University Students Found Social Enterprises to Solve Crisis of Elementary School’s Closeness

The teachers and students from National University of Tainan and CYCU conducted the site survey in Shuang Lian Elementary School and Shuang Lian Community and planned to find another opportunity for the rural area elementary school by marketing the sand pear produced locally. The photo shows that student team members are experiencing the harvesting and packing process by the fruit farmers. Photo/provided by Ministry of Education

2016-03-1707:48 United Daily News Reporter Hong Hsin-Tzu/News of Taipei

Shuang Lian Elementary School situated in Zhuolan Township, Miaoli County, which consists of only 30 faculty and students, is facing the crisis of school closeness. In order to make the school keep surviving, the teachers and students from CYCU and National University of Tainan helped the local community farmers found the social enterprise and raise the value of the local sand pear. 30% of the profit earned therefor will be allocated to farmers and the school respectively, and the remaining 40% thereof will be allocated to shareholders to keep the farmers stay in their hometown to fight for themselves and also keep the school continue operating with sufficient fund.

Low birth rate and population shift are rendering adverse impact to rural area elementary schools. Ministry of Education has started to promote the “Innovative and Start-up Plan for Development of Communities Based on Schools” since April of last year. As a result, a total of 12 rural area junior high schools and elementary schools were participating in the plan on a trial basis in 2015, and 12 colleges/universities, 21 university teachers and 130 university students were stationed in the rural areas accordingly.

The principal investigator of the Plan, Associate Dean of College of Management, National Sun Yat-sen University, Chen Yi-Heng stated that the rural area elementary school is the core of a community and plays the important role to inherit cultures and, therefore, we should not leave it extinguish so easily; whether a school should survive or be abandoned depends on the number of students, and the number of students are closely related to the community population and economic development. In other words, in order to keep the rural area elementary school survive, we have to find the possibility of economic activities for the community.

Assistant Professor of CYCU Department of Business Administration, Li Ming-Yen, indicated that there was a total of 100 households of farmers living in Shuang Lian Community, who planted sand pear as the major agricultural product locally. Though the pear was of excellent quality, these farmers only knew how to plant but had no idea how to market it and, therefore, could not help but leave the price of pear determined by the middlemen solely. Each household of farmer could generate the revenue in the amount of NT$400,000 or NT$500,000, less the cost, per year.  In other words, they barely earned any profits therefrom. Chairman of the Village Renewal Residents’ Promotion Society of Shuan Lian Community Development Association, Chiu Li-Kun, sighed that “even the best industry needs new blood”, but few young people are willing to stay in hometown to fight for it.

When the team arrived at the Community at the first time, the residents asked the team members “whether they would come next time?” The residents’ worry about the team’s give-up halfway made the team’s determination to execute the plan more soundly. A total of 10 teachers and students from the both universities have visited the Community to interact with the local residents, and finally decided to raise the “value” of the local pear. Therefore, the team worked with 8 farmers to found the social enterprise, “Shuang Lian Company”, to develop the “Pear Homeland” marketing program and design the “Shuan Lian Pear” brand, in hopes of raising the public awareness toward the pear on the Internet.

According to Li Ming-Yen, the plan was supported by Chairman of Board of Yi Pei Technology Co., Ltd., Hsieh Chih-Hung, who contributed the capital in his personal name and planned to raise fund online in April. The fund-raising target was set as NT$900,000, which will be contributed as the capital for the farmers. In the future, the pear will be marketed on line. Meanwhile, the team is negotiating with such channels as PX Mart and Welcome. In addition to the acquisition cost, the farmers may be allocated 30% of the profit from sale of the pear.

The team forecast that if the pear is sold out, the profit in the amount of NT$14,250,000 may be generated per year and the school and farmers may be allocated NT$4 million each; therefore, the farmers’ revenue may be improved and the school may receive the expenditure to keep operating. The school should play the role as the sales base helping stock of the goods.  By so doing, the team hopes to find another opportunity for the rural area school.

Source: http://udn.com/news/story/6886/1568364