Initiating change - Change headline: Social entrepreneur wants to build 'children-inclusive' society

SINGAPORE - When Ms Madhu Verma moved to Singapore over six years ago, she had no idea that it would one day become home and a place very close to her heart.

It was here on the island that a small idea took root, one that has grown by leaps and bounds today.

She is a social entrepreneur and the founder of SoCh in Action, an organisation that hopes to build a "children-inclusive society where they play an active role" in driving social change. For her, the road to creating social awareness has been hard, yet very rewarding.

As a child, she recalls, one of her biggest influences was her mother.

"Although she was not religious, my mother had a very strong belief in God. She believed that rituals were not important, but doing good and serving the people of God were. And that's what she always taught me," says Ms Verma.

Growing up in Delhi, there were socio-economic issues everywhere. There were people in desperate need and just watching them made her feel very helpless, she says.

This feeling persisted all through her teenage years but, despite that, she did not recognise her genuine desire to do good until much later.

It was only when she was studying marketing at university that her professor opened her eyes to the possibility of using her skills to benefit a cause.

"Until then I had thought that my marketing skills could be used only in a corporate environment, but my professor introduced me to the possibility of cause-related marketing."

Her commitment to this was rewarded when she received the ANZ Marketing Academy Award in Marketing for her research paper on Cross-Sector Alliances in 2007-08 when she was with Massey University, doing a Masters in Management (Marketing).

After that, there was no looking back.

From then on, her road to social entrepreneurship had few detours. After university, the corporate world claimed her for only a few short years, until she joined Oxfam in New Zealand as part of its marketing team.

"Once I saw that there was an avenue to use my corporate skills in the not-for-profit sector, I made up my mind never to go back," she says.

Ms Verma, who is now a PR, moved to Singapore in 2008 and soon went to work on the Eco-Singapore project. Focused on encouraging consumers to choose "green" products, the project was aimed at promoting Green Consumerism through marketing collaboration and promotional schemes.

When her son turned eight, she was keen to engage him in community work too, but found that there wasn't anything targeted at children. So she came up with an idea for a project that would engage kids and help them inspire the public to make a change.

What began as a casual discussion with a friend quickly became real, and Social Change (SoCh) in Action was born. Initially, a few friends joined her in her effort and over time volunteers, interns and full-time employees became a part of the team.

In 2011, the organisation became a registered social enterprise and was on its way to becoming financially more stable.

"It was a good time for social enterprise when I started SoCh in Action. The Singapore Government was very supportive and still continues to be so. Having a government that is supportive has been a real blessing. It takes care of a lot," Ms Verma says.

While funding still remains a challenge, as public awareness of social entrepreneurship grows, the money is slowly trickling in.

Even banks like DBS have started to recognise the importance of this growing sector although, according to Ms Verma, the layman doesn't fully understand it yet. They are still "confused" by the concept of social enterprise.

Contrary to what many people believe, she says, making money is not at all what social entrepreneurship is about. Rather, it is about making the social organisation financially self-sufficient so that there are funds available to invest in more projects.

"Because of my background in the corporate sector, I wanted the organisation to have financial stability from the beginning," she adds.

Once the foundation for that is laid, the bigger challenge, she feels, is in finding ways to inspire children and to help them to recognise the issues that are real for them.

"For example, the pressures of exams, or how it is important to make way for an ambulance - these are the real-world issues that we encourage the children to consider. We are always working on how to think bigger and reach more people."

Whether it's handing out thousands of handmade bookmarks to "taxi uncles" across the city in order to make them feel special, or Primary 5 students working with school counsellors to support Primary 6 students through the pressures of the PSLE, SoCh in Action guides kids in reinforcing the positive.

In finding the solution to a problem that they themselves have identified, the children learn creative problem solving.

Design for Change - SoCh in Action's ongoing global project where children use design and innovation to create products for the physically-disabled - has proved to be a huge success among schools.

"Problem solving in a unique way is a learning experience that will stay with a child forever," explains Ms Verma.

But how does SoCh in Action measure the effectiveness of its programmes with the children?

"We might have our KPIs but the way we really measure it is by the kids' smiles - that says it all. We feel what they feel from the ground up. If they say "I want to do more" then that's the way we really measure it. Five years ago, we had 300 kids involved, now there are 1,500. When they leave an event, they ask, 'when is the next one?' and that's how we measure it," she laughs.

There's no doubt that schools across the island are starting to notice this remarkable organisation. Indeed, SoCh in Action owes its existence to many of them and to several people in Singapore who have helped make it what it is today.

"So many people have helped me with SoCh in Action - the volunteers who believe in us, the teachers who have been so participative and the Government's support. The organisation may be mine, but it belongs to everyone in Singapore who has been a part of it," she says.

For Ms Verma, this island has been fertile ground for an idea that came from her heart. And home is, after all, where the heart is.