MCCANN WORLDGROUP (MWG) Philippines Inc. has lent its expertise to build future leaders in agriculture-based businesses.
The company recently formed a partnership with a school by Gawad Kalinga (GK) to help graduating social entrepreneurship scholars.
GK’s school, or what the group calls its “education-based solution for rural development,” has been honing its students to create social enterprises. It is aimed at raising the next generation of agri-entrepreneurs. Launched in 2014, it is the first school for social entrepreneurship for the poor. It offers a two-year program that serves as a model for rural development through education and hands-on learning mentored by an international team of social entrepreneurs and innovators.
Billy Santos, head of the program, said he was impressed by their first batches of graduates.
“We’re very proud of our first two batches of scholars,” Santos said, adding that most of their students are children of farmers, fishermen and carpenters from all over the country.
For two years, the students stay at the GK Enchanted Farm in Angat, Bulacan, where they are taught a variety of courses that focus on character development, enterprise management, communications, business math and agriculture, according to Santos.
The graduates become partners or apprentices of existing social enterprises where they continue a hands-on approach to learning and the application of real-world skills or to further establish their own businesses.
“The aim is for them to go back to their provinces, create opportunities for others by means of employment and teaching people there about the knowledge and skills imparted to them,” Santos said. “This way they become catalysts of change and progress.”
Last month, the third batch of social entrepreneurs who graduated hailed from Zamboanga, Zambales, Davao, Iloilo, Pampanga, Nueva Vizcaya and Bulacan.
Initiative
THE company behind McCann, a major advertising brand in the country, partnered with GK after launching in Malaysia in February its “McCann Millennials” initiative. The launch was participated in by its employees from Australia, Japan, China, Taiwan, Singapore and Thailand. This initiative aims to empower its young employees to look at taking on future leadership roles, the company said.
According to the agency’s report, brilliant young employees seek to have purpose, leadership and adult wisdom.
Daisy Fernandez-Ycasas, human resources head of McCann Worldgroup Philippines, said the program “harnesses the potentials of millennials to become the leaders of the future.”
Fernandez-Ycasas added that McCann Millennials is a leadership program “where we let the millennials lead, allowing the youngest members of our organization to take the lead on various initiatives focused on the emerging powerful audience, people under 30 which comprise 60 percent of the population.”
Fernandez-Ycasas added, “We are proud of having a very diverse workforce. This allows us to tap into the many talents, inputs and insight brought forth by the difference in backgrounds and abilities of our team.”
According to Ira Macalindong, social management director of MWG, the firm’s partnership with GK’s school “is a cause that contributes to nation building. We want to do our share in making that [helping shape the lives of future social entrepreneurs with rural roots] happen,” Macalindong said.
Fortunate
MWG Corporate Affairs Director Monica Ibabao said they are fortunate to work with GK because, “we get to mentor very young promising talents who are determined to beat poverty by empowering themselves with knowledge.”
“What’s more heartwarming aside from hearing their plans for a brighter future is knowing that they want to help out local farmers, so the cycle of good deeds never ends,” Ibabao said.
The products in the farm include taro chips, baking powder made from yam, ice cream and cream cheese.
The partnership between MWG and GK is an exchange of talent and best practices that puts emphasis on marketing, according to Ibabao.
The scholars will teach McCann Millennials participants how to make products. In exchange, McCann Millennials will impart to scholars the art and science of brand building, from logo design to actual digital marketing.