Dr Saad Al-Harran
Email: [email protected]
Dr Saad Al-Harran is a social scientist who specialises in social ills in New Zealand.
After what happened to my beloved son at the playground of his school where he was treated like a football, we as a family made the right decision to take him out of school. A school where he was constantly bullied was of no benefit to him. As he has high functioning autism, we decided that I would create a business for him rather than him getting a “job” from the government.
Regrettably, most New Zealand schools today are teaching students how to get “jobs” from the government rather than how to create a job for themselves and others.
After thorough research and in consultation with my wife and daughter, we concluded that building a greenhouse (GH) in our garden would be the best business for our son. Since then, I have decided that this innovative social project I have established for my son is not going to be for him only, but also for others on the same spectrum as him.
As a Muslim family living in New Zealand, we believe in sharing and caring for others and are socially responsible citizens. We are all humans regardless of faith, race, and ethnicity. We are one and all of us should work to build a good future for our children in our beloved chosen country – New Zealand.
The greenhouse prototype was built in January 2018 by three people I hired to show that we are serious about this social enterprise venture. On 5 December 2018, a story was written about my son and me by Stuff and this attracted the attention of many parents.
We are now ready to go further and expand this unique social enterprise beyond our house.
The cucumbers my son (F) grows are far better than the average Lebanese cucumber. After harvesting them we sent some samples to Hon Dr David Clark, Former Minister of Health. His reply letter dated 28 Jan 2019 said:
“I would like to thank you for the cucumbers you sent. They are delicious and enjoyed by everyone in the office. Thank you also for your invitation to visit F’s greenhouse, which I am unfortunately unable to attend”.
Over time the venture has proven to be successful with two two strategic crops that have huge untapped potential already grown. As well as the cucumbers, F is growing eggplants. Not many Kiwi families appreciate the health value of this crop. While it may not be the most nutritious vegetable, it does give you a decent supply of potassium and fibre. Early lab studies suggest that eggplant protects against the type of DNA damage that can lead to cancer.
Here my son and I want to acknowledge the professional advice received from Wally Richards, who is an expert in greenhouses in Palmerston North and who has now moved to Marton. The support he gave us started with the installation of the “Wally Hydro Flow Growing System” and has continued, and we are most grateful to him. He also purchased the auto pot system for us from Britain.
A couple of problems we’ve encountered: The pots are very small and often, when the plants grow fast, the pots fall over, and the hydro flow growing system is sensitive and can easily block and not allow water and natural food to irrigate the plant. This has happened many times and makes life hard so we have dismantled it for now, while we get further advice from www.Redpath.co.nz whose manager is my friend and is very supportive of our project.
At the beginning of this year (2022) and because the greenhouse is small, we started to water the plants manually. Because the harvest was good we gave some away as a matter of sharing and making people happy, especially those nurses who work at Community Mental Health at the hospital. We sold the others to Buzz Organics in Broadway Avenue here in Palmerston North. The owner of the shop was indeed very supportive and we are very grateful to her.
This year we purchased from Mitre 10 some potato planters, which are big, made from heavy-duty woven polyethylene, less expensive, and easy to grow in. We bought two packs and started to grow another variety of eggplant (which is not as good as the one recommended by Wally Richards).
Profit-Loss Sharing (PLS) System:
The PLS system of equity based finance offers greater resilience to its members. If a business succeeds, profits are shared and if a business fails, nothing is paid to them, which is fair and just to the parties involved. We also believe if we select the right strategic crops such as the new varieties of cucumber and eggplant (both of which have huge untapped potential) and find the right distributor, the business will not fail. We believe that demand will be huge. The community wants to see young autistic adults succeed in life so that they are financially independent as well as being successful leaders and entrepreneurs: leaders who can create wealth and share it responsibly among themselves and others.
What are the benefits?
- Profit–loss sharing raises productivity through higher individual motivation and helps develop determination to succeed in life, especially for those High Functioning Autistic Adult Youth (HFAAY)
- It will automatically allow them to earn more income and improve their personal finance and money management once training is provided.
- It will directly promote higher employment among the HFAAY.
The concept of “The more you read, the more you know”
We are in a new era of social enterprise, creating jobs and employment opportunities that encourage HFAAY to continually innovate through reading and research, to come up with new business ideas through the above powerful concept ideas.
We intend to establish a big greenhouse here in Palmerston North if social financiers who want to support us in this unique mission of human empowerment can help us secure land. Or perhaps someone might be willing to provide their unoccupied land for this good cause.
In this innovative project for HFAAY which does not exist anywhere else in the world, we intend to channel 10% of profits to a revolving fund to finance any sound economic and financial proposal from these gifted humans (whom I consider to be great assets in the community and not the liabilities that many in our society think they are), to motivate them to read more so that they can come up with additional motivation and new business ideas.
Time For A Paradigm Shift
The time has come to make a change in our mindset from “Life is fun” to “Life is a struggle”.
We believe in hard work, responsibility, accountability and determination to succeed in life not only for ourselves as individuals and families but also for other humans and whanau. If our adult youth are sweating through productive social enterprise ventures and hard work, they will have no time to think about mental ills, depression and medication.
We also believe that there is dignity in working hard to do things which will have a positive impact on the community. Everybody should have the opportunity to leave a legacy and be remembered for what they left behind, especially if it is in the form of a charitable social enterprise business venture.
Lessons to be shared with you
The greenhouse prototype social enterprise we built in our own backyard in January 2018 for our son was based on the cost-sharing concept: 50:50. In other words my son contributed $5000 that our government provided while the remaining $5000 I paid for as a gift for my son. The total cost was $10,000 and all materials were purchased from China according to NZ specifications that include the building of the glasshouse and the installation of the “Hydro Flow Growing system” which Wally Richards did.
As an experienced social scientist, I wanted to convey the message to my son about the importance of saving and that his money should be channelled into a productive business venture and not wasted on buying items he does not need. Since I am his father and welfare guardian and now administer his financial matters, I looked after his funds in the bank by having a joint account. In the Muslim faith, those funds belong to others who are trusted, and I am his trustee so hopefully, my son will appreciate what I have been doing for him since 2014 when he was diagnosed with High Functioning Autism. Here again, I must convey another message to him not to be selfish and love money but to give away some of his savings for charity.
The importance of the holistic approach
It has been eight years of struggle with my son, with the support of my caring wife and beloved daughter who was also severely bullied in one of the intermediate schools in Christchurch. We want to convey a message to the new Minister for Disability Issues and other mental health services that it’s critically important to understand the significance of the holistic self-healing approach to health and well-being.
Our message is that “Medication is not the answer to all the problems”. These gifted humans need more greenhouses throughout the country so that they will be active in life rather than wasting their time moving from one shopping mall to another.
As a final note, I am interested in creating a “Family Social Alliance Trust” throughout the country so that we can look after each other in the regions. In families where there is a family member with autism, it would be good to have the support of other families so that when, for whatever reason, families are under pressure, other decent and responsible families will be in place to step up and support each other’s children.
Finally, thank you to The BFD for publishing our story and I welcome any helpful comments and suggestions.
Thank you so much to the editor Juana. (Allah Bless her and her wonderful family and two children). More to come but not now.