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Fish Climbing Trees – social enterprise films

Posted in: News.

CEIS has supported an innovative film project ‘Fish Climbing Trees’ featuring interviews with international experts on the positive difference social enterprise makes to people’s lives and examining the many challenges social entrepreneurs face in creating successful and sustainable businesses.

CEIS is one of the sponsors of the unusually-titled film by award winning Director, David Boni which been created in three chapters. The title was inspired by a quote attributed to Albert Einstein:

“Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid.”

It encapsulates one of the film’s central messages that social enterprise plays a critical role in empowering people who might not otherwise have an opportunity to fully participate in the workplace or in society.

The first of the three chapter films, ‘The End of the Beginning’ was launched at the Social Enterprise Policy & Practice conference on 2nd September. Gerry Higgins, CEO for CEIS joins like-minded industry leaders on screen including Professor Mohammed Yunus to champion the role of social enterprise in effecting change in society. The film followed the launch of the ‘Social Enterprise in Scotland: Census 2015’, which demonstrated the impact the sector has on the national economy.

The film features a wide range of social enterprises talking about their passion and ambition to accomplish their social mission, and the difficult balancing act of achieving a positive social and environmental impact while simultaneously striving to deliver high quality products and services that can compete with commercial businesses.

Social enterprises featured in the films include : Social Bite, a small Scottish-based chain of sandwich shops which donates 100% of profits to good causes and which employs a high ratio of formerly homeless people; C-Taste a novel restaurant business in the Netherlands where diners eat in the dark, served by blind or sight-impaired waiters; and Tony Chocolonely, a Dutch chocolate manufacturer which ensures that its cocoa is ‘100% slave-free’ (i.e. not sourced from any of the West African cocoa farms that forcibly use unpaid child labour; and Grassroots Journeys, an Indian tour guide company helping local people return to their villages by training them to work as guides.

Watch the 3 short Fish Climbing Trees films here

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