Social innovation participatory action research for empowerment of marginalized people

Abstract

Marginalization of poor and uneducated residents has led to fundamental social damage in Iran's large cities, which is manifest in a persistent culture of poverty and lack of access to opportunities and services. Empowering these people is not possible with government resources, and it requires the use of empowerment methods, such as social innovation-based solutions. The purpose of the present study was to propose a social innovation cycle for the marginalized individuals in parts of Tehran, Iran (Farahzad and Khavarshahr) as a sustainable solution to empower them by creating jobs for them. The present study was conducted using the participatory action research methodology to analyze key activities undertaken during the “poultry self-sufficiency” social innovation cycles in four phases: 1. generating ideas by understanding the needs and identifying potential solutions; 2. developing, prototyping, and piloting the ideas; 3. assessing, scaling up, and diffusing the good ideas; and 4. learning and evolving. The results showed that social innovation has the most significant effect when actors in different parts of society contribute and cooperate. According to the results obtained in this study, “poultry self-sufficiency” social innovation lifts the marginalized out of poverty, and the empowerment process helps them to participate in the community.