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Field trip to the first South Korean social enterprise BeautifulStore

Writer : Dr. Hasan TINMAZ | Date : 2018.11.16 | Hit : 8,107

On November 5, 2018 our students on social entrepreneurship course from Endicott College and Culinary Department visited the first social enterprise in South Korea, the BeautifulStore which is the brand name of a chain of charity shops that promote recycling and sharing in Korea. As this this enterprise’s website states “[s]tarting with a store in Anguk, Seoul in 2002, The BeautifulStore Foundation has seen almost 120 more stores open in 16 cities across Korea, and two shops abroad. These stores serve as local meeting places for people to work together to bring about positive change in their local communities”. The founder of this Social Enterprise is the current Mayor of Seoul city, Mr. Park Won-soon. Our students first visited BeautifulStore’s head office in Seoul where they enjoyed very interesting presentation by Mr. Wonseop Kim, Team Leader of Education & Culture, on history Beautiful Store’s history, business operations and overall experience of running a social enterprise. The session was very interesting, students were able to ask many questions. We then visited one of the shops of this enterprise in Seoul. Students comment that this was unique experience to be in a real social enterprise and ask questions from the people with hand’s on experience to run such business.