The Successful Sheds
The year is 2011. A once booming Emerald Isle now sits in bust and with that brings a new wave of social and economic issues.
I’ve always believed that in the absence of services provided by our country, social entrepreneurship is key. I’ve also believed that more often than not individual problems need social solutions. It feels weird talking about this time as it really wasn’t that long ago and I remember quite clearly hearing about The Irish Men’s Sheds Association (IMSA) being setup and spreading throughout the country. I remember a few years later when I joined the social entrepreneurship society in college thinking what makes projects like that one so special? Why do some last and others don’t?
To be honest it was actually only recently I think I found out what the common factor in all successes is and I’ll discuss that a bit here but I want to discuss a bit about IMSA and how it executed perfectly on the factors that make a social enterprise strive.
Whats it all about?
“A Men’s Shed is any community-based, non-commercial organisation which is open to all men where the primary activity is the provision of a safe, friendly and inclusive environment where the men are able to gather and/or work on meaningful projects at their own pace, in their own time and in the company of other men and where the primary objective is to advance the health and well- being of the participating men. Men’s sheds may look like a shed in you back yard yet they innovatively share some characteristics of both community education and health promotion projects.”
That’s the description on the IMSA website and there are a few words there that stand out. The main one being “Community Based”. What I’ve noticed is that an individualistic cultures will benefit hugely from projects with collectivistic traits like this one. This has actually been a running theme throughout this series so far. Personally I think this is one of the big factors that differentiates a successful social enterprise from a not so successful one.
To speak a bit on that, an individualistic cultures is “ a society which is characterized by individualism, which is the prioritization or emphasis, of the individual over the entire group.Individualistic cultures are oriented around the self, being independent instead of identifying with a group mentality. They see each other as only loosely linked, and value personal goals over group interests. Individualistic cultures tend to have a more diverse population and are characterized with emphasis on personal achievements, and a rational assessment of both the beneficial and detrimental aspects of relationships with others. Individualistic cultures have such unique aspects of communication as being a low power-distance culture and having a low-context communication style. The United States, Australia, Great Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, and New Zealand have been identified as highly individualistic cultures.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individualistic_culture)
Ireland would also be in this category and I believe from what I see that the reason some social enterprises succeed over others is because they fill the gaps of this type of society.
IMSA was founded at a time when unemployment was at a high in Ireland and at a peak recession time. In a time like that it’s not news that cases of loneliness and depression can climb higher than any other time. The unfortunate thing is that in an individualistic culture these issues can be magnified and take a lot longer to overcome.
Benefits of Irish Mens Sheds
Community Based
No surprises on this one, community strikes again. These types of activities for people in the community can be incredibly social which can really bond people.
There is also huge room for community development through people getting to know each other but also through the projects that are worked on. If the shed decides they want to work on refurbishing something local for example, this contributes hugely to the development of the community.
Health Promoting
A key aspect of IMSA is health promotion and this is a huge benefit for people especially when these communities are rural. I think I mentioned it previously but isolation is a huge issue all over the country especially when it comes to the elderly and bringing a social aspect to peoples lives can have huge health benefits.
This is a common enough theme among all projects even if sometimes it isn’t that obvious but if you are helping people, their health will always be affected positively!
Could it work in countries other than Ireland?
Absolutely this could work outside Ireland! This could work anywhere in the world in my opinion and as a social enterprise it ticks all the boxes.
I have heard of other countries such as Scotland having similar projects so we know that it isn’t just Ireland. Aswell as this the barriers to starting up are not huge and in this case IMSA have resources to help you get setup (http://menssheds.ie). Huge lessons can be taken from this idea and transferred to other ideas, such as health promotion, community development etc.
An incredible project doing incredible work.
