Running a farm for undocumented migrants to work, engage, and learn is one thing, but turning it into a business-like, financially independent entity is another. This year, VU students taking a business administration lab course were tasked with combining social impact and entrepreneurship in helping said farm: De Meent.
De Meent was founded by the Protestant Diaconate Amsterdam in 2020 as a farm where undocumented migrants can participate. Although it is not meant to provide them with a path to employment, they can benefit from integrating into society and learning agricultural skills. All of the farm’s produce goes towards meals for participants and social food projects. According to Nicky Dankelman, a manager of the initiative, immigrants in the Netherlands without a legal status do not have the right to be lawfully employed or even volunteer. But they are allowed to “participate” on – for instance – a farm, which is what inspired De Meent.
Finding funds
One of the main issues the project is currently facing is a lack of revenue. The farm has been financially dependent on the Diaconate, but doesn’t want to rely solely on them and is now looking for its own sources of funding. This search turned out to be a perfect task for International Business Administration students, eager to do field work after their theory-based and “repetitive” first year. Starting last February, four groups of second-year students researched various solutions for funding the project, as part of the IBA LAB 1 elective course. In late March, they presented their ideas to Dankelman and participants of the farm, at an event at the Diaconate.
The approach taken by students was clearly entrepreneurial. Ideas ranged from a crowdfunding campaign and an auction to renting out the location for events. Most presenters emphasized the need for increasing the project’s visibility in the media and maintaining a relationship with donors. Some groups targeted individuals willing to make small contributions, while others chose to address companies with a social responsibility budget.
As with all business proposals, not all ideas were a hit. Some presentations received rather mixed reactions from the De Meent team, who often pointed out confusing elements and unrealistic goals. But some pitches got Dankelman excited. “They gave us a lot of ideas we want to continue”, she said afterwards. “They did a really good job.” She considers the charity gala and a GoFundMe campaign to be particularly outstanding and most likely to be realised, although she says that “it is hard to say how soon these ideas will be implemented.” Her enthusiasm was shared by other attendees involved in De Meent. “They impressed me so much”, said Eugene, an immigrant participating at the farm, who preferred to not share his last name.
‘Teachers don’t innovate’
Students were eager to work with De Meent. For most of them, this was the first opportunity in their studies to solve real-life problems. “We learn theory, but we don’t apply it”, says Jessica Jaime about her IBA coursework. “It gets very repetitive.”
Christer Guldemond, a lecturer in strategic management and entrepreneurship puts the blame on lecturers. “Teachers don’t innovate”, he says, adding that other courses in the degree tend to be “very procedural”. In his view, this facilitates “divisiveness and individuality” among the students, who are “learning passively”.
“It’s not all about making money and getting rich”, says Guldemond, who coordinates the IBA LAB course. “It’s also about making an impact, and you can do both.” He says that the course teaches students how to achieve this. The programme has been running for three years and is based on tasking students with finding entrepreneurial solutions to problems faced by various organizations making a social impact. Guldemond highlights how some of his past students helped a homeless person secure a janitorial job. “Students should realise they are capable of creating such work”, he says.
Guldemond calls the programme an experiment, where the teachers “try a lot of different, new things”. In contrast to other courses where group work takes place “through WhatsApp”, the LAB 1 course forces students to work in class. “We see that it improves the quality of the work they do”, says Guldemond. “The underlying idea is to increase students’ productivity through interaction.”
Mixed reactions
Students found the experimental approach controversial. “The course lacks structure”, says Jaime. In her view, the four-hour-long classes were too long. “We could have used the time more efficiently.” The supposedly chaotic nature of the course led to concerns over grading. “I am striving to get a good GPA, but it was hard with assignments being announced at such short notice”, says second-year IBA student Kasrin Rohrbach, who claims there have been instances of graded tasks being communicated one day in advance.
One of the students brought up the issue of long classes during a feedback session, which happened after the presentations. “The aim was for you to get to know each other”, Guldemond responded. He considered the overly long classes to be an opportunity for students to chat with each other and bond.
In the end, most students were glad they chose this course. “It is the first practical subject I did in my studies”, says Rohrbach. “I did some internships before, but only during this course did I learn why I study here.” Iva Tripunovska, also taking the course, enjoyed working on a real issue, saying that she liked how she had to “consider its various aspects”. “We get to actually see the real problem”, says Quoc Viet Pham, another student, adding that in other courses he took, the problems were only presented as a theoretical example, and that he learned a lot by trying to come up with ideas for funding De Meent. “I realised how important the social impact is”, reflected another student during the feedback session.
Some students found working with the organizations challenging. Jaime felt that “De Meent had too many problems”, which at times was overwhelming, but rewarding in the end. “I like that it is a hard problem to solve. It requires us to put in a lot of effort and forces us to apply everything we learned.” But according to her, students who worked with different organizations than De Meent would sometimes not hear back from them for weeks. These communication issues supposedly discouraged some from taking the follow-up course, IBA LAB 2. “If my company was not responding, I wouldn’t take the second course either”, she says.
Out of isolation
Jaime is among the students who will continue working with De Meent as part of the follow-up course. This time, they will focus on implementing their solutions. Dankelman is looking forward to continuing the collaboration. “Leaving us with only ideas is hard for us”, she says, adding that working at the farm is too time-consuming for the De Meent team to focus on realizing new ideas.
But these ideas were not the only way the initiative benefited from working with students. The entrepreneurial approach of the students allowed Dankelman to develop a new perspective herself. “Being asked questions like What is the whole project about? really helped me. I make yearly reports, but I never think about the whole thing.” She says that since it is not a goal for De Meent to be sold, she lacked the “business-like perspective” the students brought in. When asked whether she would like to continue working with students next year she said: “I would love that.” Eugene, one of the participants at the farm, agrees, adding that it is important for De Meent to work with outside parties. “We cannot be in isolation.”