A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in Brisbane

This paper proposes a social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in Brisbane, owned, run and staffed by refugees from Iran and Syria. The paper discusses the financial, environmental and ethical implications of the proposed social innovation concept and how it contributes to the common good.

Running head: A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee
Cleaning Service in Brisbane
A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
Name of the student
Name of the University
Author note

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A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
Table of Contents
Executive Summary.........................................................................................................................2
Discussion of social innovation and community engagement theory.............................................2
Description of your proposed social innovation..............................................................................4
Discussion of the financial, environmental and ethical implications of your social innovation and
how your social innovation contributes to the common good.........................................................5
Discuss a significant implementation challenge..............................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................8
References........................................................................................................................................9

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A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
Executive Summary
The purpose of the study is to give a social innovation concept which is based on
community engagement. For the purpose of social innovation concept the paper has chosen
Refugee Cleaning Service in Brisbane as to develop an idea of establishing the cleaning service
in Brisbane that is owned, run as well as staffed by the refugees from Iran and Syria. The study
begins by giving an overview of the theory of social innovation and community engagement
since the report is based on the two topics. In this section the study defines the two theories while
discussion how the two theories are dependable on each other. The major part of the study gives
the description of the proposed social innovation concept. The study gives special attention on
the financial, environmental and ethical implications of the proposed social innovation concept
and then proceeds further discussing how the proposed concept generates contribution to the
common good. The study then identifies and discusses the possible challenges while
implementing the social innovation concept. Finally the paper concludes by summing up the
entire discussion.
Discussion of social innovation and community engagement theory
As per Moulaert (2013), the term social innovation refers to new strategies, concepts and
ideas along with organization which intend to fulfill social requirement. The new ideas or
strategies in the name of innovation are developed in an attempt to strengthen the civic society.
The theory of social innovations includes several aspects like open source methods and
techniques through which are well-known as social process of innovation. Cajaiba-Santana
(2014) suggests that the main aim of social innovation refers to the innovations which have some

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A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
social purpose to fulfill such as community development. The innovators of social innovations
include the names of Muhammad Yunus who founded Grammeen Bank pioneering the notion of
microcredit so that support can be provided to the innovators in more than one developing
country like Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Moulaert, MacCallumc and Hillier 2013). Since
social innovation fulfills social purpose there remains confusion between social innovation and
social work. Hence, it needs to be clarified what distinguishes social innovations from social
work. Unlike social work which refers to some activities that aim to the betterment of society,
social innovation emphasizes on the process of innovation as to how the innovations or change
happen. According to Grimm et al. (2013), the term also alludes to the new idea or new way of
corporation which work towards achieving of sustainable society. The whole idea of social
innovation is generally diffused through particular organization. Even though the concept is
diffused by organizations, the aim of social innovation does not focus on generating profiting.
Meanwhile, Phillips et al. (2015) states that as per the Bureau of European Policy
Advisors, the concept of social innovation is socially oriented. Hence, social innovation alludes
to the ability of addressing the social requirements which could not be fulfilled by the traditional
policies. However, there are two other characterizations of social innovations. A range of social
innovations aim to improve a group of individuals and the other characterization of social
innovation focuses on the willingness to change social relations. Often social innovations are
considered as the way of increasing the quality of service that are offered with a social purpose,
Moreover, social innovations are the result of mental creativity which has a purpose of meeting
the social need.
On the other hand, as per O'Mara-Eves et al.(2013), the theory of community
management has been interpreted by several ways. However, the most considered theory of

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A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
community engagement alludes to involvement, participation along with a range of activities. It
is mainly the process of a collaborative work while engaging community groups in order to
address the issues which have an influence on the well being of a group of individuals or a
community. The concept of community management is to harness involvement from
communities in the process of improvement. Hence, community development alludes to the
participation of the people of community in collective activities. The whole idea of community
engagement is to benefit the society as well as the concerned organization (Wells et al. 2013).
Thus, it can be said that social innovation and community engagement are interconnected society
is the most common factor of the two concept as well as both the two concepts generate benefits
to the society.
Description of your proposed social innovation
The new idea will be developing a cleaning service in Brisbane manned by the refugees
who come from Syria and Iraq. The cleaning service will be aiming to create employment
opportunities for the refugees since they are underprivileged and belong from a vulnerable
background. The cleaning service will be exclusively for the Iraq and Syrian refugees since they
hardly get any job opportunities in the competitive labor market. There are a large number of
issues for which the refugees from Iraq and Syria do not get opportunities of employment and
one of them is that they belong from different cultural background in the Australian society
while other barriers include not having local references, no opportunities of education and
mainly no opportunities of employment. Hence, keeping the aim of improving this community in
mind, the social innovation will be establishing the cleaning service organization (Balestrini et
al. 2014).

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A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
Beside of giving the opportunity of employment, the refugees will be given training so
that they will be able to enhance their efficiency as well as confidence. The refugees will be
given on job training so that they will be to learn practical aspects and shape their skills
accordingly. The major part of the social innovation will be the assurance that every refugee
during their training as well as after the training will be providing support to them so that they do
not end up in discontinuation of their employment (Dare, Schirmer and Vanclay 2014). Every
employee will be given the electronic device through which they will be provided with support
in case they face any issues or difficulties when they will be in the practical field.
The social innovation can be distinguished since there is another cleaning service
organization in Brisbane which is run by the refugees from Africa. Thus this idea of developing
cleaning service organization in order to give employment opportunities to new group refugees is
a new idea (Waterton and Watson 2013). On the other hand providing the refugees the electronic
gadgets through which they will not be able tracked but through which they can be provided
assistance whenever needed fulfills the purpose of the social innovation.
Discussion of the financial, environmental and ethical implications of your
social innovation and how your social innovation contributes to the common
good
Financial implications: The refugee cleaning service must have its source of finance in
order to continue its operations. Since the aim of the cleaning service is to provide employment
opportunities, it must fulfill the refugees’ financial needs (Moulaert 2013). Hence, in order to
assure that the financial process remains undisrupted, the company must assure that the financial
flow is from multiple sources. The cleaning service will not be relied only on the government

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A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
grants. Instead, it will tie up with big companies who will be helping by financial means in order
to promote their social responsibility activities. While the industrial entities will be providing
financial support, the individual investors will also be welcomed in order to provide support
economically to the cleaning service.
Environmental implications: The social innovation will give exclusive attention to the
sustainable approach. The cleaning machines and other equipments used for the purpose of
cleaning will be used by the refugees will made of elements that are easily degradable (Moulaert
2013). For example, instead of modern plastic made brooms, the traditional wooden brooms will
be used during the process of cleaning. The products with eco-friendly components will include
cleaning liquid cleaner which does not contain any chemical.
Ethical implications: The ethical implications will be taken under consideration while in
the whole design of social innovation. Even though the aim of the social innovation is to upgrade
the societal well being of refugees, special attention will be given so that asylum seekers are not
included among the refugees from Iraq and Syria. It will be assured no racism is developed
between the people from Iraq and Syria. A healthy environment will be maintained assuring that
not a single refugee is discriminated based on their cultural background and race (Dare, Schirmer
and Vanclay, 2014). The volunteers who will be designated in order to provide support to the
refugees for the professional purpose must be ensured that they provide support to each refugee
without considering their cultural background.
Contribution to the common good: The main purpose of the social innovation will be
providing assistance to the unprivileged people so that they will be able to rebuild their lives with
maintaining dignity (Moulaert 2013). The social innovation will contribute to the society by

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A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
creating sustainable employment for the under privilege people. On the other hand, one of the
main agenda of the social innovation is to create a safe as well as healthy working environment
where these refugees will not be discriminated, rather will be given the opportunity to enhance
their skills.
Discuss a significant implementation challenge
The major challenge which might occur in the implementation process of social
innovation is the racial discriminative behavior from the Australian community. The Australian
people might have a negative outlook towards the refugees. The refugees might be
underestimated and can face humiliation since they take shelter in a country which is not their
own country (Waterton and Watson 2013). The other major challenge can be aroused in terms of
language. Language can become a huge barrier since the people from Iraq and Syria hardly can
communicate over English language while Australia is exclusively an english-speaking country.
Hence, while delivering the cleaning service, there is a high chance that the refugees will be
facing immense challenges while having conversation with the Australian customers (Dare,
Schirmer and Vanclay 2014). However, the social innovation concept will give a special
attention on language training so that the refugees will acquire basic knowledge of the English
language in order to make the Australian people understand what they want to convey.
Meanwhile, the employees will be given the training on etiquette of Australian culture in order to
assure that they do not face humiliation while serving their employment.

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A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
Conclusion
Thus in order to conclude it will be apt to assert that social innovation concept will fulfill
the purpose of social need since it aims to elevate the social status and wellbeing of the refugees
from Iraq and Syria. With social purpose, the social innovation concept will be developing a
Refugee Cleaning Service in Brisbane which will be owned, run as well as staffed by the
refugees from Iran and Syria. The paper began by giving an overview of the theory of social
innovation and community engagement as it was important to give an understanding of the two
concepts. The two concepts were well defined in that section while discussed how the two
theories are dependable on each other. The major part of the study gave the overview of the
proposed social innovation concept as well as it gave special attention on the financial,
environmental and ethical implications of the proposed social innovation concept. The study then
proceeded further discussing how the proposed concept generates contribution to the common
good. In the final part of the discussion, the study also highlights the possible challenges in the
implications of the social innovation concept.

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A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
References
Balestrini, M., Bird, J., Marshall, P., Zaro, A. and Rogers, Y., 2014, April. Understanding
sustained community engagement: a case study in heritage preservation in rural Argentina.
In Proceedings of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems (pp.
2675-2684). ACM.
Cajaiba-Santana, G., 2014. Social innovation: Moving the field forward. A conceptual
framework. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 82, pp.42-51.
Dare, M., Schirmer, J. and Vanclay, F., 2014. Community engagement and social licence to
operate. Impact assessment and project appraisal, 32(3), pp.188-197.
Grimm, R., Fox, C., Baines, S. and Albertson, K., 2013. Social innovation, an answer to
contemporary societal challenges? Locating the concept in theory and practice. Innovation: The
European Journal of Social Science Research, 26(4), pp.436-455.
Moulaert, F. ed., 2013. The international handbook on social innovation: collective action,
social learning and transdisciplinary research. Edward Elgar Publishing.
Moulaert, F., MacCallum, D. and Hillier, J., 2013. Social innovation: intuition, precept,
concept. The International Handbook on Social Innovation: collective action, social learning
and transdisciplinary research, 13.
O'Mara-Eves, A., Brunton, G., McDaid, G., Oliver, S., Kavanagh, J., Jamal, F., Matosevic, T.,
Harden, A. and Thomas, J., 2013. Community engagement to reduce inequalities in health: a
systematic review, meta-analysis and economic analysis. Public Health Research, 1(4).

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A community engagement focused social innovation concept for Refugee Cleaning Service in
Brisbane
Phillips, W., Lee, H., Ghobadian, A., O’Regan, N. and James, P., 2015. Social innovation and
social entrepreneurship: A systematic review. Group & Organization Management, 40(3),
pp.428-461.
Waterton, E. and Watson, S. eds., 2013. Heritage and community engagement: collaboration or
contestation?. Routledge.
Wells, K.B., Jones, L., Chung, B., Dixon, E.L., Tang, L., Gilmore, J., Sherbourne, C., Ngo, V.K.,
Ong, M.K., Stockdale, S. and Ramos, E., 2013. Community-partnered cluster-randomized
comparative effectiveness trial of community engagement and planning or resources for services
to address depression disparities. Journal of general internal medicine, 28(10), pp.1268-1278.