Sokhan in October 2022 during my trip to Cambodia at the start of my journey building our social enterprise Green Lotus Eco Panels.

And I was impressed. It was due to his local knowledge, expertise and relationships with different businesses that we managed to get interviews with local business owners, traders and shop owners.

He also helped keep us fed and awake for 12 days whilst working 12h days in our sprint design challenge.

Who else would be the perfect person to start my interview sessions with other than Sokhan.

He was born in the rural village of Trey Nhoeur, about 30 Kilometres NW of Siem Reap. His father was a Physics high school teacher and his mother, a vendor at a market of Puok, a district town where he grew up and studied until he finished school. He then attended the Faculty of Archaeology of the Royal University of Fine Arts in Phnom Penh.

Father of two incredible children, a son who just turned 14 and a daughter who is now 9 years old, Sokhan and his wife live in Siem Reap, Cambodia.

Why still there? There’s nothing better than the Cambodian way of life, and the rich historical sites of ancient infrastructure that keep him in love with his country.

?And who can blame him? It is of beauty beyond imagination.

His biggest motivators, in life and business, are his parents, who encouraged him to finish his studies and go on to university. Add to that seeing his seniors selected to study abroad and graduating with high honours motivated him to follow in their footsteps.

Finally, being surrounded by successful CEOs of companies and Directors of NGOs who aim at supporting underprivileged groups of communities in different parts of Cambodia led him on the path of enabling and fostering social entrepreneurship.

Let’s hear the rest of his journey from him.

Can you tell us about your background and what led you to work with social entrepreneurs?

After my graduation from the faculty of Archaeology, I eventually worked for a bilateral project that aimed at improving the transition rate of completing basic education in Cambodian state schools. After the project was phased out, I was looking for a new job and by chance I was suggested to apply for a Country Manager position being offered by BOOKBRIDGE and I got the job. I got to know about social entrepreneurship through on-the-job training when I was coordinating and managing the learning centres established in Cambodia. With my role, I had the chance to work with local entrepreneurs who build learning center projects operating them as social businesses.??

What inspired you to work in this area? Was there a specific experience or event that led you to this path?

It was actually by chance that I got involved in the area of social entrepreneurship. I was looking for a new job after the project I used to work for was phased out and handed over to the government. When I saw the BOOKBRIDGE Foundation role, I was initially hesitant to do it as I thought my experience was not strong enough to take the job but I was encouraged to apply. And after I learned about what BOOKBRIDGE does - working on social impact and creating businesses that empower Cambodian lives, I found it fit with my personal goal: helping people with what I can do. I decided to apply and was with them since late 2011 until now.?

What is the social problem that you are most passionate about, and why is it important to you?

Lack of?equal access to quality education creates various social issues and keeps Cambodians in the poverty cycle. This is the root cause to tackle as it affects different aspects of the development and improvement of Cambodia’s socio-economic status. It can also bring changes in the mindset of Cambodians on being part of the future of their country and support the younger generation.?

How many social entrepreneurs have you worked with? And who is the one you’re most proud of?

For the past 11 years I worked with 12 social entrepreneurs (most of them work in the field of education and some work in agri-business and environment).

Ravy Vang, the Director of Salariin Kampuchea Learning Center is located in the Southern outskirt of the Siem Reap city in Cambodia. Salariin Kampuchea is one of the 5 social businesses powered by BOOKBRIDGE in Siem Reap province and it is the most successful social enterprise making a profit in these difficult times. It provides educational services to nearly 400 children who are from different villages in the Southern outskirts of Siem Reap and creates jobs for local teachers from the communities.

What has been the biggest challenge you have faced in your work, and how did you overcome it?

Being a liaison and dealing with misunderstandings on the roles and responsibilities of the social entrepreneurs, the local teams and being able to deal with the operational issues are key challenges in my work. With the mindset on how NGOs do their work in Cambodia, it was difficult to get the social entrepreneurs to fully understand their roles as an independent business and take the ownership of the businesses they are operating. It took a long time to change the mindset and clarify the terms of the Social Business Fund agreements they signed and get them to see themselves as social entrepreneurs.?

Can you describe a successful project or initiative that you have worked on, and how did it impact the community?

It really depends on how you define success. If looking at the continuous operation of the businesses since they were established, I would say that all of them are seeing considerable success since many of the businesses are still active after more than 10 years. There were cash flow challenges throughout the years as with any start up, but overall they're still going strong. Their businesses created jobs for young educators from the communities and provided children and community members with access to books, and English and Computer literacy courses.

The main one is an initiative supported by the Rising Tide Foundation and later redeveloped by a collaboration between me and the Founder of a social enterprise called Sonas. We offer hands-on entrepreneurship coaching and mentoring support and it enabled 22 local entrepreneurs to continue their start-up businesses using their own resources. So far 14 of them are running, offering jobs to the community and providing quality handmade products to their customers while 4 are redeveloping their business models. We run it through our Facebook page and it's called Sahak.

How do you collaborate with other organizations and stakeholders in the community to achieve your goals?

With the learning center projects, we collaborated with different levels of stakeholders ranging from national to sub-national to grassroot level and from governmental to non-governmental organizations. We tried to get the government, business and NGOs sectors to collaborate in setting a business that creates impact on the same target schools sharing different resources they have.

SAHAK is a collaboration project between Sannipun and Sonas and it is a platform for supporting local entrepreneurs with coaching and mentoring and it was a component of Sannipun. With the local entrepreneurship component, at Sahak, I looked for an experienced social enterprise that shares the same value and works on similar target group and created a platform that enables local entrepreneurs.

What advice do you have for other individuals who want to start a social enterprise or become a social entrepreneur? What skills or traits do you think are essential for success in this field?

Social entrepreneurship is hard and you cannot be successful if you have no passion for the social issue you identify. You need to aim to create impact on the?lives of people living in your community. Those who want to engage in social entrepreneurship should be outgoing, interactive and open-minded and they should never give up with failure of what they do. Find the networks of people with entrepreneurial mindsets and experiences would open doors to the skills needed to be successful in this area.?

Looking ahead, what are your future goals and aspirations? Where do you see your work heading in the coming years?

Helping people in my community is one of my goals and it is what I always want to do. After more than a decade working with BOOKBRIDGE and a collaboration project, I learned that it is important to take a step back, reflect and see how I can improve myself to be able to help others more. That is what I aim at doing in the coming years.

If anyone is looking at projects in Cambodia and need a reliable, skilled and experienced local business guide / partner, Sokhan can support so reach out through Sahak ([email protected]). ?