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The link between problem and idea

Chhanv Foundation addresses the challenge of assisting acid attack survivors through a social enterprise café, Sheroes Hangout
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In this video, we visit a social enterprise based in India, Sheroes Cafe, that employs women who have been attacked with acid. The idea came from Chhanv Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the rehabilitation of acid attack survivors in India, petitioning for better compensations and stricter laws. Here, one of the team members explains how the research led to the idea of a social enterprise cafe.
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I’m Abilash from team Stop Acid Attacks. Currently I’m handling the web’s use and technical issues and all the communications with the campaign, and when we started in 2013, through that portal, it was just an idea to collect more people, so that we can share about the issue and what kind of problems were against acid attacks, and for the survivors we are facing, it was just an idea to collect more people from through that portal. Currently we have done a research data of the acid attack cases of the last two years, and it more than 350 cases and currently we are associated with 80 plus survivors.
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As part of our research project, we’ve found that more than 70% of cases just happen because of jilted lovers or one-sided love. The people at times, they always propose, and once the girl denied their proposal they got aggressive at that time and they wanted to destroy her beauty, her face, her identity and all. The survivors generally are from middle level background and they didn’t have a lot of skills, so we have to organise some times skill development sessions for them, so that we can make them more talented and more skillful.
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Like that, we have set up a center called Sheroes Hangout, were 5 acid attacks survivors, Rupa, Ritu, Neetu, Dolly and Geeta, they are working at Sheroes Hangout and the idea of Sheroes Hangout is to, you know, to take the acid attack survivors into the mainstream of society, where they can interact with more people and they can share their story, what they are facing in their life and what kind of issues they have.

An idea should solve a real problem.

If your great idea is a solution for an imagined problem, you’ve just made a huge mistake in the social enterprise sector. If nobody has the problem that you have the solution for, nobody’s going to come looking for it. A major reason why social enterprises fail is that often social entrepreneurs do not research enough about the problem they are trying to address/solve with their business idea.

This video shows how the team from the Chhanv Foundation and Stop Acid Attacks campaign came up with the idea of the Sheroes HangOut café, after they realized the problems women who had been attacked with acid were facing.

In the discussion below please share: How well have the Chavnn Foundation and Stop Acid Attacks campaign done linking the problem with their business idea? We recommend that you read the full case study before you respond to the question, to have a better understanding of this initiative (see pdf document below).

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Social Enterprise: Turning Ideas into Action

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