Corporate social responsibility benefits are often understated outside of the business world.

The benefits of CSR can be achieved with many different types of investments-whether that’s time or money.

We’ll explore benefits such as promoting sustainable development, driving innovation, and improving company reputation.

The benefits of corporate social responsibility are vast, and many benefits are understated outside of the business world. But there is promise as new career opportunities are popping up as corporate social responsibility jobs.

Benefits include the promotion of sustainable development around the world, driving innovation through changing perspectives on diverse issues, and improving company reputation with customers by being a good global citizen.

What is Corporate Social Responsibility?

CSR is defined as “a philosophy or policy that integrates considerations for both shareholders and society at large.” This means considering not only what benefits your company but also how it impacts those who are less fortunate than you.

The benefits to an individual business range from increased customer loyalty to reducing risk factors for consumers in emerging markets. There are also benefits to society as a whole, many of which are not even considered benefits by companies.

For example, sustainable development is one of the benefits that is often understated in the business world.

CSR goes beyond just considering what benefits your company-it benefits everyone involved. Sustainable development drives innovation through changing perspectives on diverse issues within the corporate sphere, which in turn benefits society as a whole.

Importance of Corporate Social Responsibility

More than nine out of ten individuals on the planet believe that businesses would do well to act responsibly if there were any concerns with the environment. When buying a product, 83% of customers are willing to choose ethical goods to prevent environmental damage caused by its production.

CSR is about more than social capital or reputation management. It’s also about corporate social responsibility or CSR.

This concept has roots in the idea that businesses should be held to higher standards of conduct and ethics if they want to pursue human rights’ investors like myself would look for additional information on their website – not just financial performance rankings.

These are the key business advantages that will make your company more competitive.

This does not have to comply with the law, but you must pay close attention to environmental and social concerns that are affecting your company for it to improve its financial results. You may call out “Global CSR” if your organization is interested in Global CSR.

How corporate social responsibility benefits the community?

Many benefits exist and the benefits of CSR are often hard to measure. However, we can easily see the benefits of socially responsible workplaces and sustainable communities.

Challenges

It’s difficult to determine how corporate social responsibility benefits society as there is no widespread agreement on which results will be considered as such.

There is also a radical difference between organizations that only conduct charitable work and those that address both environmental and social issues.

Benefits

When employees believe their company holds moral standards, they experience lower stress levels and higher productivity than those who do not feel the same way about their company’s values.

This inevitably leads towards sustaining competitive advantages and an improved perception from customers who reflect this value for sustainable goods or services in purchasing decisions, which contributes to the growth of market share.

What are the 4 main benefits of social responsibility?

The benefits of CSR also go beyond just businesses and their employees. Community organizations, social enterprises, and local economies all feel the positive impacts of CSR.

Community benefits

One key benefit is that CSR can help improve the social fabric of communities. Social enterprises bridge the gap between businesses and the nonprofit sector by providing benefits to society at large, while meeting the needs of individual communities.

Employee benefits

When employees are included in CSR activities, their experience working for a company that values CSR results in higher levels of employee satisfaction.

Combined with an increase in motivation and empowerment, this leads to more engaged workers who are likely to produce higher quality work.

Economic benefits

A company that benefits the local community is at an advantage when it comes to recruiting, motivating, and retaining employees in that area. Additionally, CSR benefits may lead to opportunities for growth with suppliers and other organizations in the area.

Environmental benefits

The benefits of corporate social responsibility are also realized by the environment.

CSR helps organizations become more environmentally aware and encourages them to take actions that reduce their environmental impact. Many companies have adopted green policies as a result of their CSR initiatives, and some businesses have even gone so far as to create separate divisions that focus exclusively on environmental sustainability.

Final Thoughts

Thus, it is evident that the benefits of CSR are vast and far-reaching. When companies invest in CSR, they not only improve their bottom line, but also contribute to the health and sustainability of their employees, local communities, and the environment.

We can all benefit from corporate social responsibility initiatives – let’s work together to make it happen.

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Civil Rights are in place to protect everyone regardless of their race, gender, whether they have a disability or any other protected characteristic such as age or religion. Laws regarding our rights and treating everyone equally have been developed over centuries. Whilst we have come a long way in our fight for equality, there is still some way to go and developments are happening all the time.  If you believe that your civil rights have been violated then you may need a civil rights attorney. 

Family and Medical Leave Act

The FMLA ensures that employees can take paid leave if they have to have time off for specified family or medical reasons, including having a child or becoming unwell. Recent laws in states across the country are now requiring companies to offer new dads to have paid leave. New York, New Jersey, California, and New Hampshire have all put laws in place. Washington is also in the process of putting laws in place and they should be in force this year. Men, as well as women, should get to spend time with their babies so that they can bond with them and help with the first few weeks. 

The Equality Act: 2017 update

The Equality Act was first passed in 1964, but in May 2017 is was updated to include LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning) people from discrimination. This includes discrimination in housing, employment, education, credit, and public services. LGBTQ advocates have been fighting for an update in the act since the 1970s and so this was a big move forward. 

California recognizes a third gender

Many of the recent updates in civil law are to do with the LGBTQ movement, there are a growing understanding and knowledge. One issue for many people has been society’s boxes of either male or female, some people do not feel that they fit into either of these boxes. In October 2017 California becomes the first state in the US to legalize a third gender option if nonbinary on state documents and state-issued IDs. Non-binary includes a spectrum of gender identities that are not exclusively male or female. This will also make it easier for people to correct their gender on legal documents. 

Similarly, in July 2017 Oregon became the first state to allow people to have an option of “not specified” on identification. 

Kentucky restores voting rights to former felons

According to the US, constitution voting is a right. Despite this, many states’ felons cannot vote. This could be understood as when someone commits a crime, many of their rights can be taken away. Such as the right to freedom of movement. In most states, once someone has completed their sentences they are once again allowed to vote. However, in Kentucky up until December 2019, many former felons were still not allowed to vote. This meant that they were never really re-joining society, by being able to vote they can once again be a part of democracy.

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“My name is Sidra. I am 12 years old… I have lived here in the Zaatari camp in Jordan for the last year and a half.”

Filmmaker Chris Milk took his empathy machine and virtual reality concept to the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan. This is where a majority of Syrian refugees have fled to, and a couple of Green Prophet writers have been leading projects to mitigate the suffering. His new virtual reality film can help us imagine standing in their shoes and see and feel more about the lives of these vulnerable people.

Milk is using Virtual Reality (VR) technology to increase our emotional bandwidth beyond what was possible in movies. VR technology has been with us for decades but it has been refined and its cost has dropped dramatically.

Occulus Rift, Google Cardboard and other VR devices will be hot sellers in the coming year. But Chris Milk didn’t wait. He shot “Clouds over Sidra” at Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFnhMX6oR1Q[/youtube]

This was the first Virtual reality film ever made for the United Nations. Chris explains that unlike film where the viewer is looking through a window frame, this technology takes the viewer through the frame so that they experience what it is like to be in the room with Sidra or sitting next to her in her classroom.

The project was presented to UN dignitaries in Geneva, Switzerland and it did seem to make a difference in their perceptions. Maybe it will for each of us.

Try it yourself by downloading Google Play, VRSE and viewing “Clouds over Sidra” on VRSE, Google Cardboard or other virtual reality devices. If you watch this film on non-VR devices you’ll see it as a distorted 360 degree movie.

The mechanical details of each tragedy are broadcast to the world via live satellite. While survivors are still struggling to breath, observers are consumed with the statistics of disaster.

A category 5 hurricane, a magnitude 7.3 earthquake, the killers were quiet men who kept to themselves. The death toll was 404.

These facts spark our most primitive emotions first because these require the fewest bits of information. We fear that this tragedy might happen to us or we grow angry and seek to punish the real or imagined cause. Our despair grows as these darker motions consume us.

Empathy is a more complex, less primitive and more uniquely human emotion. According to a Princeton and Duke University study entitled, “Brain’s Social Network Implicated in Dehumanizing Others,” by Rick Nauert, MRI scans show that there is a part of the human brain associated with empathy.

But prejudice, racism and socioeconomic status can turn off this empathic part of a person’s brain and enable one associated with disgust. Might this empathy gap explain why people tend to shun war refugees at the same time as they spend millions of dollars per day on wars?

Empathy seems to require more communication bandwidth. Sometimes it requires direct contact with loved-ones in the faraway land or a memories of a time when we ourselves also lived through such a tragedy. Music, photography and visual arts can also trigger empathy. Functional MRI studies have found that literature literally helps us get inside the minds of others by activating the same regions in our brain that tell us the story of who we are.

Whatever the cause for the connection, some people are able to feel deeply for the victims of disaster. Their empathy expands to the scale of the disaster. The may lose sleep, grow physically sick or fall into a depression. Or they might feel compelled to do something, anything to try to fix whatever it is that is broken with the world, with the focus on the needs of the victims rather than the punishment of the cause.

The late film critic Roger Ebert considered empathy to be the most essential quality of a civilization, “We all are born with a certain package. We are who we are: where we were born, who we were born as, how we were raised.

“We’re kind of stuck inside that person, and the purpose of civilization and growth is to be able to reach out and empathize a little bit with other people. And for me, the movies are like a machine that generates empathy. It lets you understand a little bit more about different hopes, aspirations, dreams and fears. It helps us to identify with the people who are sharing this journey with us.”

Photos from Chris Milk’s “Clouds over Sidra” at VRSE.
Photo of Migrant mother (1936) by Dorthy Lange.
Photo of Syrian refugee woman(2015) by Washington Post

Thanks also to my Lebanese-American cousin Mud for her thoughtful piece on emotional responses to disasters, Laurie Balbo who works with Studio Syria and Collateral Repair; Gael at Dar al Yasmin for giving my family some non-virtual reality experience with Syrian refugees to help us imagine them not as anonymous faraway strangers, but as human beings.

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Some people talk about change and others actually make it. At the TEDx Hiriya event held yesterday at the Recycling Park, nine leading Arab and Jewish Israelis gathered to showcase social change in action.

At least a few of the nine participants at the TEDxHiriya event have been featured previously on Green Prophet.

Joseph Cory from Geotectura, one of Israel’s leading proponents of green building and innovative design solutions, discussed his multi-disciplinary and open source approach to design and research.

The Vertigo Dance Group was present as well. The group is one of the first that we know of in the world that works with able and disabled dancers to create eco-social performances in special outdoor locations.

Majda Natour (below), the principal of the green Alzahraa school in Qalansawe that recently scooped a green globe – one of Israel’s most prestigious environmentally-related accolades – discussed how she came to develop a school for Arab children that focuses specifically on sustainability.

Mark Talesnick, a professor in the Technion’s Civil and Environmental Engineering Department that has produced a slew of innovative clean tech solutions, sums up his vision thusly. “I am an engineering academic. For years I did what academics are expected to do. Over the past few years I have found, hidden inside of me a mountain of passion to make the world a better place for generations to come. I try to promote change by giving students the opportunity and platform to have real impact. I am counting on them to carry out what needs to be done. Leadership to change can be taught!!!”

Amiad Lapidot founded Eretz Carmel, an amazing organization that has singlehandedly helped tens of thousands of households in Israel learn how to separate their waste to boost recycling capacity. He also built his own ecological home as a showcase.

Ori Shavit is a food journalist and a leader in Israel’s extraordinary emergence as a vegan-friendly nation. A trained chef, she regularly organizes and hosts vegan cooking workshops, provides vegan culinary counseling and lectures in different venues.

Adina Tal helped to establish the world’s first theater for deaf and blind performers. The fascinating Nalaga’at (do touch) Center at Jaffa port in Tel Aviv has since evolved into a world-renowned facility that explores the darkness and silence that exists in all of us.

Kira Radinsky, Ph.D founded SalesPredict, a sales technology company that pioneers artificial intelligence-based, predictive analytics solutions to business. She has also developed predictive algorithms that recognize the early warning of globally impactful events, such as riots and diseases.

Eran Ben Yemini founded Green Course – a student environmental organization that promotes environmental change through activism and leadership development. He is also the founder and chairman of the Green Movement party which focuses on leading environmental acts in the Knesset, which, incidentally, plans to be solar secure by 2014.

The post 9 Arab and Jewish Israelis Talk Change at TEDx Hiriya appeared first on Green Prophet.

The chairman of the Jordan Green Building Council Mohammad Asfour tells us why nature inspires him to deliver a practical message of action

If you have been keeping an eye on the green scene in Jordan, then there’s no chance that you could have missed Mohammed Asfour. As well as the chairman of the Jordan Green Building Council, Asfour is a talented photographer with a great eye for nature and the skill to be able to capture its beauty. At the latest TEDxAmman talks hosted in Jordan, Asfour delivered a personal presentation about his early foray in environmental action and how the country could take action on climate change.

Unfortunately the video is entirely in Arabic with no captions so I dropped Asfour a couple of questions about his work and what motivated him to do take part in the talks. “My love relationship with nature started at a young age. And when you love something it’s not easy to ask yourself why!” he explains. “Perhaps it’s because it makes me happy. I enjoy being in nature, I enjoy working with green activists and I feel my economic background helps me deliver a more practical message.” You only need to look at some of his photography to see his passion for nature emanates through all his work.

In the past, Mohammad Asfour was the Environment, Water and Energy Sector Lead at the USAID Jordan Economic Development Program (SABEQ). He has also been in key in ensuring that green spaces in Jordan are protected from further development and agricultural projects. In his talk, Asfour highlights the diverse flora and fauna that Jordan enjoys and remarks that it’s time that locals were able to enjoy this. He highlights a project in the German city of Freiburg which has transformed a former military base into a green area and says that this is something Jordanians could aspire to.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKvWMidmTnY&[/youtube]

Asfour is also keen to point out that nature is not only trees and plants, it’s also about the energy we use, the buildings we live and our entire surroundings. As such, we need holistic solutions that take into consideration matters such as economic development and sustainable energy creation. Indeed this need for practical solutions is what led to the creation of the Jordan Green Building Council which works to raise awareness of green build not only in Jordan but the wider Middle East region. His final message at the TEDxAmman conference was that Jordanians need to lend their voice and support to the environmental movement – either by supporting green projects or taking practical action in their neighbourhoods and cities.

So, why take to the stage with this message? “What I hope to achieve, is simply: inner peace,” he admits. “Helping our world become a greener place and ensuring a better future for our children. Green is not only about emissions it is also about a better quality of life and about green governance. When people start thinking green, they show more respect to each other and more appreciation to God’s creation.”

For more on Green Campaigners in Jordan see:

Jordan’s Queen Rania Featured At World Future Energy Summit

INTERVIEW – Safa Al Jayoussi on Green Buildings & Nuclear Power

You Don’t Need That Plastic Bag – A New Campaign In Jordan

Jordan’s Green Fairytale – ‘Once Upon A Water’ Campaign

Meet Hana Faouri – The Upcycling Designer From Jordan

The post TEDxAmman – Mohammed Asfour’s Green Message appeared first on Green Prophet.

Case Study: A stable security state or a nation eager for reform? We look at Jordan and the strengths and weaknesses of its civil society

Whilst Jordan may not have seen the flurry of protests that lots of other Arab countries witnessed during the Arab Spring, that doesn’t mean Jordanians are not desperate for reform. In fact, they are and to a certain extent the government has been eager to show they are happy to make changes. In the last two years alone there have been amendments to over 42 articles of the Jordanian Constitution. But, for many, these reforms aren’t having a real impact and there are growing concerns that the authorities are becoming more draconian.

First, there were efforts to censor the internet and last month, protestors gathered to demand the release of activists charged with opposing the regime and slandering the royal family. It seems that becoming a campaigner and a genuine member of Jordan’s civil society just got a little more difficult.

“Although Jordan is a security state – if a less extreme, less openly repressive version of one than Egypt was – it continues to be held up as an example of one of the more progressive and democratic Arab states. Jordan’s path to reform has been a carefully managed top-down process which has all the trappings of democracy while lacking substance. Despite its failure to take meaningful steps towards democracy, donors continue to laud Jordan as a democratizer.” 

That was the damning conclusion that researchers Ana Echagüe and Hélène Michou at the Foundation for the Future came to in a report released in May 2011 exploring Jordan’s civil society.

Over a year on has anything changed for the better? It’s hard to tell. A recent report launched by the same organisation points out the real challenges facing civil society organisations in the country. Firstly, donors tend to fund projects more than the infrastructure of the organization, leaving the organisations structurally weak and with sustainability issues. Secondly, there are legislative and government obstacles to the free execution of civil society activities in Jordan.

For example, the Foundation for the Future explains in a press release that foreign funding is subject to government approval and societies must “not intend to achieve any ‘political’ gains covered by the Political Parties Law in the course of their work”, though the term ‘political’ is undefined.

Why is all this relevant? Well, I have been thinking a lot about the environmental movement in the region and the importance of a strong civil society for it to flourish. If people are able to organise freely, feel that their voice matters and are unified then they are likely to take action on issues that concern them. If not, they will wait for the government to not only realise the severity of the problem but also come up with a solution. This is particularly worrying if the issue is climate change.

Climate change is not a problem that can be solved by governments and authorities – it’s far too wide reaching for that. It needs local solutions and local actions to go hand in hand with government support and policy. The problem can’t wait for governments to wake up and smell the carbon-dioxide coffee. So, if we are serious about building up an environmental movement in the Middle East, then we need to be serious about building up a strong and independent civil society first.

For more on Jordan see: 

Websites Go Black to Protest Internet Censorship in Jordan

King Abdullah: Israel is Disrupting Jordan’s Nuclear Ambitions

Recycling Yourself When Green Projects Go Bust

Image of Jordanian forced holding flowers distributed by protesters calling for release of political prisoners in Amman last month. Muhammad Hamed/Reuters.

The post Without A Strong Civil Society, Middle East Environment Has No Chance (Op-Ed) appeared first on Green Prophet.

It’s all bad news for Gazans – a UN report reveals that that region is under immense environmental stress which looks set to worsen unless dramatic action is taken

A comprehensive report released by the UN this week has warned that Gaza will no longer be ‘liveable’ by 2020 unless dramatic action is taken to improve its water supply, power, health and schooling. It adds that Gaza’s rapidly rising population of about 1.64 million could also lose its main source of fresh water by 2016. Clean water is limited for most Gazans to an average of 70-90 litres per person per day – the minimum global World Health Organization standard is 100 litres a day. “Damage to the coastal aquifer will be irreversible without immediate remedial action,” says the UN report.

A five year Israeli blockade supported by Egypt has crippled the Gazan enclave although Israel partly eased restrictions in mid-2010 and there have been improvement since. Real GDP is estimated to have risen by 28% percent in the first half of 2011 and unemployment dropped to 28 percent from 37 percent in 2010.

Even so, the report said that growth over the next eight years would be slow and due to its isolation, Gaza’s economy is essentially non-viable. Robert Turner, the director of operation of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said that by 2020 Gaza will need 440 new schools, 800 more hospital beds and over a 1,000 additional doctors.

The water situation has been highlighted as a major issue that needs serious action. Palestinians have been digging deeper and deeper to reach groundwater and have in the process damaged their water resources. According to IRIN, an average of 160 million cubic meters (mcm) of water is taken from the aquifer per year, but it is only fed with 50-60 mcm from rainfall and water-runoff from the Hebron Hills every year. This has resulted in a huge gap between water availability and usage. As a consequence, ground water levels have been falling, allowing seawater intrusion. Indeed, a desalination plant costing about $350 million is planned for the area.

: Image of fisherman in Gaza via Ryan Rodrick Beiler/Shutterstock.com

:: IRIN and Jordan Times

For more on Gaza see:

Gaza Getting 20! Zero-Emission Eco Schools

Israeli Environment Minister Proposes Cuts to Gaza Electricity to Bridge Shortfalls

Gaza Seawater Desalination Plant Backed By Europe

The post Gaza Unliveable by 2020 and Its Water Undrinkable by 2016 appeared first on Green Prophet.

If we all lived like the citizens of the UAE, we would need 5.4 planet earths to sustain us…

Sometimes the best way to say something is not with words but images. And there is truly no better wake up call to the UAE than this amazing infographic designed by Tim De Chant. It shows that if the world’s 7 billion people all lived like Emiratis, we would need 5.4 planet earths in terms of land to sustain us. That’s pretty scary – especially when you consider that the much-bemoaned lifestyle of the Chinese is, in contrast, pretty sustainable and would require only an extra 10% of planet earth. It’s also scary as the UAE doesn’t have the world’s largest carbon footprint, that particular privilege goes to Qatar.

::Thanks to Tim for granting us permission to use the infographic. See his website per square mile for more.

For more on the UAE and the environment see:
UAE Stands By Its Nuclear Plans
Qatar (Still) Has The World’s Largest Carbon Footprint
World Population Hits 7 Billion Today

The post We’d Need Five Worlds to Live Like the United Arab Emirates appeared first on Green Prophet.

Clear Libyan streets of trash and traffic for a brighter and more democratic future says expert

Security concerns in Libya may be top of the political agenda, but more goodwill could be earned if socio-economic problems such as traffic and trash are tackled says Rhiannon Smith, who is an economic development expert in Libya. Post-revolution, Libya is struggling with pressing security concerns, disunity and division along religious and ethnic lines. As such, political progress away from a long authoritarian past to a more democratic future has been painfully slow. The solution is tackling problems that all Libyans face and there isn’t more that unites Libyans in despair than the traffic and trash problem.

These “are issues that could be actively addressed with minimal controversy and relatively little effort which would not only improve living standards across the country, but also lay the groundwork for the psychological transition from authoritarianism to democracy,” writes Smith in OpenDemocracy.

With petrol cheaper than mineral water and a threadbare public transport infrastructure, the streets of Libya are congested and dangerous. A hike in petrol prices and greater enforcement of traffic rules is one quick solution whilst the public infrastructure is built up. As well as cutting back the congestion, the traffic law enforcement could be the “first step towards re-establishing rule of law in post-Gaddafi Libya.”

Another major issue facing Libyans is trash. On the streets, in the alleyways, in parks and schools, it’s clear that the country has a chronic litter problem. The main reason behind this is the absence of an organised, well-funded rubbish collection service and a general acceptance of littering. Smith argues that a massive overhaul is needed in the long-run but for now, a bigger workforce and modern collection vehicles would be a step in the right direction.

“Not only would the environment be cleaner and healthier, removing the litter could help kindle Libya’s fledgling tourism industry,” adds Smith. “Perhaps more importantly, cleaning the streets will show that the government is doing its job and might encourage people to consider the consequences of throwing their rubbish on the streets.”

It turns out that what’s good for the planet is also good for democracy – and there is nowhere that could benefit from more democracy and environmental action than the Arab world.

: OpenDemocracy

:: Image of Libyan children cleaning the streets via Times of Malta.

For more on Libya see:

Was The Arab Spring Good for Renewable Energy?

Libyan Artist Turns Weapons of War Into Sculptures

MENA is Changing Drastically & NASA Has The Pictures To Prove It

The post Libya’s Post-Revolution Trash and Traffic Problems appeared first on Green Prophet.

Green Prophet loves to broadcast the exploits of emerging social and environmental leaders.  Our writer Arwa introduced Karim Elgendy, creator of the influential LinkedIn group Carboun, focused on sustainable building in the Middle East. Tafline told of Turkey’s tree-hugging blogger, Jennifer Hattam.   And I reported on Jordan’s youngest activists, encouraged to grow into better global citizens by visionary school curricula.  Now there’s a limited-time opportunity for youth activists to grab some game-changing support.

July marks the beginning of BADIR, a promising new initiative that aims to equip young Jordanian leaders with the skills and know-how to strengthen and scale up their social change ambitions. Launched by the International Youth Foundation (IYF) with support from Starbucks, BADIR is part of a global network of youth leadership development programs.

The Jordan program will initially run for three years, supporting 45 exceptional youth-led social innovation projects through a rigorous program of proven leadership development activities. BADIR is designed to hit a trio of goals:

• Increase the reach and impact of youth led social change initiatives
• Facilitate learning and mentoring opportunities for participating youth
• Improve public understanding of the validity, power, and potential of youth led social change

Jordan IYF Country Director, Rana Al Turk blogged on the MENA/Starbucks website, “IYF is passionate in its belief that educated, employed, and engaged young people possess the power to solve the world’s toughest problems. And we’ve seen plenty of highly motivated, socially conscious young people in Jordan who love their country and want to play an active role in its development. These are the people that we’ll be reaching out to in the coming months and helping to realize their full potential.”

Turk notes that BADIR is built atop a decade of experience gained through IYF’s YouthActionNet leadership program and a global partnership with Starbucks, via the Starbucks Foundation. Similar national programs are underway in Australia, South America, Central America, and Turkey; each is deeply rooted in its local society.  BADIR works to strengthen youth leadership within individual countries and regions.

Are you buzzed?  Want to apply?

There are some ground rules.  You must be between 18 and 30 years old, be a resident of Jordan, and work with Jordanian communities.  Applicants must also demonstrate that they are founders or co-founders of a social change project/organization that’s been running for at least 3 months.

You can apply online, or you can download the Word version of the application form.  If you opt for the paper app, fill it out and either snail mail or fax it to the address specified on the application. A selection committee made up of representatives from Jordan’s public, private, and development sectors will review and score all applications. The highest scoring 23 applications will be selected for the 2012 Class of Fellows.

Deadline is September 25, 2012.

If selected to be part of BADIR, you’ll have the chance to meet and collaborate with like-minded innovators who share your passion for positive change.

In addition to training, BADIR Fellows will be eligible to receive $5,000 through the program’s social innovation fund once they have completed the first training workshop and the funding application process. Networking’s nothing to sneeze at: participants will also join up with a vibrant global network of over 550 young social innovators in 60+ countries.

Since 2008, 84 youth-led initiatives in 30 countries have received Youth Action Grants through IYF’s partnership with Starbucks.  Creation of a national-level program to support Jordan’s young social innovators is a natural extension of their existing partnership.

For more information on how you can participate, take a look at the BADIR website and follow the project news on Facebook and Twitter.

You, and your community, have nothing to lose.

::BADIR

Image of Approved Business Plan with Coffee Cup from of Shutterstock

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