Sample Research Paper On Corporate Social Responsibility

Brief of the Project

This project is designed to help women who became young mothers to become independent of their family or their soon-to-be husband in terms of the financial aspect. The women who can join this project include those aged from 16 to 21 years old who are not able to provide the needs of their soon-to-be babies or their children. This project will give them the opportunity to learn the skills and gain the knowledge that will help augment their situation financially. The project will provide workshops where the women can learn about baking and craft-making.
Each workshop will have a 30-hour duration, which the women should complete in order for them to receive the certificate of completion. With the skills gained, the women will have opportunities to earn additional income. The project will be sponsored by the Maria Forleo International Company, an online business school for modern entrepreneurs. It primarily teaches students to embrace their higher purpose and to increase their income.

Description of the Situation

Teenage pregnancy is not a new problem in our society. In fact, it seems like an ordinary social problem that others are just too oblivious to notice.
According Checkland and Wong, “teenage pregnancy is the pregnancy of a woman in our society of not more than eighteen years of age who is neither married, nor about to be married to the father of her child” (Checkland and Wong 77). In a survey made by Huffington.com, it was shown that there were 614,000 pregnancies among 15 to 19-year old women in the United States in 2010. This is equivalent to about 57 pregnancies per 1,000 women in the said age group. Among the states, New Mexico had the highest teen pregnancy rate with 80 pregnancies for every 1,000 women in this age group, followed by Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma.
Daguerre and Nativel cited four dimensions of teenage pregnancy as a social problem (Daguerre and Nativel 68). The first component is the sexual dimension, which deals with the attitude of teenagers about sex, whether or not they are willing to have premarital sex with their boyfriend. The second dimension is the financial cost to the welfare state. It was explained by Daguerre and Nativel that teenage mothers are most likely to be single and poor just like adult single mothers (Daguerre and Nativel 69). This is evident among teenage mothers who can’t afford to support their child; hence, still depend on their family. The third dimension is social exclusion and poverty. Teenage mothers are likely to have experienced poverty but early motherhood reinforces a social disadvantage (Daguerre and Nativel 69). The fourth dimension is the public health dimension. As cited by Daguerre and Nativel, teenage mothers are prone to health deficits and cot deaths since they are not well-informed about the proper way of caring for a baby and because they are not ready for such responsibility (Daguerre and Nativel 70).
The above mentioned dimensions underscore the following facts: (1) young mothers will experience poverty, especially if they have not finished schooling; (2) this will be a burden on their family on whom they will depend financially; and (3) teenage mothers will not be able to provide sufficient health care to the child because they would not have their own money to spend.

Mission of the Project

The mission of the project is mainly to help young mothers have their own income and not depend so much on their families or soon-to-be husbands. It will also enable them to become small-time entrepreneurs in the long run. The Combat Poverty Agency has given a lot of recommendations on how to help lone parents and one of those is by strengthening the support for young mothers (Combat Poverty Agency 13). The agency suggested doing this through Family Resource Centers and Community Development Projects, as well as through the extension of the initiatives such as Springboard.
The project is an extension of the agency’s recommendation for fighting the poverty being experienced by young mothers. By simply providing workshops where they will learn how to bake and make crafts, which they can sell or even start a small business with, the women’s financial situation will somehow improve, which is the key mission of this project.

Project Activities

The project is composed of two workshops: baking and craft-making. These skills will just entail a lot of hard work but will entail little capital since the organizers will provide the women their first kit or initial materials for starting their small livelihood. These workshops are also helpful for young mothers, as these workshops will teach them the basic things that new mothers must know. Basically, they are taught these skills so that they will know how to handle having their own family while working their way towards succeeding in their new endeavor.

Baking Activities

This activity includes baking cakes and cooking meals in a jar, which is a growing enterprise among housewives. The participants will just need to have an oven, microwave cooking pots, mason jars, and utensils as well as the ingredients. The ingredients needed are readily available in the grocery or in their own kitchen (Matthews 3).

Cakes in a Jar

1. Basic Blueberry Cheesecake
2. Toasted Coconut Oat Muesli
3. Crunchy Cranberry Bran Muffins
4. Almond Butter Overnight Banana
5. Apple Cinnamon Muffin Mix
Matthews (6) explained that one mason jar costs about $0.18 to $2.5, with a minimum order from the supplier. The cost of the ingredients depend on the recipe. For example, in a basic blueberry cheesecake, one will spend around $25 to $35 at most, and this can be made into twelve to fifteen cakes in a mason jar. They can also charge one mason jar at $10 to $12 per piece. If the baker wants to add a personalized sticker so that it will have its own name, then that will be considered additional cost, which is charged to the seller. All in all, a mother who sells this kind of cake will earn twice the money spent for the ingredients, which is not bad at all (Matthews 6).

Meals in a Jar

1. Classic Bacon and Eggs
2. Easy Egg in a Jar
3. Breakfast Casserole
The same amount for the mason jars apply to meals in a jar. Ingredients are inexpensive, amounting from $20 to $30, which makes ten to fifteen meals. One meal costs $12 to $15. The profit is doubled in comparison to the money spent for the ingredients (Matthews 9).

Craft Making Activities

Accessories like fancy jewelry, birthstone bracelets, and necklaces are always a part of a girl or woman’s apparel. These are also great things to sell since they will not be spoiled like food; thus, they can be stored a little longer. The cheapest among the kits is worth $16 and the most expensive is worth $48. The differences between these kits are the number of beads and their types. The intricacy and type of beads used will account for the cost of the necklace or the bracelet. Often a simple bracelet costs $4 to $7, and a simple necklace costs $6 to $10. Normally, in a basic kit, which costs $16, one can make three bracelets and two necklaces, which will give them a profit of around $30 to $40 (Allison, Walker, and Vycheck 2).

Expected Results

The expected result of this project is a 97% completion among the participants. The organizers are hoping that the young mothers will be able to find time to complete the workshop sessions so that they can avail of the starter’s kit. Initially, there may be some young mothers who will just attend for the first and second sessions and will find it difficult to attend the succeeding sessions. However, since it will be a 30-hour duration workshop, the participants can still avail of the kit, provided that they will accumulate a total of 20 hours regardless of the times that they were present or absent. Their attendance will be checked every time a session will start and after each session as well in order to properly monitor the hours they will accumulate. If they go home in the middle of the session, the hours will be counted only until the time they were present. There will be facilitators and ushers to keep an eye on those who go out of the room while a session is ongoing. They will ask the participant to log in and log out in an attendance log book.

Measurement for the Success of the Project

A survey questionnaire for the participants’ view of the impact of the workshops will serve as a way to gauge the usefulness of the project to them. Another set of survey questionnaire will be given to the organizers to measure the effectiveness of the said project and if they have attained their goal. Each answer weighs a corresponding point, which will be tallied, interpreted, and analyzed.

Sample Survey Questionnaire for the Participant

Sample Survey Questionnaire for the Organizers
Stakeholders
This project will not be possible without the help of the people who will support it financially. There are also other people who will help in the progress of the said project.

Marie Forleo International

This company is the main supporter for this project. The CEO Ms. Marie Forleo
will finance this non-profit project, including the instructors for the workshops. She will also provide the starter’s kit with the help of some of her associates.
The president of Santa Fe Community College allowed the team of this project to use one of their classrooms for conducting the workshops. These rooms can accommodate 60 participants. For the duration of the workshops, participants will go to Santa Fe Community College wearing a visitor’s pass so that they can enter the campus premises.

Mayor Javier Gonzales

The mayor of Santa Fe City is very supportive since he is an advocate of a progressive vision for his city. He wanted to alleviate the situation of lone parents and young mothers, that’s why he signed the agreement between the team for this project and the prospective participants.

Team Members

The team members are chosen by Ms. Marie Forleo. Each team will consist of 12 to 15 members, with each member being designated their own tasks. They will have a committee for registration, attendance monitoring, and information services.

Time Plan of the Project

The project duration is a 30-hour session for each of the baking and craft-making workshop, which will last for one-and-a-half month. The workshop sessions will be held from Monday to Friday, with a 2- hour session each day. The sessions will be conducted from 8 am to 10 am. The pilot testing of this project will be conducted in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is ranked one of the states with the highest rates of teenage pregnancies.
Before starting the program, the team will survey the neighborhoods of Santa Fe to determine how many young mothers are willing to attend the workshops and to confirm if they really are young mothers. This will be done through interviews with their parents or guardians.
The workshops will commence after everything has been confirmed and set up. Only after collating the survey forms from both the participants and the team members will planning for a workshop for the next state be started. The next state will be one that has a high rate of teenage pregnancies, taking into consideration the results of the survey.

Budget of the Project

The project should have a budget of approximately $40,000 for all the expenses -- from the hourly pay of the instructor and the daily wage of the team, as well as the ingredients and materials, which will be used during the sessions. This $40,000 will be shouldered by Ms. Marie Forleo, the principal sponsor of the project.
The Rio Grande Company in Albuquerque, which is a known supplier of beads, will give donate $50 worth of 60 starter’s kits for the participants. On the other hand, Mason Jar Company will donate 2,400 pieces of mason jars, with each participant receiving 40 mason jars. The Walmart Supercenter in Santa Fe also agreed to donate a package of ingredients for the meal and cake in jars starter’s kits. The participants can have both a package of ingredients for the cake and the meal in order to start their small enterprise.

Works Cited

Allison, Sandy, Ted Walker and Alan Vycheck. Basic Jewellery Making: All the Skills and
Tools to Get You Started. Pennsylvania: Stackpole Books, 2006. Print.
Checkland, David and James Wong. Teen Pregnancy and Parenting: Social and Ethical
Issues. Canada: University of Toronto Press Incorporated, 1999. Print.
Combat Poverty Agency. Making a Decisive Impact on Poverty a Policy Submission.USA,
Combat Poverty Agency, 2005. Print.
Danguerre, Anne and Corinne Nativel. When Children Become Parents: Welfare State
Responses to Teenage Pregnancy. UK: University of Bristol, 2006. Print.
Lewis, Tanya. New Rankings Reveal Teenage Pregnancy Rates in Each State. Huffington.com, 5
May, 2014. Web. 28 December 2014.
Matthews, Jamie. Meals in a Jar: 100 Quick and Easy Mason Jars Recipes. USA: KMT,
Publishers, 2014. Print.