Developing a social enterprise project idea with the disadvantaged from the 'bottom up'

This paper looks at a small pilot project which aimed to develop an antipoverty strategy with a small number of disadvantaged people in inner-urban Melbourne. The main objective of the project was to facilitate a small group of people so that they themselves could develop a social enterprise idea as a way of addressing some of their issues of poverty. The pilot study also tried to ascertain whether the participating welfare agency would be interested in integrating such a project idea into its existing services. The paper discusses some of the processes and difficulties involved in arriving at the participants’ social enterprise idea, clearly showing that the disadvantaged people themselves have the capacity to contribute to the development of similar antipoverty project ideas.