Entrepreneurship & SME Management Assignment Comparison of Pakistani and Chinese Social Entrepreneur

Xie Lihua Xie Lihau is one of the social entrepreneurs in China. She has been known for her tremendous efforts in the field of Community Development particularly in safeguarding the rights of women and giving them a status in society which women truly deserve. Education and gender awareness among rural women are her primary aims. She describes her mothers funeral in a very sad way saying My young nephews were all in front of me. As a daughter, I was put back with the younger generation in the funeral procession. It was all men at the front, and according to custom they had to say a lot. The women were only allowed to cry, not to speak. At that point in time she decided that she had to do something for the welfare of women. She saw that women living in rural areas in China or the ones who have migrated from a village to another were faced with tough circumstances. In rural areas, despite laws guaranteeing womens equality, traditional practices and values still dominated. She saw that many of the poor families were reluctant to spend money on their childrens particularly daughters education. So she decided to help the rural women and ensure their survival and development. Xie Lihua was born in 1951 in Chanyi County, Shandong Province. In 1969, she served in the military before she began to move towards a career as a journalist and development worker. In

1985, she became editor and reporter for China Womens Daily and, eight years later, its deputy editor-in-chief. In the same year, she founded Chinas first magazine for rural women, Rural Women Know All. Currently Xie Lihua is the editor of Rural Woman magazine and Secretary General of the Development Center for Rural Women in Beijing. Profile: Rural Women Magazine

Her major contribution towards the community were firstly the establishment of Rural Women in 1998, a magazine which focused entirely on the rural women and sought to bridge the communication gap between the urban and the rural. She wrote many articles but gathered no appreciation and was left unnoticed which was really disappointing for her, however she didnt lose hope and continued to work for the welfare of the distressed women. She has since established a number of initiatives to educate these women and countless others like them: a migrant womens club for city workers; a nonprofit school for rural women and girls, a domestic workers support network, and a rural womens suicide prevention program. Through literacy training and education she is empowering women with the tools they need to improve their lives.

Migrant Womens Club

Another major contribution of Xie Liahu was incorporation of Migrant Womens Club. The Club was established April 7th, 1996, and describes itself as a meeting place for women from the rural areas who come to the city to work. This club aims to protect migrant womens civil and labor rights and improve their living qualities and abilities of self-development. It offered women the opportunities to get legal help to enhance their self-confidence, strengthen their civil rights and gender awareness. Nowadays the Club has about 1000 members, most of whom are young rural women. The Club has close links with the All China Womens Federation (ACWF), basic functions being to represent and safeguard the rights and interests of women and promote equality between men and women. Xie Lihua, is also the vice chief editor for the ACWFs paper. Womens Club also reports to the ACWC about their activities, gives recommendations about issues to improve and the problems of migrant women The goal of the Migrant Womens Club is to empower migrant women for self-protection and management. They want to help migrant women improve their lives in the city by teaching them about their rights, develop their skills for their personal growth. This is provided through different activities such as psychological support, emergency relief fund, support network for domestic workers, writing courses, lectures on gender relations, law etc.

The Rural Development Program

Being a Secretary General of the Development Center for Rural Women in Beijing, she assists in activities such as Home Working Girl School, Beijing Peasant Girl School assists rural women acquire basic skills, get psychological counselling to prevent suicide, and promote womens participation in the government. Thus Rural Women has developed into a set of poverty reduction and development, media and publishing, research and promotion of social welfare organization that has led to increased awareness and literacy among females. Moreover she also runs a hotline for battered spouses and women unfairly laid off from jobs and has pressured the government to devise more specific legal protections from sexual harassment. She dispenses micro-loans for enterprising rural women. She has the honor of being one of the 1000 women proposed for the Nobel Peace Prize 2005.

Nigar Ahmad (Aurat Foundation) Nigar Ahmad was born in 1945. With an exceptional academic record she became a Common wealth scholar. During her studies she was drawn closely to the saddening lives of the females and she was actively involved in the educational activities for women. She had conducted a thorough research on the rural women so as to raise their awareness and help them contribute to the workforce in Pakistan. Several campaigns were run under her like she campaigned for the need to generate correct information on womens work during the Fifth National Census in 1998. She extensively researched on empowering women and worked on large forums such as she worked as a coordinator for Pakistan of the UN university project on grassroots experiment and peoples movements. However the major contribution of Nigar Ahmad is in Aurat Foundation, which is considered as a leading institution for enhancing womens economic and political status in the country. It has local partners in all 104 districts of Pakistan and it is the only national organization with the largest district level network in the country. The primary reasons and objectives of the Aurat Foundation are: Assist women to acquire greater control over knowledge resources and institutions. Facilitate womens participation in political processes and governance Increase awareness and influence social attitudes and behaviors to address womens concerns. Lastly to develop a strong network to support women at the community and district level

Comparison

I find the profiles of both the ladies Nigar Ahmad and Xie Lihua similar to each other as both sought to work for the rights and interests of the females who belong to poor families particularly living in rural areas. China and Pakistan both are an agrarian countries. Majority of the population that is about 70% live in the rural areas where they are deprived of the basic necessities of life. Pakistan being a third world country despite lot of advancement in technology and other sectors still lacks behind. It is said Educated mothers give Educated Nations. This hold true for any nation. It is the fundamental right for every women to get education, fight for their rights and raise voice for the oppressed however in a country like Pakistan despite the teachings of our religion Islam, women are deprived of their basic rights. Both the entrepreneurs mentioned above tried to bring about a social change in society and so far have been successful by equipping the females with knowledge, power and skills. As in the profile of Nigar Ahmad and Xie Lihau in China. Both of them emphasized on the educational side and bring awareness among females so they could have a status in the society. She has dedicated herself to increase womens access towards developments and opportunities. Though the organization they are running are operating in different countries that is one in Pakistan and other in China but both of them are striving to work for the same cause. Both of them are working on the same lines i.e to increase knowledge, awareness to eliminate women from poverty. They have realized the fact that often in agricultural communities particularly Pakistan, daughters leave home to join their husbands' families when they marry and therefore represent no long term financial benefit to their parents. Sons, not daughters, support their aging parents, so poor families are reluctant to invest scarce money in their daughters' education. Therefore these social entrepreneurs organizations serve as a platform to increase literacy by giving women the basic tools necessary to gain knowledge and be independent of men.