In many countries around the world, there is a lack of legal structures available to social enterprises. Sometimes, the term “social enterprise” is completely unknown. While there are countless companies, funders, investors and consumers looking to trust their money to businesses that put people and planet before profit, they don’t always know that a social enterprise is what they’re looking for.
In these locations, the importance of a verifiable identity is important to enable potential supporters, partners and customers to be able to identify these businesses. This is the case in Lebanon, where arcenciel – a social enterprise dedicated to social and economic development for marginalised Lebanese communities – is advocating for new laws and better education around the handling of social issues.
To learn more about this, we spoke to Elie Khayat, Agrifood Innovation and Development Hub Manager at arcenciel. We also learned how arcenciel has recently adapted its programmes to aid displaced people during Lebanon’s current crisis.
Can you tell us a little bit about your career so far and how you first got involved with arcenciel?
My background is in agricultural engineering and I have a masters in economics and for the last 25 years I’ve been working in rural and agricultural development in Lebanon. Between 2017 and 2021, I managed a masters programme in NGO Management at La Sagesse University in Beirut.
As for arcenciel, I joined three and a half years ago in their agricultural programme. But I’ve been following their activities since they were founded in 1985 and I’d participated as a volunteer in their programmes before joining officially.
Can you explain your work with arcenciel and what the organisation does?
Our core mission at arcenciel is to be at the service of marginalised, disabled and vulnerable people in Lebanon, by focusing on disability rights, environmental protection and community development.
Photo credit: @arcenciel.aec (Instagram)
In the agricultural programmes that I’m part of, we’re trying to support and improve the livelihood of farmers. This involves promoting local organic agriculture, preserving traditional food culture in these communities and tailoring services to the farmers’ specific needs. Collaboration and cooperation are very important in fostering community development by sharing knowledge. And this has always been part of arcenciel’s mission.
We work from the bottom up, based on the needs of the people using our programmes and taking environmental issues into consideration. Sometimes we don’t do the same as what other NGOs might be doing, but only because we base what we do on what the community needs, not on trends. We are a service provider, so all of our programmes – whether that’s social and medical services, agriculture, youth education – are designed for this purpose.
Has arcenciel’s work changed in response to the conflict in Lebanon?
We have shifted what we do to deliver more of the emergency programmes that are needed in Lebanon right now. The Lebanese population is about 4.5 million people, but we also have about 2 million Syrian refugees and 1.5 million people who have been displaced from roughly a quarter of the Lebanese territory.
It was very easy for us to shift from being a business-oriented service provider to delivering programmes that tackled the needs of these displaced people. For example, we have a few used guesthouses which have been able to host 400 people each. We also have four restaurants that shifted immediately to serve around 35,000 hot meals a day between September and November this year.
Photo credit: @arcenciel.aec (Instagram)
The social welfare and medical side of arcenciel also provided 20,000 hygiene products and treated 12 tons of hospital waste to prevent any outbreaks of illness in these hosting centres. We have about 6,000 volunteers in our programmes across Lebanon and all of them moved very quickly to deliver these emergency responses.
I think that having a social enterprise mindset has helped with being able to respond so rapidly and I believe that all NGOs should have a social enterprise-oriented mind as well. We insist on educating all our volunteers on this mindset and way of operating, because that’s the spirit we’re trying to create in arcenciel.
Why is verification important for social enterprises?
At arcenciel we’re interested in anything that concerns key performance indicators, governance and transparency. A verification like People and Planet First, is one of the most important processes we can go through to make sure we’re aligned with the social enterprise mindset we want to cultivate and that we’re always operating, as we believe a social enterprise should.
There currently isn’t any legal definition in Lebanon covering what a social enterprise looks like and there isn’t much education on the issue either. But we’re hopeful that this kind of verification process will help as we advocate for the Lebanese parliament to adopt new laws and frameworks for social enterprises.
What changes have you seen in the social enterprise space over your career?
On the government side, adoption of new laws around the management and service of social issues has been slow and we are struggling with this issue. There have been changes – arcenciel have helped pioneer laws around treatment for disabled people and the handling of hospital waste – but it was a long process.
However, I expect within the next few years we will see changes. For that to happen we need a different mindset around social issues and we need to educate people. At arcenciel we’re proposing education and training about social issues and possibly the creation of social enterprise schools. At the very least, there should be programmes at the university level to develop this mindset and education.
Sooner or later, people do come together on the same objectives. It might be a long process, but we will get there step by step.
Visit the People and Planet First website to learn more about the verification process, find verified enterprises to purchase from or explore ways to support People and Planet First.