Social enterprise advocate Joan Icotanim speaks softly but lives out loud, filling her days with a passion and vision for building a world-class Philippines.

Social enterprise advocate Joan Icotanim speaks softly but lives out loud, filling her days with a passion and vision for building a world-class Philippines.

THE SEED OF A DREAM

Social enterprise advocate Joan Icotanim speaks softly but lives out loud. While many Filipinos profess a love for the nation, Joan skips the lip service and actively fills her days with a passion and vision for building a world-class Philippines.

Before starting out at Human Nature, Joan used to work in real estate. Part of her responsibility was to help provide low cost housing to those who could not afford an extravagant lifestyle. But Joan knew in her heart that the Filipino poor needed more than homes, after all - they needed a future. Little did she know that this was the seed of a much bigger dream.

FLOWERING COMPASSION

Joan explains, “Caritas in Veritate (Charity in Truth) by Pope Benedict XVI says that true development is not just economic development and that business should not be done for profit alone. As a business graduate and part of the sheepfold, I felt it is my responsibility to do something to heed his call. It was the same time that I got hold of a Human Nature magalogue for the first time.” 

Joan made her leap of faith in 2011 and joined Human Nature's Social Enterprise and Development (SED) team, a uniquely distinct department that focuses on strategic business planning for local communities and creating sustainable livelihood for various beneficiaries. From business planning, to project implementation, to implementation assessment, the SED team ensures the development of long-term programs for community development. It is a job she calls “making the advocacies a reality.”

Joan's role is to go about helping develop community farms all over the country, such as the GK Pueblo Antonio sunflower and passion fruit farming community in Catigan, Davao, where beneficiaries are trained and guided so that the land they till can soon produce world-class crops. 


The SED Team during the launch of CommPassion: Angeli Diamante, Joan Icotanim, Anna Meloto-Wilk, Rene Rieta (GK Davao coordinator), Mike Go, Jong Noriel

SOCIAL GROWTH IS HUMAN GROWTH

Joan shares an important lesson she learned about social business: 

“Social enterprises will change the way business is done in the Philippines... It will also change the pattern of consumer behavior: we will be proud consumers of local brands because local is now equated to quality. It will change the mindset of the youth because they will see the many good things in the country that they can nurture and develop. Social enterprises contribute to authentic development which is not only economic development, but also human development."

THE PATH OF EXCELLENCE

Fighting the battle against poverty is no easy task, no overnight project. Hard work, commitment, and self-sacrifice is necessary to turn around the many years of neglect our agricultural sector has suffered.

But as the saying goes, “pressure turns coals into diamonds.” It's no ordinary work to bridge the gap between business and grassroots communities, and it builds no ordinary character. For Joan, a company that produces world-class products and develops world-class community producers only has room for excellence.

And why not? For the reward of future generations living a life of prosperity, dignity, and pride in one's own country, the sacrifice is well worth it.


L-R: Joan and GK founder Tony Meloto flanked by European business students, Joan with GK community children

KERNELS OF INSPIRATION

Joan continues to find inspiration in her daily work as well. In a seminar she attended recently, Joan was given the chance to hear Mara Gonzalez, a Filipina based in LA, talk about her work as an accountant in the multi-national American brand Sunkist. Learning that Sunkist was a cooperative - a “not-for-profit” entity in a country that was built by for-profit corporations - gave Joan the perfect affirmation that she was on the right track.

Armed with the knowledge that a farming cooperative can actually be a world-class producer, Joan moves with unwavering faith that our own farming communities CAN make it big, sustainably, inclusively. In the social enterprise economy, everybody wins!

BRANCHING OUT TO THE WORLD

A person who’s always been fond of traveling, Joan often lives out of a suitcase, visiting one community this week and tending test farm plots the following week. 

Last November 2011, Joan was privileged to go on a 16-day tour of Europe's top business schools - Cambridge, Oxford, Warwick, London School of Economics - with Gawad Kalinga's father and founder himself, Tito Tony Meloto, to inspire students to go into social enterprise ventures. 


L-R: Joan at a farming community carrying seedlings, Joan and Tony Meloto at Cambridge University

The students' enthusiastic reception of Human Nature's story of a social enterprise's triumph in the competitive cosmetics and personal care market set Joan's spirit on fire. We always ooh and aah over foreign brands, but here are Europeans looking up to a small Philippine startup for inspiration!

A LOVE FOR COUNTRY THAT GROWS... AND GROWS

Ever since her life-changing trip to Europe, Joan decided she's never giving up the dream that the Philippines will be a first-world country in our generation. "Seeing the growth of Human Nature and the emergence of other promising enterprises makes me confident of a poverty-free Philippines!” 

We salute you, Joan, for continuing to inspire us create a better Philppines and giving the best for the least! It is because of people like you that we our proud to say, "I am a Filipino!" May you continue to touch the lives of millions by fulfilling your dreams for yourself, community and country!