Social enterprises around the country are today celebrating Social Saturday by urging the public to support equality through business.

Social enterprises are businesses which use the money made to tackle social problems, improve people’s life chances, support communities and help the environment.

Backed by celebrities including comedian Chris Addison, the national day for social enterprises is organised by Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) and aims to raise awareness about social enterprises and encourage the public to buy from these businesses to help them have a bigger impact.

In the UK alone, there are over 100,000 social enterprises contributing £60 billion to the economy, making the sector three times larger than the agricultural sector.

Social enterprises exist almost everywhere – there are clothing manufacturers tackling homelessness, a soap manufacturer employing people who are blind and brewery funding clean water projects.

Marketing social enterprise Campaign Collective provides the funding which enables The Rooftop to operate.

There are other social enterprises helping dementia patients through a new app, tackling re-offending in prisons, enabling mums to return to work and tackling period poverty.

Social Saturday events are happening throughout the country and a limited edition bag developed in collaboration with award winning writer and journalist, Caitlin Moran, has also been launched.

The bag is made by Freeset Global – a social enterprise based in Kolkata, India, which creates employment for women who are survivors of sex trafficking. It can be purchased from SEUK.

Social Saturday is being supported by SEUK patron, comedian and director Chris Addison. Commenting on the campaign, Chris said:

It’s social enterprises that are going to save the world – real businesses but with social purpose and values embedded in the way that they operate.

Social Saturday is a chance for us all to use the power we all have as consumers to support these organisations which are making such a massive difference to individuals and communities.

There’s never been a more urgent time to get behind this movement – when it comes to how we do business let’s make social enterprise the norm, not the exception.

A full list of events can be found on the Social Saturday events map.