Uday’s Blog

Red Ochre contributes to social enterprise support in Lebanon

Uday Thakkar worked with Juliet Cornford (Social Enterprise Consultant) and Mark Richardson (Social Impact Consulting) to create a suite of 6 Toolkits for Social Enterprise Support Organisations in Lebanon. Read more »

Published: January 25, 2024.

The Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub

Red Ochre delivered a very successful 5 part strategy series of webinars for the RAE Building Future Resilience series during July. The RAE Enterprise Hub supports new and existing enterprises to start or scale, and relevant to the current situation, becoming more nimble and opportunistic. Recordings of the webinars can be found here. Read more »

Published: August 25, 2020.

Covid-19 update

We hope everyone is well, following government and health authority advice and coping with the C19 shutdown. Although Red Ochre has closed its offices in line with official guidance the team is working from remote locations. We are supporting our existing clients with email, Skype, Zoom and MS Teams conferencing. If you would like to make contact with us the most efficient way is via email in the first instance. Uday Thakkar, MD & coFounderRobert Foster, coFounder & senior consultantMartin Cooper, EU Project lead Emergency funding The Coronavirus Charity Help Fund offers grants of £5-20K for specific coronavirus poverty relief Read more »

Published: March 22, 2020.

The completion of a very successful creative and enterprise skills programme: Young ChangeMakhers

The programme to challenge and encourage 60 young females in Egypt to start and scale creative and social enterprises concluded at the end of November 2019. The programme was delivered as a partnership between Red Ochre and Ashoka Arab World. This was part of the British Council’s global DICE programme. Read more »

Published: January 31, 2020.

Young Changemakehers

Uday has been facilitating a programme to develop creative, critical thinking and entrepreneurial skills in Cairo. The project is to empower and upskill 60 young women from all over Egypt, many of whom are disadvantaged in the labour market. The programme has been run in partnership with Ashoka Arab World. The project known as Young Changemakehers is part of the British Council DICE programme (Developing Inclusive and Creative Economies). Young Changemakehers builds on the long established British Council Young Changemakers programme. Read more »

Published: November 27, 2019.

Shout out to “Al Banat”

On the 3rd July the British Council Egypt launched the Young ChangemakeHERS programme. The project is supported by the British Council Developing Inclusive and Creative Economies (DICE) programme, Ashoka Arab World and, of course, Red Ochre. This programme will support 60 young women from 14 governorates in Egypt to develop their creative ad social initiatives. Read more »

Published: July 10, 2019.

Red Ochre makes waves in Egypt

We’re please to be able to let you know that Red Ochre tools introduced in the #socialenterprise training in February 2019 have been adopted in the marketing plan of the Egyptian Ministry of Trade and Industry, Industrial Modernisation Centre (IMC). There is more coming from Creative Egypt very shortly. Read more »

Published: July 10, 2019.

In the shadow of the Pyramids

Creative enterprises are well known for growing economic activity, resuscitating moribund city centres and creating pathways of success for those at the margins of society. Combine this with community based social enterprise and you have the makings of major social change. The British Council is piloting a programme to stimulate creative and social enterprises in 5 countries. As a prelude to the launch of the programme Red Ochre was asked to deliver a 3-day workshop in Cairo on understanding, supporting and expanding the creative and social enterprise sectors in Egypt. The workshop was attended by 25 plus senior representatives from Read more »

Published: April 26, 2019.

Negotiation Skills – a universal requirement: five top tips

Uday has shared his top five tops for negotiation ahead of his upcoming training course – Negotiation Skills, for the Directory of Social Change. The top tips are: Read more »

Published: February 1, 2019.

New Chief Executive, new challenges

Five top tips to make it fulfilling and purposeful Think about what makes a good leader Start believing you are the Chief Executive Research! Don’t rush into making decisions Establish a good working relationship with the Chair The Directory of Social Change is launching a new course New Chief Executive, New Challenges with Uday. You can find out more about the top tips and the course here. Read more »

Published: January 30, 2019.

Book launch: Towards a Fair and Just Economy

Long term Red Ochre collaborators – Context – based in Utrecht undertake many social enterprise support programmes globally. Regularly the learning from the work is published to make to better disseminate the findings. The latest publication – Towards a Fair and Just Economy – was launched at a very well-attended event at the Impact Factory in Utrecht on the 25th of October. The key chapter in the book explores a new social enterprise business model that has improved the lives and livelihoods of apple farmers in the Indian Himalayas. Read more »

Published: November 7, 2018.

Developing Inclusive & Creative Economies (DICE) programme: Cairo scoping visit

Uday participated in a scoping visit to Cairo to seek partners to deliver a programme to grow and develop social and creative enterprises in Egypt. The trip coincided with celebrations for the British Council’s 80th anniversary in Egypt. An impressive number of people attended the 80th anniversary conference. Many from government departments and agencies, universities as well as umbrella organisations, intermediaries and creative entrepreneurs. Read more »

Published: November 7, 2018.

Social Enterprise Bootcamp in Sudan

For several years, the British Council has been running a support programme for young entrepreneurs in Sudan. Young entrepreneurs apply to participate in a training event that then allows some of them to pitch their ideas on national television – a Sudanese Dragon’s Den known as Mashrouy. The public get to vote for a winner This year the theme was on social enterprise. Over 30 entrepreneurs attended a 4-day Social Enterprise Bootcamp in Khartoum during September. Also attending were several experienced entrepreneurs who wanted to improve their skills to train and support other entrepreneurs. Read more »

Published: November 7, 2018.

Helping social enterprise in Syria

Uday ran a 7 day social enterprise Bootcamp for a group of 18 Syrian social entrepreneurs in Beirut in March. The Syrian social entrepreneurs are attempting to tackle major problems under extremely difficult conditions. Demonstrating immense courage, resilience and enterprise the participants were tackling diverse issues such as supporting traumatised children to improve their lives, establishing centres to skill up young people, capacity building community groups and establishing a nationwide community legal services. Other projects included helping to launch and support app based businesses to create employment and opportunities in Syria. Supported by the British Council the Bootcamp explored concepts Read more »

Published: May 24, 2018.

Social Enterprise in Tunisia

There is a growth of interest in social enterprise in Tunisia. A country buffeted by a seismic political change and a collapse of its tourist industry – many entrepreneurs are taking it upon themselves to start solving social issues in a sustainable way. In March a group of 17 social entrepreneurs, academics and supporters got together to define what social enterprise could do for Tunisia and how the movement could be managed and supported better. The group also want to influence politicians in understanding and supporting social enterprise. The group agreed an action plan to engage more practitioners, academics and Read more »

Published: May 24, 2018.