Be inspired!
The South East accommodates many inspiring and diverse social enterprises. If you want to read more about some of the region's inspiring and vibrant sector, you can download case studies from the box to the right.
On a national level, The Big Issue, the Eden Project and Jamie Oliver's restaurant Fifteen are some examples of successful social enterprises. So are award-winners Divine Chocolate, a fair trade chocolate company co-owned by the cocoa farmers cooperative Kuapa Kokoo in Ghana and Women like Us, which connects women with flexible employment.
Social enterprises cover a huge range of industries - Cafedirect is the UK's largest Fairtrade hot drinks company; The Elvis & Kresse Organisation (EaKo) takes industrial waste materials, turns them into stylish luggage and hand bags and donates 50% of the profits to the Fire Fighters Charity; Hill Holt Wood educates at-risk youth in an ancient woodland; Central Surrey Health is a pioneering social enterprise in the health care world that is run by the nursing and therapy teams it employs; Green-works takes office furniture that would have been sent to the landfill and offers it at a large discount to charities and other organisations. It is an extremely diverse sector!
