ISEA visits the MBCN Project Site in China - Institute for Social Entrepreneurship in Asia

In the last week of September, The ISEA Team visited the social enterprises that are implementing the Model Building of Community Networks (MBCN) linked to Social Enterprise and Local Economic Development (MBCN) pilot initiative in China in partnership with Sources for Action (SFA) China supported by APNIC Foundation as part of ISIF Asia 2022.

SFA partnered with returning youth Wu Fengying and Zhang Chuanhui, who are the co-founders of Yunshang Granary in the Meide Dong Village in Guizhou, China. Yunshang Granary is a social enterprise that integrates agri-eco cultural tourism and the provision of sustainable livelihoods centered on promoting regenerative rice-based agriculture and Dong indigenous culture. Through MBCN and in partnership with SFA, Fengying and Chuanhui are leading the demonstration of what meaningful connectivity is to the Dong people in Meide.

Together with SFA, they are effectively enabling the Meide Dong Village to develop a virtual repository of their indigenous knowledge system and an app to share such knowledge as well as to better promote their cultural events and enhance the marketing of their products and services to the outside world. Yunshang Granary is being held up and supported by the government as a model social enterprise worthy of replication in other communities.

As part of the MBCN Project, an interactive screen purchased and set up in the project located in the Granary’s lobby that stakeholders can use to upload and download knowledge resources from the database/repository of indigenous knowledge and practices that have been documented. The project also supported the development of an application accessible thru this screen or by phone which serves as platform for the outside world to access knowledge resources made publicly available by the community, info on planned cultural events and a virtual market of products and services that the community offers.