​Hi Changemakers! 

How’s your work-from-home and social distancing going so far? Hopefully you are not running out of ideas to stay productive and positive while staying home and limiting physical meetings with other people. Our awareness and willingness to social distance is urgently needed to stop the spread of COVID-19, which now has been a global pandemic. Yes, the COVID-19 pandemic has been notoriously affecting many aspects in our life and society. Among the most severely affected aspects is business activities at all scales. Companies have to adopt new strategies in response to this pandemic, in order to survive their business from this critical situation. 

What about social enterprises? How are they distinctively affected by this pandemic? Some of the YCSEA 2.0 finalists share their story on the impact of this pandemic on their business and social mission, as well as how they are trying to cope with it. 

The spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia since the beginning of March has been affecting social enterprises in different ways. In terms of business operation, scarcity of raw materials resulting from this pandemic has pushed social enterprises to temporarily suspend their production. This is experienced by #MenganyamPesisirWomenEmpowerment as explained by the Founder, Kharolin. “We are now having difficulties in our production because the shops from where we usually buy our raw materials like thread or needles are closed. Our sewers are also temporarily suspending their services.”

Scarcity of raw materials as a result of COVID-19 pandemic has also pushed many of #KampungMarketer ‘s business users, who mostly are online business actors, temporarily stop their production. Consequently, #KampungMarketer as a provider of human resources in digital marketing, has to encounter a drop in the number of their business users. 

#GumiBamboo, who provides eco-friendly utensils to restaurants and other F&B industries, encounters a drop in sales, also because their B2B customers have to stop their business operation during this pandemic. Besides, the lockdown policy in many countries has also temporarily stopped their international shipping. 

Social enterprises, differ from conventional business for its social missions, also are challenged by this pandemic in terms of their social activities. They have no choice but to cancel some of their social activities directed to their beneficiaries such as training and recruiting more beneficiaries, in order to ensure everyone’s safety and to halt the spread of the virus. 

#GumiBamboo has even seen a drop in their customers’ trust in using eco-friendly utensils. “Some cafes that have actually committed to using reusable utensils are now using plastic utensils again as they think plastic is more higiene. This is actually what we worry about, that this pandemic could prevent people from decreasing their plastic consumption. This is a challenge for us since our mission is to raise awareness on responsible production and consumption”, Ayu, the Founder, explained. 

These YCSEA 2.0 finalists find it very challenging to cope with the current situation since the pandemic is an external crisis that happens beyond their control. None of them have ever conceived of the widespread impact of the pandemic, and that it would also affect the business and social activities of their social enterprise. However, for #GumiBamboo, who is based in Lombok, this is not their first time to deal with a crisis. Ayu, told the YCSEA team that she and her team has dealt with and survived the crisis resulting from the Lombok earthquake in July 2018. “Since we have passed 3 -5 months of an emergency situation after an earthquake hit Lombok in 2018, which quite disrupted our business operation, it’s not something new for us to make a plan B for our business. But still, we find this pandemic worse than the earthquake as it disrupts not only our local but also international sales. We still cannot figure out how bad it will affect our business this year, but we will do what we can.”

“We have never conceived of something like this crisis before. However, since we have to keep moving in whatever situation, especially this kind of situation, we have to strengthen each other and be responsible with our work, and keep thinking of what needs to be done to cope with this situation”, Umu from #KampungMarketer explained. 

Yes! We agree with Ayu, Umu, and other social enterprise actors who decide not to give up amidst this difficult situation. Their strategies on how to survive their business operation and social mission from this pandemic are ones to learn about. Curious? Stay tuned with #BeSociopreneur as we will share the stories in the next update! 

This Friday, Campaign.com, in partnership with PLUS (Platform Usaha Sosial) will have an online discussion on how social enterprise can overcome a crisis. This online discussion is open to the public. What’s more, your participation in this online discussion will be transformed into a donation of Rp 20.000 through Campaign #ForChangeID App, to help decrease the impact of COVID-19 pandemic. Kindly find the details of the online discussion on the image below or click this link https://www.campaign.com/updates/id/-M3AaXefoRk1-pOc5LHg