THE people had gathered on a Sunday afternoon to hear the luminaries of the social enterprise world speak, but it was a 78-year-old retiree who stole the limelight.

On the sidelines of the recent Global UBS Philanthropy Forum here in September (2008), the Lien Centre for Social Innovation had gathered together people like Ms Karen Tse, founder of legal rights group International Bridges To Justice, Mr Olivier de Guerre of French asset management group PhiTrust, which promotes business strategies that aid the disadvantaged, and Mr Alvaro Rodriguez from Mexican venture capital investment firm Ignia, which supports social enterprises.

The topic was on the promise of social entrepreneurship in Asia. A member of the audience asked how the social entrepreneurs found money to pursue their projects.

It was Mr Jack Sim, 51, the founder of World Toilet Organization, who told it best with a story about his 78-year-old mother.

Almost 50 years ago, the elder Mrs Sim wanted to learn smocking at the local community centre. But lessons there cost the $1 per hour and money was tight. Undeterred, she gathered six women in the neighbourhood and promised to teach them smocking for $1 per session.

After each lesson at the community centre, she passed the skills on to her neighbours, netting $5 each time.

About two years later, when smocking went out of fashion, Mrs Sim volunteered her services as a helper in a cosmetics counter and spent her time watching the beauty consultant do make-up for customers. Eventually, she bought her own set of cosmetics, practised applying make-up on her daughter, and opened her own beauty school.

Mr Sim's brainchild, the sanitation group World Toilet Organization, doesn't get much funding apart from $100,000 a year from the Lien Foundation. But it continues to grow by leaps and bounds by leveraging on the strengths of its partners or similar organisations around the world.

For its World Toilet Summit earlier this month, for example, it got a donor to fund one-third of the costs, and paid for the rest by organising an exhibition. It also gets its partners to lend their expertise, for example, instead of making cash donations.

Mr Sim was even named by Time magazine as one of the Heroes of the Environment this year (2008) and says that foreign governments "roll out the red carpet" for his projects overseas.

He told The Straits Times: "It’s a matter of confidence. If you take such a model, you can create anything from nothing. What you need is optimism and enterprise."

Unfortunately though, he doesn’t encounter the same enthusiasm back home. "I’m naturally patriotic, but the opportunities back home are like a desert. But it’s like what they say, prophets are not welcome at home."