Creating alternative interventions in social work to promote socio-economic development in South Africa: Lessons from selected social enterprises

Abstract

Social work interventions for families, individuals and communities should be comprehensive and sustainable. A social enterprise model with dual social and economic value creation provides a useful framework for such interventions. Through a qualitative research approach and case study design, three social enterprises were studied. The findings indicate that social enterprises pursue people-centred investment; engineer and promote social integration and equity in the local communities; and create employment and promote skill development for vulnerable groups such as women and youth. Thus, a social enterprise dual mission for accruing social and economic value aligns with the social work helping mandate, and therefore smoothly integrates.

Keywords

Empowerment inequality social enterprise social value social work unemployment

Introduction

Social work practitioners are vital players in helping individuals, families and communities to function optimally and preserve their human dignity (International Association of Schools of Social Work [IASSW], International Council on Social Welfare [ICSW] and International Federation of Social Workers [IFSW], 2016). This helping process is accomplished by utilising different models such as the residual and developmental models (Lombard, 2007; Midgley and Conley, 2010; Patel, 2005). While these models inform and facilitate social work and social development practitioners to deliver services to their clients across the globe (IASSW, ICSW and IFSW, 2016), there is a need to explore more impactful approaches to intervene in the emerging social challenges. This calls for a paradigm shift in social work intervention models and strategies. In the South African context, adopting a composite (both therapeutic and developmental) approach is instrumental in attaining the aspirations of the Department of Social Development (DSD), which are equality, dignity and worth of the people, cohesive communities, participation and reduction of poverty (DSD, 2013).

Literature indicates that social development aspires to promote economic participation and lessen impediments to social functioning of individuals, families and communities (Lombard, 2007; Midgley and Conley, 2010; Patel, 2005). However, despite these aspirations, the approaches to social work interventions in South Africa and many other settings around the world are conventional, and fail to adequately address the contemporary and emerging social challenges. This failure is evidenced by high levels of unemployment, poverty and inequality in South Africa for example (Statistics South Africa, 2019). The manifestation of these social ills derails the primary aim of social development. Therefore, innovative ways of creating alternative interventions that holistically enhance the well-being of the people are necessary. This study used social enterprises as a constituency of social entrepreneurship to illustrate and draw lessons for social work practitioners on creating innovative alternatives to address social challenges in South Africa and other parts of the world.

Contextualising social development and social enterprise

South Africa is progressively embracing development approaches that endeavour to meet social, economic, political and environmental needs of its citizens. This is more compelling when the country is faced with daunting challenges of high unemployment, inequality and poverty (Plagerson et al., 2019; Rogan and Reynolds, 2019; Statistics South Africa, 2019). In an effort to address these challenges, the country has had various development programmes such as the Reconstruction and Development Programme (RDP), Growth, Employment and Redistribution, and Social Security Grants (Kaeane and Ross, 2012; Gutura and Tanga, 2014). Arguably, these programmes have had little impact in addressing unemployment, inequality and poverty in the country. Therefore, it is the shortcomings of government programmes that led to the emergence of social entrepreneurship as a development alternative in South Africa and globally (Littlewood and Holt, 2018; Shrivastava, 2015; Urban, 2008). The main drive for social entrepreneurship is to respond to institutional weaknesses, resource scarcity and high magnitude of socio-economic problems, which impede the government from providing its constituents with high-quality affordable services (Kerlin, 2010; Lisa et al., 2016; Ridley-Duff and Bull, 2011). By implication, social entrepreneurship, which is practised in social enterprises, comes in as an alternative in design and implementation of dual (social and economic) interventions.

Conceptually, social enterprise describes broad activities and processes undertaken to discover, define and exploit opportunities that create wealth by adopting new ventures or managing the existing ones in an innovative manner (Zahra et al., 2009). Furthermore, several studies (Aliouche and Fernandez, 2017; Bacq and Janssen, 2011; Littlewood and Holt, 2018; Olinsson, 2017) describe social enterprises as entities that include cultural, ecological and civic discourses in investment, rather than solely economic benefits. It is social, in that it delineates the process with multiple factors and stakeholders; and geographical by representing spatial categories in-between nations and regions, and neighbourhoods. Strategically, using these components, social enterprises adopt a funding mechanism that supports the non-profit operations and social mission activities (Aliouche and Fernandez, 2017; Gordon, 2015, 2017; Olinsson, 2017) to solve social problems. Social enterprises are primarily driven by a value-creation mission to engineer and improve wealth creation and distribution, fostering enterprise development and providing employment and training for vulnerable groups (Darko and Kweku, 2015; International Labour Organization [ILO], 2011, 2017). These attributes poignantly distinguish social enterprises from the other purely commercial and profit enterprises.

Accordingly, the ILO (2011) and Roundy (2017) aver that social enterprises are valuable and sustainable economic enterprises that alleviate pressure on the local markets by creating ‘total wealth’ with tangible outcomes such as products, clients and funds; and intangible outcomes such as social capital, happiness and the general well-being of the people. Furthermore, social enterprises are distinctive from the other enterprises because they focus on social value creation and reinvestment of the profits to support social programmes (Mirabella and Young, 2012; Roundy, 2017). Social enterprise activities facilitate a transformational social change (Urban, 2008) by targeting the underserved constituents of the society that social workers are mandated to serve (Patel, 2012). Their ability to cause transformational social change is attributed to social enterprises’ drive to address structural and systemic challenges associated with poverty, inequality and unemployment (Lisa et al., 2016; Shrivastava, 2015; Zahra et al., 2009). Therefore, this model is instrumental for the developing world and emerging economies where services are fragmented and characterised by resource scarcity (ILO, 2017).

Moreover, the ILO attests to the fact that social enterprises have played an important role in South African’s social context by finding suitable and sustainable-based solutions (ILO, 2011). According to Urban (2008), social entrepreneurship in South Africa has an unequivocal developmental potential to create positive impact, since the government interventions only cannot satisfy the social deficit in the country. Moreover, Urban (2008) advocated for social entrepreneurship to supplement and complement the efforts of previous government programmes such as RDP and Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR). This would reduce dependency on social welfare programmes and empower people.

To this end, the Ashoka Foundation, and the establishment of Grameen Bank by Muhammad Yunus to eradicate poverty and empower women (Mair and Marti, 2005), are some of the most transformative, creative ideas and practices of social enterprises. They provide insightful directions for creating alternatives within social work and development in the contemporary world. This realisation poignantly positions social service providers and social entrepreneurs as agents of transformation in developing innovative approaches. Apparently, the role of social workers as change agents become practically vital (Lombard and Wairire, 2010), because of the ability to catalyse and facilitate holistic social transformation. Therefore, it is important that social service providers such as social workers rethink and reconstruct the current approaches and models of interventions in social development. Notably, embracing new models such as social entrepreneurship is recommendable to enhance efforts in rebuilding communities, especially post coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis.

Problem statement

In South Africa, the DSD is administratively mandated to spearhead services that are equitable, sustainable, accessible, people-centred and developmental, and to tackle myriad socio-economic deficits (DSD, 2013; Nugundu and Lombard, 2012). Against this backdrop, the communities remain highly vulnerable as evidenced by escalating inequality, unemployment and poverty (Rogan and Reynolds, 2019; Statistics South Africa, 2019). This dire scenario suggests that the current social development interventions in the country are ineffective. To this end, previous research points to the shortcomings of the predominant therapeutic models of social work interventions to the resurgence of socio-economic challenges in African communities (Lombard and Wairire, 2010; Patel, 2005, 2012). Thus, it is vital to rethink the old models and engineer alternative interventions to achieve the envisioned and aspired-to social developmental outcomes in South Africa and other parts of the world. Therefore, this article investigates the activities of social enterprises to draw lessons that can be integrated into social work practices in South Africa and other parts of world for sustainable interventions. The insights generated herein are envisioned to spur debates on the need for a paradigm shift in social development.

Methodology and study settings

Research design and paradigm

This study was about people, organisations and the activities undertaken to solve certain societal problems. When studying people and organisations in their natural settings, a qualitative research approach and paradigm are highly recommendable (Creswell, 2014; De Vos et al., 2011; Patton, 2015). A qualitative approach was important in understanding the underlying development and societal issues such as poverty, inequality and unemployment in South Africa. This is because qualitative research investigates people’s lived experiences, ongoing experiences (phenomena), as well as organisational programmes and activities (Creswell, 2014; Patton, 2015). Through a qualitative research approach, researchers are able to explore and interpret local and international emerging development approaches and practices, and how they are experienced by the people in various contexts (Patton, 2015). A qualitative research approach also allows the researcher to interact with the participants and the systems to understand the research problem from their perspective. For instance, the knowledge about the activities of social enterprises as development tools varies in meaning in different parts of the world. Therefore, a qualitative approach provided a platform for context-based thinking and interpretations of the social enterprise activities by participants and the researchers.

In essence, the nature and the magnitude of socio-economic challenges in the world can best be understood within the precepts of those who experience and address them (Creswell, 2014; Patton, 2015). Therefore, listening to social entrepreneurs’ lived experiences in this study generated the most relevant data. Their knowledge enriched the researchers’ understanding of social enterprise operatives, social challenges and opportunities in the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality. Therefore, adopting an interpretivism qualitative research approach was the best premise for gathering, analysing and interpreting the findings.

Sampling techniques and sample size

The study was conducted in Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality in Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Three social enterprises engaging in different ventures were selected as case studies. These cases were selected based on purposive and convenient sampling techniques. Conceptually, a case study entails studying small units of the population or organisations to generate in-depth data for analysis (Patton, 2015).

From the selected three cases, key informants (the founders of the enterprises), three managers from each social enterprise, and two employees – one from an information and communications technology (ICT) enterprise and one from a clothing enterprise – were selected. They were selected because they had relevant and requisite experience in social investing in the local communities. These development gaps include youth and women unemployment, inequality, and access to information and market systems. The selected social enterprises were engaged in agriculture, ICT and clothing. They had all been in operation in the municipality for more than 10 years.

In terms of size, the agriculture business had more than 100 permanent job opportunities and over 600 temporal jobs. It also boasts macadamia and wool shearing projects. The ICT enterprise reports over 50,000 trained students, over 35 professional trainers, and 42 branches nationally. The clothing enterprise undertakes three main projects, which include the clothing programme for women, training over 800 women per year; an appliances programme for men, which trains over 200 men per year; and 20 early childhood development centres, educating more than 1000 children. Between 2018 and 2019, the women’s programme generated R38.9 million, while the men’s programme generated R5.3 million worth of income.

The selection criteria were based on the social mission of the enterprise, the nature of services and the programmes they provide, and the target population they serve. The criteria satisfied the researchers’ primary definition of social enterprise, as an organisation that utilises a social business model for the purpose of creating social value for and with the community it serves. Based on this definition, the three cases were perceived to be an appropriate sample for analysis.

Data collection methods and procedure

These data were collected through semi-structured interviews. The significance and tenacity of in-depth interviews in qualitative research is highly acclaimed (Babbie, 2013; Creswell, 2014; De Vos et al., 2011; Patton, 2015). This is because they provide primary evidence of the phenomenon under inquiry. The interviews were conducted with eight participants from the three selected social enterprises. Interviews took place at work places, as this was the most convenient option for the participants. This also offered the researchers the opportunity to observe the actual activities undertaken by the enterprises.

The researchers adhered to research ethical requirements such as participant consent, avoidance of harm, anonymity and confidentiality. The study adhered to the standard institutional and general research ethical guidelines and principles.

Data analysis

Data analysis was accomplished through inductive reasoning. Induction reasoning is a qualitative analysis technique of generating meaning from textual data. The researcher undertakes an ‘in-to-out’ interpretation of data to generate meaning (Patton, 2015). Through the content analysis, emerging themes were captured for further interpretation and discussion. The findings are triangulated with the literature on social entrepreneurship and social work in the ‘Discussion’ section to draw meaningful conclusions.

Findings

In this section, four key themes are presented and discussed. These themes are people-centred investment, income earning and accessible service delivery, engineering socio-economic integration and equity in the local community, and equilibration of mainstream and local community economy.

People-centred investment

The analysis showed that the social enterprises embraced and practised investment initiatives that were people-centric in design. This was evidenced by interventions and operations that mainly focused on people’s needs rather than the enterprises’ maximisation of profit. Primarily, the missions of the sampled three social enterprises were social in design, as their main objective was aligned to peoples’ well-being. All the three enterprises had a training component in their respective operations, which culminated in beneficiaries acquiring skills in computer packages, marketing, sewing and knitting, and farming. These skills were necessary for one to seek employment, or establish business ventures for self-employment. By implication, these activities had an emancipatory effect and led to improving livelihoods.

The other important component of people-centrism espoused in the study was the targeting the socially and economically vulnerable groups of the population. The act of social enterprises interest with the vulnerable was likened to the African traditional value system, where the well-being of the vulnerable people was prioritised. This was illustrated by a participant who expressed that

I would say that this was the African way of communal living where people used to share their wealth and property with the rest of the community members. Now, this has been advanced to take the market approach as there are many changes in societal structures that require both communal and market efforts. (Agriculture SE Entrepreneur, 2018)

The sharing and redistribution of the societal wealth to members of a society was such an important aspect within the social enterprises. The current practice of social enterprises suggests a possible resuscitation of some African value systems that have suffered a state of attrition associated with capitalism and other profit-orientated development approaches.

Furthermore, the analysis revealed that social enterprises manifested principles of Ubuntu – loosely interpreted as ‘I am, because you are’, a common philosophy in the South African society. Ubuntu emphasises humanity as its primary principle. While speaking about humanity and people-centredness, an ICT enterprise entrepreneur opined that

[t]he desire for social enterprises to be close to the people and helping them address their problems is what drives social entrepreneurs and distinguishes them from the primary profit-making businesses or organisations. Social enterprise is a mutual business venture between the investor and the communities. This is because the investor makes money while solving serious community challenges, thus benefiting the local people. (ICT SE Entrepreneur, 2018)

Similarly, the clothing enterprise targeted the vulnerable by focusing on unemployed mothers’ employment and enterprise training. The data illuminate on the primacy and the fundamental intent of the social enterprises to design and implement an investment model with the beneficiaries’ needs in mind. This is a significant virtue that positions social enterprises as high-calibre agents of social development, especially in the poverty-stricken communities in South Africa.

Income-earning, income generation and service delivery

As reported in the previous theme, social enterprises in Buffalo City Municipality occupied an important development niche. The study established that social enterprises were ventures for income generation for social entrepreneurs and income earning for the beneficiaries, the locally unemployed people. The income-earning component was important in the lives of the poverty-stricken and unemployed youth and women in the municipality. A manager from ICT enterprise narrated how the enterprise had contributed to youth employment in the area:

Our approach stand high as far as rural development is concerned. This is because we have provided youth with computer skills, and now they can earn a living for themselves through employment or owning an internet cyber café in the local villages. We are changing the lives of many people for better. (ICT SE Manager, 2018)

In the same vein, the agriculture social enterprise entrepreneur highlighted that the income generated and earned by beneficiaries play a vital role in enabling them to seek health and education services. This creates some sense of worth of beneficiaries in the social milieu. The social entrepreneur argued that

[w]e are result-oriented in approach and not only making recommendations to communities. We are trying to make the communities the co-owners of the services and products created by employing them in our projects and programmes. (Agriculture SE Manager, 2018)

These narratives indicate possibilities of the social enterprises heightening the chances of turning around the local socio-economic situation by generating both the social and the economic goods and services.

On service delivery, the social enterprises prioritised clients’ convenience and comfort. This was achieved through creating and enhancing access and affordability of the ICT services such as printing, faxing, emailing, online job application, short course trainings and government-related services such as social security. The clothing enterprises provided a platform for unemployed mothers to share health-related information such as reproductive health, HIV/AIDS and nutrition. In the mainstream market model, these services are expensive and not readily available to many local people. To illustrate this, a social entrepreneur narrated that

[o]ur focus has always been on accessibility, flexibility and affordability of the services and products we create and provide. For example, we allow women to have different volumes of stock and make payment as they sell. If they cannot sell after certain period of time, they are allowed to return the stock and have another set that can sell fast. This has developed trust between the enterprise and the unemployed mothers under our programmes. This creates sense of ownership as they can use our services and products with confidence and freedom. (Clothing SE Entrepreneur, 2018)

Notably, these findings portray the qualities of social enterprises such as those with community interest, community benefit and ownership, people-driven and those with community sustainability drives, other than just pecuniary-driven goals. These qualities are insightful in informing a paradigm shift in social development into creating both social and economic value.

Engineering socio-economic integration and equality

The study revealed that the social enterprises had contributed to youth and women employment; skill development; access to information, such as market, health and government-related information; promotion of education through bursaries; and promoting co-ownership of business enterprises. To illustrate this, an employee in ICT social enterprise reported that

[t]hrough our services, local business operators and entrepreneurs are able to register their small businesses with ease compared to other platforms. The elderly and young find help with our services, which help them engage in registered business. (ICT SE Employee, 2018)

Similarly, a manager of an agricultural social enterprise enthusiastically underscored that

[t]hrough our macadamia projects, we have improved the relationship between our workers and the transport service providers. This has happened by developing service contract, to transport our project beneficiaries to and from the workplace [farm]. This has not only given them jobs, but also enhanced the social relationships in the community. (Agriculture SE Manager, 2018)

These contributions point to an endeavour by social enterprises to engineer development that is participatory, distributive of wealth and knowledge, and individual and community prosperity. This leads to reduction of poverty and other social fragilities in communities.

Furthermore, social enterprises demonstrated innovation by creating products from the locally available resources, which are overlooked by other development practitioners. One of the participants gladly expressed this innovate aspect by indicating that

[a]s an enterprise we are very proud for having been able to prove to the local people and the world that, out of dead community assets, we are able to create viable economic and social wealth. That is critical especially when we sustain the jobs created in the rural communities. We are able to bring dignity to the rural people by bringing them to the international market platform, and this too reduces the inequality. (Agriculture SE Entrepreneur, 2018)

These views elucidate the noble and novel contribution of the social enterprises in creating wealth and changing local areas through positive exploitation of community assets. Social enterprises enabled and enhanced the establishment of social relationships that allow one to accrue social capital within the community.

Equilibration of mainstream and community local economy

Primarily, social enterprises emerged to respond to the new market needs and fill gaps in the mainstream economy. The study indicated that social enterprises fulfil this operative by introducing deliberate social commitments into the local community economy. These commitments include, for instance, capacitating unemployed women, unskilled youth and men to be skilled. This plays a complementary role in supporting the government’s efforts in developing communities, both socially and economically. To illustrate this, an entrepreneur narrated that

[t]here comes a lot of opportunities when you create viable social business entities. For example, our enterprise has led to the establishment of other small businesses like hair salons and Spaza shops in the local area. Hence, people do not have to travel to major townships for social and personal services. (Agriculture SE Entrepreneur, 2018)

In agreement with the earlier narrative, the manager opined that

[w]e are able to harness the rural people to stay in their rural areas without migrating to urban areas to seek manual jobs. So this helps to curb the challenge of rural-urban migration which is constraining many cities. (Agriculture SE Manager, 2018)

Moreover, the ICT social enterprise manager expressed that

[w]e have enabled young people to get business franchise at an affordable fee, which has enabled more job creation at the local communities. Few of our graduates have also started their own businesses that continue to promote access to information and other opportunities in the rural communities. (ICT SE Manager, 2018)

These narratives suggest that the entrant of social enterprises into the local economy contributes meaningfully to the well-being of the people in the municipality. Therefore, replication of social enterprise models in many parts of the country could potentially contribute in combating the emerging and dominant socio-economic challenges such as poverty, unemployment, inequality and ignorance.

Discussion

Social enterprises have been reported to be viable platforms and tools of creating alternative social interventions in South Africa and elsewhere. In this study, the analysis showed that social enterprises embraced people-centred investment in the Buffalo City Municipality. This development approach clearly aligns with social work people-centric values, which focus on families’, communities’ and individuals’ well-being (IASSW, ICSW and IFSW, 2016; Lombard and Twikirize, 2014; Midgley and Conley, 2010). The people-centric component of the dual (social enterprise and social work) mission provides lenses to integrate the values of social entrepreneurship in social work interventions. Traditionally, social work interventions focus on the psychological and psychosocial functioning of clients (Midgley and Conley, 2010), but less of socio-economic emancipation (Lombard and Twikirize, 2014). Arguably, to some extent the traditional model is inadequate to facilitate a full recovery of families, communities and individuals from poverty, inequality and human dignity. This interventional lacuna has led to the debate for a paradigm shift in social work practice to balance between the therapeutic and developmental models (IASSW, ICSW and IFSW, 2016). The balancing is significant in order to accrue both short-term and long-term benefits for communities and individuals (Department of Economic and Social Affairs [DESA], 2013; Patel, 2012). The balancing of the interventions is necessary in order to ameliorate the immediate human suffering, and also create long-lasting solutions to the causes of social dysfunctions.

The search for new approaches and methods of balancing both social and economic success led to the emergence of social entrepreneurship. Through social investment, social enterprises are creating innovative alternatives to enable communities to acquire skills and resources to enhance their well-being at present and for their future (ILO, 2017). In the context of this study, social enterprises enabled unemployed mothers to acquire skills to be self-employed or acquire employment in commercial enterprises. This did not only afford them basic needs such as food, clothing and shelter, but also brought a sense of human dignity through decent work. This can change an individuals’ perspective of life and they are likely to become more positive and optimistic as compared to just receiving handouts. Thus, social enterprises develop individuals’ abilities to solve their own challenges as espoused in the strength perspective (Saleebey, 2006). This perspective provides a framework that enables social work practitioners to view their clients as capable of emancipating themselves. The role of social workers is then to provide the requisite resources and information to facilitate this emancipation. In this line, the social enterprise model provides a plausible approach to and platform from which to look beyond the short-term relief of the client during an intervention.

Innovation has become an important technique to challenge and reconstruct traditional development systems and programmes that marginalise some segments of the society (IASSW, ICSW and IFSW, 2016; ILO, 2017; Mendoza-Abarca, and Mellema, 2016). For instance, through innovation social enterprises have created social value to reduce inequality, poverty and community fragmentation (Jacobi et al., 2017). Furthermore, Jacobi et al. (2017) report that in Europe, social innovations have improved and promoted the autonomy of individuals and mainly produced intangible benefits such as knowledge and interpersonal relationships. These are important ingredients for promoting human dignity as espoused by the Global Agenda for social work and social development (IASSW, ICSW and IFSW, 2016).

Through people-centric innovations, social work practitioners can re-engineer traditional service delivery approaches to become more client and community centred in order to yield greater impact. The new approaches should institute and instil into clients a sense of ownership in the services offered. This is possible through active participation in designing and implementing solutions to their problems. By doing so, peoples’ freedoms and capabilities are developed, enhanced and utilised for individual and community prosperity (Comim et al., 2008; Drydyk, 2012; Nussbaum, 2011). This component of development was observed in this study, where youth, women and men involved in various projects developed their skills and talents.

Previous studies report that social enterprises are platforms for promoting social investment (Gidron, 2017; Kajiita and Kang’ethe, 2020; Roundy, 2017). In this study, social enterprises engaged in social investment through activities such as sewing and knitting, agriculture, and ICT training and services. Through these activities, the beneficiaries were able to discover themselves (talents, skills and capabilities), henceforth participating in creating social solutions for their communities (Crawford and Cantatore, 2016). Clearly, the social enterprise operatives embody some key aspirations of social development and social work, such as social sustainability, participation, human respect and dignity, sense of belonging, and ownership of community wealth (DSD, 2013; Lombard, 2007; Patel, 2005). All these contribute immensely to the socio-economic development and emancipation of individuals and communities in general.

In this study, social enterprises also facilitated access to information in local and international markets, and government services such as health and social security. Many people in rural South Africa have limited or no access to ICT centres, a challenge that limits access to relevant information about their lives (Shrivastava, 2015). This made the presence of an ICT social enterprise critically important for the residents in accessing knowledge and information that was previously lacking. All these aspirations are congruent with the South African social development policy framework (Nugundu and Lombard, 2012), which seeks to lessen the socio-economic inequalities through access to information and resources.

To address these inequalities, there is a need for innovation in designing and implementing interventions in order to produce self-reliance, both socially and economically. While emphasising the significance of self-reliance, Ziegler et al. (2017) advised that the provision of financial support through loans and grants is not enough to turn around the lives of the marginalised and excluded segments of the population. Similarly, Kajiita and Kang’ethe (2016) and Gutura and Tanga (2014) argue that provision of handouts and social grants is not an ultimate solution to challenges of poverty, unemployment and inequality in South Africa; instead, it leads to a state of dependence syndrome. Therefore, supplemental services such as business advice, financial training, skills development, support in registering a business and managing micro-enterprises are necessary to ensure the success of interventions towards alleviating socio-economic challenges. This implies that capacitation and training constitute some of the effective strategies for empowering marginalised groups to emancipate and become self-reliant.

The study revealed that the clothing social enterprise embarked on deliberate and strategic enterprise development training targeting unemployed mothers. This was purposively undertaken to develop and impart business skills and other life-related skills in them. Furthermore, upon the completion of the training, the women were provided with start-up capital and relevant support required to start and manage a successful enterprise. In this case, the social enterprise did not only provide the skills, but went an extra mile to provide the resources needed to actualise the skills learnt in the programme. This promoted skill transfer in the community. These operations provide valuable lessons for social workers to design interventional models that go beyond the social relief.

For instance, it is not good enough for one to conduct counselling sessions with a youth who is experiencing depression or involved in crime as a result of unemployment. A practitioner should be able to move further and identify activities that create tangible solutions to address the cause of the vice or unemployment. The ICT-based social enterprise demonstrated this ability of solving unemployment among youth by employing a few of their trainees to accrue some work experience to increase their chances of being employed elsewhere. Consequently, this gives the trainees a better competitive edge against other job seekers, especially those from the universities and technical colleges. This is a perfect way of applying the tenets of social entrepreneurship in social development interventions, principles that can inform the rethinking and reconstruction of social development approach in South Africa.

The study established that social enterprises create equilibrium in the local economy by creating new ventures that allow the locally excluded people to participate in economic activities. The study showed that the ICT social enterprise undertook an initiative to create affordable business franchise targeting youth in local rural and town market centres. This was important in broadening the scope of social mission to other parts of the country (Crawford and Cantatore, 2016). In partnership with the government of South Africa, the ICT enterprise linked youth to the Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) programme to support their start-up ICT rural centres. In doing so, they provided an avenue for youth to develop and test their entrepreneurial skills that potentially propel employment opportunities in the local municipality.

Development in ICT provides opportunities for sustainable social development by supporting and facilitating economic and social growth through access to government services, education, health and increasing international competitiveness (Ikwaba and Uhomoibhi, 2014; Pitt and Granger, 2014). Similarly, Mandalu (2016) argued that e-government services accelerate efficiency, transparency and accountability of government in service delivery. Therefore, with the availability of ICT facilities in the rural areas, peoples’ participation in economic activities would improve, leading to more opportunities. In the context of social work, peoples’ participation in solving their own challenges either socially, economically, politically or culturally reflects the true meaning of social development in any society (Davids et al., 2009; Patel, 2005). Accordingly, the operations of social enterprises resonate with the mandate of the South African Department of Social Development, which is to enhance social functioning and human capabilities, promoting social solidarity through participation and community involvement in social welfare, and promotion of the social inclusion in all spheres of the society (DSD, 2013). This contributes to building communities’ ability to solve problems on their own (Noya, 2009).

Indubitably, social enterprises are vital tools and potential avenues for achieving social transformation (ILO, 2017), through innovative social business models that meet social and economic objectives. The dual mission of social enterprises provides an insightful trajectory and model for intervention during and post coronavirus pandemic. The massive loss of income, jobs, lives and disrupted way of life impacts negatively on social, economic and health well-being of the people and communities (Ebrahim, 2020), and requires the interventions of social work practitioners. To address the social ills related to coronavirus disease (COVID-19), reconstruction development programmes shall have to innovatively combine both social and economic objectives, and that is where the knowledge of social entrepreneurship becomes critical. The social work practitioners need to look beyond the therapeutic needs, and through brokerage and collaboration skills create ventures that can address unemployment to restore human dignity and sense of purpose in communities.

Conclusion

Unequivocally, the role of social enterprises in socio-economic development in the municipality was vital. This was evident through job creation, education and training (skill development), accessibility and affordability of ICT services, and access to the local and international markets. These are important ingredients for transformative and sustainable social development in the municipality and the country at large. These valuable contributions from social enterprises provide insightful lessons for social work practitioners to rethink the current models of social intervention. The key lessons elucidated include innovation, deliberate investment in skills and talents of clients, using economic models to create positive social challenge, reconstructing and redesigning market systems, and utilisation of community assets to create wealth. These deliberate steps can prosper and transform individuals and communities, a component that is glaringly lacking in the current social work practice in South Africa. Therefore, this study should enthuse social work researchers, academics and practitioners to philosophically and practically engage multiple and collaborative sources of knowledge and skills. This is vital for designing, initiating and supporting innovative approaches that generate tangible and intangible impacts of social development.

Recommendations

The study recommends that the South African social work curriculum should have content that facilitates students to be innovative in addressing social challenges. In practice, there is a need to rethink and reconstruct social work approaches and ideologies, so that they align with the contemporary and emerging social issues. Since social investing has a transformative socio-economic effect, similar initiatives to those studied herein, especially in the developing countries, should focus on developing children and youth. This is important in transforming communities and breaking the generational cycle of poverty, exclusion and inequality.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the contribution of the research participants for willingly and extensively sharing information about their enterprises to make this analysis possible.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Robert M Kajiita

Author biographies

Robert M Kajiita is a postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Social Work, University of Fort Hare. His research interests are in social entrepreneurship, social sustainability, social development and developmental social work.

Simon M Kang’ethe is a professor of social work and Deputy Head of the Social Work and Social Development Department at University of Fort Hare. His research interests are HIV/AIDS, culture, community development, gender, among others.

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