LEADING SOCIALENTREPRENEURSFRONT COVER
Tucked in the valleys of northeastern Afghanistan, a bridge made of woodand cable wire is suspended above the Pandjchir River, connecting the village of Malespe to a refugee camp. Photographer and Ashoka Fellow, Reza
Deghati, captured this shot in 2000. Born in Tabriz, Iran, Reza is a world-renowned photographer. For over 20 years, he has developed sustainable,
professional media institutions that have helped thousands of Afghan citizens
by founding Ainaworld -- powerful institutions that have allowed everyone
to make a change for the future of Afghanistan. They include a national
women’s radio station that reaches over 5 million people daily, a women’smagazine, the children’s magazine, Parvaz, the creation of over 30 educational films that have been shown across the country, as well as photo andvideo training workshops. Through the gift of knowledge, Reza is freeing
millions of previously cut-off Afghans and giving them a voice. In 2020, Reza
Deghati dedicated his art to capturing the historical events the Patriotic War
in Karabakh and other parts of Azerbaijan through his lens.

LEADING SOCIALENTREPRENEURSLEADING SOCIALENTREPRENEURS

1700 North Moore Street | Suite 2000 | Arlington, VA 22209 USA
Tel: (703) 527-8300 | Fax: (703) 527-8383 | www.ashoka.org

Managing Editor: Karyn Kessler
Campaigns Manager: Jean-Pierre Greenlund
Copy Editors: Katherine Doley, Danielle Kichler, Carson McBain, Lauren Seals, Katherine Vorderbruggen
Production Artist: Sima Designs
Contributors: Hanae Baruchel, Flavio Bassi, Ioana Bauer, Bob Bharji, Iman Bibars, Reilly Brooks, Bill Carter, Maria Cerdio,
Divyadarshan Chandrasekar, Franzi Charen, Amy Clark, Ovidiu Condurache, Rana Dajani, Katherine Doley, Claire Fallender,
Michael ElNemais Fawzy, Konstanze Frischen, Caroline Garrett, Nikki Gravning, Jean-Pierre Greenlund, Juliana Guiterrez,
Sara Jog, Yewon Kang, Immy Kaur, Danielle Kichler, Hae-young Lee, Alison Lingane, Andrea Margit, Carson McBain, Zeynep
Meydanoglu Michelle Miller, Shantanu Paul, Todd Pavel, Samara Randhawa, Rafael Murta Reis, Ahsan Rony, Kelsey Sakumoto,
Anamaria Schindler, Lauren Seals, Yashveer Singh, Katherine Vorderbruggen, Michael Zakaras
Special Thanks: Bill Carter, Carson McBain, Lauren Seals, Katherine Vorderbruggen
ISBN-13: 978-0-9995578-1-5; Leading Social Entrepreneurs, 2020 Edition.
Copyright © 2020. All rights reserved.
This publication was printed by More Vang on Eagle Offset paper—an environmentally friendly produced stock certified by the
Forestry Stewardship Council.
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Help Change the World

Isn’t it now obvious that we live in an everything-changing—and everything-connected—world? That you are reading thisbook suggests strongly that you are a successful player in
this, our new reality—i.e., that you are a changemaker.
There is a bidding war for those with this superpower, certainly no job scarcity. However, the other half does not havethese skills. They therefore face the reality of the world saying to them: “Go away; we don’t need you; it’s your fault;
and your kids have no future.” This is “the new inequality”.
It is unethical. It leads to depression and straight on to apermanent fury and then the destructively divisive “us versus them” politics that has swept across the world in barely
seven years.
The only cure is to ensure that everyone masters changemaking. That’s Ashoka’s “everyone a changemaker” (EACH)
purpose.
Ashoka can do so because it is home for most of the world’s
truly leading social entrepreneurs—in every field, from every
continent. Three-quarters change policy in their field (e.g.,
environment, human rights) at the national and/or international level within five years of launch. Moreover, the Fellows
encourage many others to stand up and become changemakers – both as role models and because, to succeed, theymust – and do – find local changemakers in community after
community who adopt and spread their models.
Ashoka builds this community extremely carefully. It uses
a rigorous, highly refined, five-step process which focuses
sharply on five key criteria: (1) A big, pattern- or framework-changing new idea; (2) creativity in both goal setting
and problem solving; (3) entrepreneurial quality; (4) thesocial impact of the new idea; and (5) ethical fiber.

full-time—they need to launch their visions and succeed.
This includes providing a launch stipend to the degree it isneeded for an average of three years, organizing a wide rangeof high-leverage supports, and – most importantly – engaging them in a local-to-global collaborative fellowship of theirpeers.
Ashoka is now adding two new groups to its 40-year-old
community of leading social entrepreneur Fellows. It chooses
both with closely similar criteria and selection rigor. The first
are the Ashoka Young Changemakers. Each of these teens
has had a dream, built a team, and significantly changed
his/her world. The second group, elected into Ashoka’s
Entrepreneur-to-Entrepreneur (E-2) partnership, are leading
big pattern-changing business entrepreneurs who want tohave equivalent social impact. Both have their changemaking
superpower and are key EACH co-leaders.
As the rate of change and therefore the EACH revolution
accelerates, the needs/opportunities before us multiply.
That’s why we are expanding our core community and areworking together in new ways. We hope this book will help
you envision attractive fits for you.
In this volume, you will find profiles introducing a sample ofthe ideas and leading social entrepreneurs recently electedby Ashoka. Almost all the profiles are of Ashoka Fellows
just launching their work. We also occasionally elect Senior
Fellows, who have already had profound social impact. They
are grouped according to six broad fields: Civic Engagement,
Environment, Full Economic Citizenship, Health, Human
Rights, and Growing Up. Following these individual profiles,
you will find introductions to some of Ashoka’s newer directions and descriptions of and reports from organizationalfoundations.

Once Fellows are elected, Ashoka makes sure that they havethe support and full freedom – including the ability to work

ASHOKA 2020 |iii

EVERYONE A GIVER
The Only Antidote to “Us versus Them”

Dear Friends and Colleagues,
Every social entrepreneur, indeed, all of us, share a deep,
defining purpose: A world where everyone is treasured.
Which requires everyone to be a giver. In the new reality
where everything is changing faster and faster, that means
everyone must be a changemaker.
The old ways no longer work. This is, for example, the first
generation that does not have the option of being valued ifthey but diligently follow the rules. As change accelerates,
fewer and fewer situations have rules. And everyone must
daily navigate rapidly morphing complex chains of contexts
unimagined but a few decades ago.
Not doing harm is, of course, not enough. Contributing to
the new reality requires sophisticated new abilities, qualities
almost the exact opposite of what was required before. And
the required level of these new competencies is increasing
exponentially year after year.
Every human has the capacity to play. The Fellows havedemonstrated this time and again at large scale—with probably every disadvantaged community and with all ages, genders, beliefs, etc. globally.
Indeed, most of humanity has made enough of the transition
to be able to contribute, to be a giver, to create and adapt
to change. One of the reasons behind this success is that,once in the new game, which is organized on a “fluid, open,
integrated team of teams” basis, each team member andgroup works to help all their teammates be the best possible
players. As the game accelerates, the players become moreskilled at helping one another become better players. The
invention of the globally unifying worldwide web is a good
example. So is the Ashoka community.
Those skilled in the new everything-changing game aredoing very well. Demand for us way exceeds supply—so our
incomes are going up, and there certainly is no job shortage!
More important, we flourish because we are able to express
love and respect in action every day—and at significant levels. As all the prophets and now the scientists make veryclear, this is what brings longevity, health, and happiness.
However, those without these new abilities cannot play.
Their incomes are falling, and their job opportunities fastiv|

ASHOKA 2020

disappearing as the world for which they were prepared is in
an exponential death dive—causally the mirror of the explosive acceleration of the world of change. The long-dominantworld of repetition (from guilds and assembly lines to banks)
is but a tattered ghost.
Consider one statistic: In 2000, the fast-changing half of theUnited States had economic output per capita roughly equal
to that of the non-changemaking half. By 2016, the ratio had
become 2:1.
The results for those without the abilities now needed are
cruel. Their lives and those of their families, friends, andneighbors are failures. They went out to play baseball, where
they are skilled; but the game is now chess, and no one told
them.
Instead, society (you and I) is saying to them, “Go away. We
don’t need you. It’s your fault. And your kids don’t have afuture.” And, indeed, they can’t move to Palo Alto because
they can’t contribute in the changemaking world. They’restuck. This is deeply unethical.
How do these people respond?
One response is to blame themselves. This has led to four (4)years of lost life expectancy (chiefly among those in middleage) in one generation in the low-changemaking half of the
U.S. This is slow suicide through smoking, alcohol/drugs/opiates, obesity, and—most of all—despair.
Their second response is to blame others. In company, whichbuilds belief and dispels guilt. The fury underlying this blaming is profound. It is as understandable as it is ugly.
Enter the demagogues. They provide the scapegoats. Theytarget vulnerable “others”. In Cambodia, it was everyone
urban (owning glasses could be a death warrant). Current
scapegoat victims include immigrants, African-Americans,and Muslims/other religious minorities.
This “us versus them” politics has spread like wind-driven wildfire globally over the last seven years—from the Philippines
and Poland to Brazil and the U.S.. That’s because “the new
inequality” between those who are welcomed contributors
in the new everything-changing reality and those who arelocked out is growing deeper and deeper exponentially.

“The new inequality” is poison.
A turning point like this is an opportunity for any disadvantaged group to leapfrog ahead. Unfortunately, most instead
fall quickly further behind. Moreover, they may become ascapegoat “other”. And because their deeply divided societies can’t solve problems, they suffer disproportionately again.
The only alternative is a world where everyone has theabilities to be a giver. I.e., in the new reality, an “everyone achangemaker” (EACH) world. This is, of course, Ashoka’s goal.
Is your daughter practicing changemaking? Does she confidently know that she is a changemaker? If she thus has her
power, she and you know she will be a powerful giver in life
and that the world will always want her. In other words, shewill have a happy, healthy, long life. If you can’t answer “yes”
to these questions, you have urgent work to do.
The same is true for any young person about whom you
care—and for your coworkers, your friends, and you.
The organizations you lead need even more help. They must
(1) help all their people become changemakers, and (2) organize in fluid, open integrated teams of teams.
This moment feels to me quite like the few years before theAmerican civil rights movement and, a bit later, the women’s movement took off. Decades of underlying change
and preparation had created new realities, but few people
saw the signs. And then, suddenly, these movements brokethrough to their five turning-point years when societychanged profoundly.
The key to society’s tipping is enabling everyone to quickly
see the new game— and the hundred things they now canand need to do. You and all of us in the Ashoka community
are uniquely well-positioned to ensure that, indeed, everyone has this life-giving opportunity.
To serve this historic turning point, what are the Ashoka
community’s unique strengths? The first is its roughly 4,000
Fellows. (As you know, three-quarters have changed the patterns in their field at the national and/or international levelwithin five years of launch.) In any field, Ashoka can therefore reliably map where the world must go by seeing where
our Fellows’ innovations point. So far these prescriptions fit
tightly with what is required in an everything-changing world
where each change begets yet more change. The Fellows also
bring myriad proven ways of getting there.

Second, Ashoka knows how to engineer such society-wide
mindset change, which is very different from leading othersorts of change. Indeed, it has already done this once: It set
out very consciously decades ago to introduce the constructof social entrepreneurship. It now empowers people everywhere—because they know that it is feasible, normal, andrespected to see a problem, to care, and to go out and change
the world.
Third, the Ashoka community is where the co-leaders of sucha global mindset change movement can be found. Ashoka
Fellows, partnering top-quality business entrepreneurs, staff,
and Ashoka Young (teen) Changemakers are all people whohave given themselves permission to and who know how tochange their world.
Moreover, we are now well into the work—and learning fast.
On May 23 and 24, 2019, several years of brilliant, focusedwork by Ashoka’s Brazil leadership, fully co-leading Fellows,
and a dozen “jujitsu partners” (the most ethical, entrepreneurial, and powerful organizations in the sectors key toredefining what constitutes success in growing up—i.e., education unions, publishers, education schools, and select cities
or states) joined by Brazil’s first Ashoka Young Changemakers
came together. They captured Brazil’s attention at all levels. Since then, one change has triggered the next, be it
education publishers and education schools shifting theirstrategies and offerings to “everyone a changemaker” orparents groups stepping up. (See the section on Ashoka
Young Changemakers on page 82.) Or the union of thoserunning the country’s 5,700 school districts helping spreadthe “every young person must be a changemaker” message.
With this team of partners, our movement can now create
news, orchestrate events, and reach millions. There are solid
beginnings of such teams on most of the other continents, alllearning from Brazil and from one another.
If we all work together, we now have the teams and the tools
to end the new inequality, to in fact give everyone the ability
to give, to be powerful, to be a changemaker!

Bill Drayton
Ashoka: Everyone a Changemaker
May, 2021

ASHOKA 2020 |v

Letter from Ashoka

Dear Friends:
In your hands is a glimpse of hope for the future. This latest edition of Leading Social Entrepreneurs features a sample
of recently elected Ashoka Fellows who have become partof the largest global network of social entrepreneurs. In thefollowing pages, you will read about new innovations forexisting institutions and new structures to bring about the“Everyone a Changemaker” world.
For 40 years, Ashoka has pioneered the field of social entrepreneurship in pursuit of social impact for the good of all.
Ever since, we’ve bet on the optimists and the courageous
who see the world not as it is, but as the sheer potential forwhat it could be.
Ashoka’s global network ensures that no entrepreneur feels
isolated, even in the current circumstances. Their work andsuccess are based on the expansion of opportunities foreveryday citizens to become changemakers. To accomplish
this, the Fellows utilize the vast network to share ideas, seek
innovative solutions, and funnel the knowledge they holdinto the fellowshp community for the betterment of society.
Paweł Grabowski believes that the quality of a society isdefined by the way it takes care of its weakest members.
In Poland, the welfare system does not emphasize end oflife caregiving, leading to many elders dying an undignified death. The Prophet Elijah Hospice Paweł developed isa new model of innovative care that cuts costs 1/3 lower
than the traditional hospice care by leveraging the public’s
engagement and cutting administrative costs. It also opens
up employment opportunities via the role of ‘caregivers’ in aregion where unemployment is very high. As of March 2020,
Paweł’s organization has improved the well-being of over
430 elderly people and over 600 primary caregivers.

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Giving the power back to the community is why Immy Kaurof the United Kingdom co-founded Civic Square, a strategy
to organize residents, provide a space for collective action,and emphasize community well-being, not just profit-driven
urban renewal. Immy envisions a method of development
to answer urban decay without relying heavily on governing councils, gifts of grants, and absentee landlords who
skyrocket housing costs solely in the name of profit. New
methods of land and ownership are being explored, such asaffordable land leasehold through which land is licensed by
the local council and therefore immune from developer speculation, profits from land going into a neighborhood trust or‘citizen dividend’, and overall focus on long-term local capital
circulation.
The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated these inequalities, vulnerabilities, and risks Ashoka Fellows alreadyconfront—while they react to the immediate crises, theymust also brace their communities for the unforeseen longterm calamities worsened by the pandemic. In the face of thisglobal crisis, it became crucial to be cognizant and active
towards achieving the end goal of racial equality. Looking
inward to answer the call of allyship with Black communities,
and looking outwards to foster justice with the overarchinggoal of peace will require continued changemaking.
Access to affordable medicines, elders’ well-being, urban landownership by local councils are three of the cases, and you
will see many others in this reading. We invite you to support
Ashoka by sharing these stories and helping us continue toprovide the necessary strength to overcome the multitude ofwork we have ahead of us.
Ashoka will continue to develop solutions with social entrepreneurs holding lived experience.
Thank you, always!

Anamaria Schindler
President Emerita

ASHOKA 2020 |vii

leading social
entrepreneurs
A Representive Sample of New Ashoka Fellows and Ideas

2020 Edition
The Social Entrepreneurs and Their Ideas
Civic Engagement.......................................................................................................................................2
Rana Dajani......................................................................................................................................3
Mauricio Parilli ...............................................................................................................................5
Michelle Miller.................................................................................................................................8
Alison Lingane.............................................................................................................................. 12
Growing Up............................................................................................................................................... 15
Michael ElNemais Fawzy............................................................................................................ 16
Carolina Contreras....................................................................................................................... 18
Environment.............................................................................................................................................. 21
Abel Cruz....................................................................................................................................... 22
Ahsan Rony................................................................................................................................... 25
Juliana Gutierrez.......................................................................................................................... 28
Full Economic Citizenship...................................................................................................................... 32
Apar Gupta.................................................................................................................................... 33
Immy Kaur..................................................................................................................................... 36
Abhinav Agarwal.......................................................................................................................... 39
Ryan Gersava................................................................................................................................ 42viii

Health......................................................................................................................................................... 45
Pawel Grabowski ........................................................................................................................ 46
Jeesun Lee..................................................................................................................................... 49
Germana Soares........................................................................................................................... 53
Claudia Thomas Riche................................................................................................................ 57
Bob Bharij...................................................................................................................................... 60
Pavitra Mohan.............................................................................................................................. 63
Human Rights........................................................................................................................................... 66
Ioana Bauer................................................................................................................................... 67
Pablo Lecuona ............................................................................................................................. 70

Collaborative Entrepreneurship
The Power to Change the World............................................................................................. 74
Older People: Givers. Ashoka Next Now............................................................................... 76
The Next Generation’s Best Changemakers. Ashoka Young Changemakers................. 82

Organizing the Movement
World Council............................................................................................................................... 86
Board, North American Council............................................................................................... 87
Offices Worldwide....................................................................................................................... 88
Ensuring the Future: The Endowments.................................................................................. 90
Gifts with Special Impact........................................................................................................... 97

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x

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The Social Entrepreneurs
and Their Ideas

Civic Engagement...........................................................................................................................2
Growing Up................................................................................................................................... 15
Environment.................................................................................................................................. 21
Full Economic Citizenship.......................................................................................................... 32
Health............................................................................................................................................. 45
Human Rights............................................................................................................................... 66

1

Civic Engagement

2

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

Rana Dajani

Jordan@Prof_RanaDajani
welovereading.org

Nurturing Enthusiastic Readers
Dr. Rana Dajani has sparked a social movement that harnesses
the power of reading as a tool to heal communities while raising
the health, educational, and social status of women and children
in Jordan and beyond.
THE NEW IDEA
How different would your life be if you had never been read to
as a child? Beginning in Jordan, where people have been displaced by war and ongoing civil strife, Rana initiated a cultural
movement of community reading designed to offer multiple
layers of social benefit for others—early literacy development
for children, leadership opportunities for women, intergenerational bonding for the community, and engagement on
issues of health and the environment through authorship for
aspiring writers.
Rana launched We Love Reading (WLR) as a community-based,
grassroots program aimed to foster the love of reading amongchildren. The program worked by training local men, women,
and youth to hold read-aloud sessions for children ages 0-10
in public spaces in their neighborhoods and in their native language. Today, these participants, known as We Love Reading
Ambassadors, commit to reading aloud to children and training others to spread an enthusiasm for reading throughout
their communities. In 2019 alone, WLR Ambassadors trained
over 7,500 adult readers and read to half a million children
through more than 150,000 reading sessions.
We Love Reading has also expanded into a technology-enabled, global movement operating in 56 countries with theultimate goal of enabling children and youth to think forthemselves, empathize with others, and respectfully communicate their thoughts.

the early literacy experiences of children and the adult leadership development of women Ambassadors. The network
is now connected through a gamified digital application
designed for Ambassadors to set and track their reading journeys and measure their community impact.
In 2019, to advance community engagement with important social and cultural topics, WLR Ambassadors gave out
266,213 books and authored 32 children’s books covering
a range of themes, including: resource conservation, anti-littering, empathy and social cohesion, nonviolence, refugees,
gender, and disabilities. As the WLR movement continues
to expand, Rana’s team has produced two guidebooks for
Ambassadors—“How to Write Children’s Story Books” and“How to Do Randomized Control Trials”—as a commitment to
the model and the movement’s ability to measure its impact
on the world.
T H E P RO B L E M
As a mother, Rana noticed how many parents do not read
aloud to their children and how reading for pleasure is often
perceived as a luxury in the Arab World. Rana grew up in
Jordan, which had largely overcome historically high levelsof illiteracy, but continues to confront problems related tochildren’s lower levels of reading comprehension and overall
disengagement with literature. Rana noticed another part ofthe problem as well—a lack of fun, relatable, and culture-relevant reading materials readily available for those who areinterested in reading.

“We use We Love Reading as a
steppingstone to falling in love withyour identity, which is so important forpsychosocial health. When you know who
you are, you don’t get lost.”
RANA DAJANI IN NYT ARTICLE, APRIL 17, 2019, RACHELCERNANSKY

We Love Reading builds in leadership opportunities andresearch-driven program interventions focused on improving

ASHOKA 2020 |3

quality and to ensure that volunteers stay motivated, Dr.
Dajani has also created a virtual community, connecting
WLR Ambassadors all around the world. Through the app,
Ambassadors achieve different status levels by reaching
incentives set up in a gamified digital platform. The game is
the Ambassador’s tracking tool where they can set their own
goals and select the reading journeys they want to pursue. It
is also a tool to share experiences among Ambassadors in thesame country and beyond, making volunteers feel they are apart of a trans-boundary social movement.

Rana reading a WLR book out loud.

And looming over the experience of these long-time citizensof Jordan is the very different experiences of young people
growing up in refugee camps—generations beginning with
the Arab-Israeli conflicts and now compounded by the creation of camps for refugees fleeing the civil war in Syria. For
these young people, We Love Reading offers an opportunity
to fill in gaps to schooling and early childhood experiences
created by the severe disruptions of war, displacement, andtrauma.
Starting with the fractured and literature-deprived communities in Jordan, Rana has introduced a simple model and activity for healing, connection, and positive self-development
through We Love Reading’s inter-generational invitation to getlost in—and find each other through—a book.
T H E S T R AT EG Y
We Love Reading connects with local organizations whoalready work on the ground in certain neighborhoods to disseminate a call for volunteers to join WLR’s two-day training
program. The only prerequisites for volunteers is that they
have to know how to read in their local langauge and theyneed to be at least 16 years old. Trainings and interactive
workshops are provided to Ambassadors and volunteers on
a range of topics, including literacy practices, the importanceof reading aloud, guidelines for managing a local library, andfacilitating reading circles in one’s neighborhood. It also covers entrepreneurial topics such as leadership, public speaking, confidence building, and communication, all delivered
through interactive workshops and debates.
To ensure the movement is replicated without forgoing

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THE PERSON
Rana’s mother instilled in her a sense of profound commitment and responsibility towards her family and community.
Her father was an exemplary model of physician by day, captivating storyteller by night.
For Rana, being a community leader evolved from a curious reading habit, fueled by her father’s stories, into learning and reading sessions for her siblings and kids. She took
the responsibility of widening her younger siblings’ learning
opportunities by organizing summer camps, scientific trips,
and city exploration tours for them, as well as telling them allabout the books she had read.
Rana earned a doctorate in Molecular Biology and has
explored different ways of linking science and society—for
example, explaining evolution from an Islamic perspective
and using tools from drama and novel writing to spur interest in learning science. To keep We Love Reading’s tools andthinking up to date, Rana’s organization conducts ongoing
research with faculty at half a dozen universities in the Arabregion as well as in Europe and the United States.

“...the We Love Reading project...is active
in 56 countries worldwide, has trained
over 7,000—mostly women—volunteer
readers, and has brought the joy ofreading to nearly half a million children,
including tens of thousands of young
refugees in Jordan and beyond.”CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

Mauricio Parilli

Venezuela@Mauparaprendoyemprendoca.com

leading-to-regional and then national competitions to selectand support youth-led initiatives with the most social impact.
T H E P RO B L E M

Autonomy to Young People
Mauricio’s vision expands the opportunities for entrepreneurshipto young people in Venezuela, making them the driving force forthe country’s social, political, and economic renaissance.
THE NEW IDEA
Mauricio is offering a future Venezuela in which disengaged
young people become the country’s greatest contributors
through a new entrepreneurial system and set of public policies that accept and support young people (8-26 years old) as
leaders, innovators, and businesspeople. Along the way, he ischanging older people’s expectations about the age at whichyoung people can take on responsibilities normally reservedfor older adults, and he is building up a new generation of
empathetic contributors committed to social innovation.
To take just one example, Mauricio began mentoring IsabelÁvila when she was 17, and in two years, she became theyoungest person in Venezuela to ever win a seat on her
Municipal Council in the Caravajal region of Trujillo State.
Now the President of that Municipal Council, Isabel has successfully pushed for the passage of the first public ordinancein Venezuela that allows people as young as 16 to create theirown companies. The ordinance also formally incorporates
the participation of young people in the Council’s mechanisms for consultation and formulation of new public policies.
Through these changes to the law, Mauricio believes thatyoung people will be afforded more opportunities to solve
social challenges, develop new services, and invent new
products with high technological value.
To fully realize the potential of youth to address difficult
problems in Venezuela, Mauricio knows that the young people themselves need to hold new expectations about what itmeans to be successful as entrepreneurs. To that end, he hascreated curricula and guides to support would-be entrepreneurs and launched a successful nationwide series of local,

Mauricio’s idea to make young people the driving force inVenezuela’s future comes at a time when older Venezuelans
have pushed the country past the point of economic andsocial collapse. According to a survey on living conditions
in Venezuela in 2017, the last reliable national assessment,
87 percent of Venezuelans were living at or below the poverty line, defined as the point at which chronic malnutrition
becomes a certainty. Furthermore, in 2017, the school dropout rate for children and teens ages 13 to 17 was more than
38 percent and growing.
Given the chance to make a better life elsewhere, more than
3 million Venezuelans have chosen to flee the country and its
political gridlock, economic hardships, and social disruption
since 2015. The majority of those leaving the country eachyear? Young people under the age of 25.

“Mauricio Parilli’s [work]... is an advancetowards closing the gap in care for people
with disabilities, under a more inclusive
and respectful vision of human rights.”

Against this backdrop, Mauricio is implementing his visionby communicating the high stakes involved for Venezuela’s
young people if they leave or stay disengaged and he is
explaining how they could, instead, be the citizens responsible for leading a successful rebound for the country. Where
he sees low participation among young people in addressing
community problems, Mauricio is providing tools to stimulateinnovation, cooperative work, and public advocacy so thatthese detached citizens become committed contributors tosolving community problems.

ASHOKA 2020 |5

One of the organization’s initiatives, “Learn and Launch,”establishes training centers that provide a winning formula—legal support, financial expertise, and mentorship—to help
young entrepreneurs who want to launch new ventures. This
support comes from Mauricio’s partnerships with community
centers, universities, media, and investors as he promotes
opportunities for young entrepreneurs and seeks to change
Venezuelans’ openness to the participation of young people
in the country’s recovery.

Young people from the Bolívar state of Venezuela participating inthe second edition of the Young Entrepreneur program.

T H E S T R AT EG Y
Mauricio’s organization, Aprendo y Emprendo (I Learn and
Begin), reengages young people as potential entrepreneurs
through comprehensive training and intervention programs,
peer-to-peer mentorship, and growing connections to a
global network. These components, along with a long-term
commitment to changing Venezuelan laws to accept and protect young businesspeople, Mauricio is building a widescale,entrepreneurial culture among communities in Venezuela.

“People always say that Venezuela is thecountry of young people, but in truth weare not giving them space. Sometimes
they say you are too young for this or you
don’t know anything. This project seeks
to break with that and be a platform
for young leaders with high potential,”
explains Mauricio Parilli, director of
Aprendo y Emprendo.

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ASHOKA 2020

For example, in an early part of the training, participantslearn about finance business operations and then apply theexercises at home where they are able to influence parents’ awareness and perspectives. In a deeper level of the
training, young people and their parents are recognized andsupported through an “Entrepreneurial Ecosystem” programthat provides help with the coordination, legal aspects, andbusiness design to get a young person’s new organization orcompany off the ground.
In a country where young people often have to stop studying
to earn money for their families and where parents expect
their children to work in common jobs, Mauricio knows thatthe younger generation is willing to change, has valuable perspectives in entrepreneurship, and empathizes more withsocial problems. However, they need role models and examples to inspire courage and know-how. To position this next
generation as influential role models, Mauricio’s organization
also offers a cascading, peer-to-peer model where young
people take on the responsibility of training others.
Finally, Mauricio connects young participants in a global
network where they can interact with young entrepreneurs
beyond their local communities and, from there, contribute to a global and national movement aimed at generating
youth-driven solutions to social problems in communities,
with the capacity for replication.
By 2019, despite the country’s difficulties, Mauricio’s organization had created a network of support for youth entrepreneurship efforts in 10 states of Venezuela. Given the collapseof the national financial sector, half of the seed capital forthese most promising ideas had come from a family businessowned by Mauricio and half from embassies, corporate donations, and university research and training grants.

THE PERSON

Mauricio working with group on overcoming difficulties in financial
business operations.

“Pérez has just turned 19 years old
and already employs 14 people inPanastelería, the name of his company.
He studied bakery and pastry at the
University of Zulia, and barista at theItinerant Coffee School in Maracaibo.
He did so before...participating in an
entrepreneur camp, through the Young
Entrepreneur program –[organized] by
the Aprendo y Emprendo organization.”

To date, Mauricio has organized 12 Learn and Launch initiatives and 10 competitions to raise start-up capital for themost promising new enterprises. 41 new, youth-led ventures
were launched as a result of these supports and all achieved
financial sustainability within 16 months of start-up. Twothirds of these ventures are for-profit and one-third are notfor-profit. By the end of 2019, approximately 700 young
entrepreneurs had become part of a growing network ofyoung entrepreneurs dedicated to opening up new opportunities for more young people to launch their own successful
ventures across the country.

Supported by a family committed to social service, Mauricio
stepped out as a serious changemaker as soon as he left childhood. When he was 12, he started organizing other young
people to collect funds which were used to recover public
spaces that had become polluted with garbage. At the ageof 15, he created conversational “Snack Spaces”—groups thatgathered to solve problems at his school. When he realizedthat the new LOPNA (Children, Youth and Adolescents Law)
did not consider the capacities of the young people as a factor of change, he joined the national Youth Animation Center
where he developed projects for young people to report on
problems in their schools and communities.
At university, he earned a degree in Political and Administrative Sciences with a specialization in Public Management andwent on to earn a Master’s in International Cooperation fromthe Complutense University of Madrid.
Mauricio began to pursue his life’s work in Trujillo State in2008 with a statewide effort to mobilize more than 1,500
youth in support of a referendum to ensure youth access toservices, expanded educational opportunities, and a guaranteed role in consultation and formulation of government
policies. While the statewide referendum failed, Mauricio
persisted and saw that it was taken up and adopted in one
municipality where young people gained a strong voice on
the Municipal Council. That led, in turn, to adoption of a cityordinance that put in place the key provisions of the referendum that had failed at the state level.
The next key step in Mauricio’s learning came from a successful effort to support the start-up of approximately 1,000
youth-led enterprises to serve as suppliers to and distributors for one of Venezuela’s leading companies.
Then, Mauricio stepped back and realized that lasting change
would require more of an ecosystemic approach to supporting youth as leaders in Venezuela. Therefore, he started the
civic association, Aprendo y Emprendo, with a commitment tosocial responsibility programs focused on strengthening thecapacities of entrepreneurship, leadership, and innovation inyoung populations between 8 and 26 years old.

Now one of Mauricio’s goals is to pilot “Learn and Launch”
outside Venezuela, starting in Colombia, where the majorityof the young people who recently fled Venezuela now live.

ASHOKA 2020 |7

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

Michelle Miller

United States@teamcoworker
https://home.coworker.org

Asserting Workers’ Voices
Michelle Miller is building a 21st-century labor movement thatuses digital organizing methodology to give voice and shift power
to workers.
THE NEW IDEA
The power of organized labor in the United States has beenin steady decline since the 1980s, in large part a result of
the deliberate dismantling of unions that continues to thisday. Not surprisingly, during this same period, despite worker
productivity rising 74 percent, median income for Americans
has stagnated. Now, as technology transforms employment
at exponential rates, rising inequality and poor working conditions are likely to worsen unless workers have more voicein shaping their workplace.
After a decade working in labor organizing, Michelle founded
Coworker.org as a digital civic infrastructure that helps workers engage their employers, address job problems, andadvance solutions as changemakers. The core of the idea isto spark and advance effective workplace democracy that
ultimately reduces inequality—using technology and theinternet as tools for mass participation and collective action.
The how-tos are centered around investing in the capacity ofworkers to participate in driving better business decisions—
including everything from more tolerant workplace environments to pay raises—and then leveraging patterns and victories to inform broader policy. The mass organizing potentialof the web is merged with the training, expertise, data, andfeedback loops that Michelle and her team can provide.
Coworker.org began creating prototypes to support worker-led change in 2013, and since then, more than 700,000
people working in food service, retail, technology, and gig/
contract industries in more than 30 countries have used the
network—including major campaigns at Starbucks, American
Airlines, Google, Publix, and more.

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ASHOKA 2020

T H E P RO B L E M
Old frameworks that provided for workers’ voices, information, influence, and protection no longer serve most jobs.
Labor protection systems are structured by country, but
multinational corporations shape working conditions acrossborders through franchises and software-controlled, disaggregated supply chains. In the United States, new employment structures and government directions mean regulatory
agencies can’t or won’t enforce standards to ensure access tocollective bargaining, unemployment insurance, health andsafety protections, and more. Meanwhile, labor unions havebeen drastically weakened and generally rely on an exclusive
representation model that doesn’t fit most workers. In theend, for most people in the country, the experience of work
is essentially an authoritarian regime.

“Front-line workers at grocery and retailstores have used them effectively during
the pandemic. Eight out of every nine
American workers don’t have a union torepresent them in workplace disputes.
So thousands of them have been flocking
to the nonprofit website Coworker.org
in their fight for a fairer workplace...
The site has become an effective tool for
workers across the country.”

What’s more, innovation and investment in the future ofwork has primarily focused on the interests of corporate
owners, such as lowering costs, increasing efficiency, surveilling, expanding markets, and reducing liability. Together
with the decline of organized labor, these forces leave workers more vulnerable and isolated than ever and contribute to
an American inequality crisis that has reached a boiling point
and that lies at the heart of numerous societal ills.

After using the Coworker.org platform to draft the petition, IBMers
compel CEO Ginni Rometty to affirm IBM values.

T H E S T R AT EG Y
The broad strategy for Coworker.org is to facilitate the space,
the network, and the expertise that enables more democratic
decision-making within the modern workplace to the benefit of workers. This manifests itself in three complementarystrategies: (1) build a critical (and growing) mass of workers
who campaign for workplace improvements in a highly visible way; (2) invest in the leadership of individuals and groupsof employees by providing education and training, strategic
support, data analysis, and workplace advocacy tools; and (3)grow a broader ecosystem that advances a healthier futureof work.
Coworker.org was designed to make it as easy as possible
for any worker, anywhere, to take action to improve working conditions and wages. The fundamental guiding premiseis that workers should have a voice in determining workplace policies—what Michelle and others refer to as “workplace democracy.” That voice can take many forms: informal
employee committees, company-wide surveys, Coworker.org
peer networks and petitions, collective bargaining, worker-ownership. In just a few clicks, any employee can launcha campaign. Coworker.org provides the infrastructure, expertise, guidance, data analysis and public visibility to do so
effectively.

There are a number of design principles that make Coworker.
org stand out and strategic. First, the organization stays open
and relevant to the needs of today: Workers in any industry
and any position can take initiative, including those in thegrowing (and disconnected) “gig economy” where employment matters are often unique – for example, how to bargain
with an algorithm that plays the role of a manager. Or, how todevelop policies for a workplace that lacks a physical space.
Second, Coworker.org has network aggregation power: In an
economy when most people in large companies never see
more than five percent of their coworkers, the use of theinternet exponentially increases the ability of an employee
to reach thousands of others and collaborate toward sharedgoals. Coworker.org is like a massive digital version of theworkplace cafeteria. Third, the organization’s stays committed to grassroots, worker-led change: Coworker.org emphasizes peer-to-peer connection and experimentation, thenfeeds back learning and victories to the worker changemaker
community. And finally, a smart use of media brings broad
public attention to campaigns and the worker-leaders championing them.
The list of worker-led victories is long and impressive,
exemplifying itself in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic
for employees across the nation. Essential/frontline workers have been in the national spotlight as companies havedesigned their ongoing protocols to balance profit and safetyof employees. Coworker.org played a critical role in organizing
voices during the mass reopening of stores the United Statesin late spring and this work continues throughout the crisis.
For example, Starbucks employee advocacy in July 2020 ultimately led to Starbucks being the first national restaurant
chain to require customers wear masks while in their locations. The utilization of Coworker.org for petitions arguably
has saved the livelihood of employees.
Previously, tens of thousands of Starbucks workers had used
Coworker.org to expand paid family leave, update its scheduling technology, and allow employees to have visible tattoos.
REI committed to a wage increase for employees and is also
posting worker schedules further in advance. Each of theseand other victories has led to significant improvements for
employees across the United States and signals that companies would do well to incorporate worker voices earlier andoften in their decision-making.

ASHOKA 2020 |9In addition to growing the number and scale of worker-led
campaigns, Michelle and her team are working with a broader
ecosystem of groups concerned with workers and the futureof work. Grassroots worker centers and advocacy groups
partner with Coworker.org to reach new communities and test
new strategies. Michelle offers workers a conduit to share
their insights with reporters, academics, labor leaders, business innovators, philanthropists, social impact investors, andpolicymakers. Coworker.org invests in research on the digitization of society and has led participatory research projects,
published papers on worker power, and presented at major
events. They advise labor groups around the world, foundations and social impact investors, and government agencies.
Coworker.org co-hosted a national town hall on worker voiceswith then-President Obama and has briefed members ofCongress and congressional staff on the impact of mass datacollection, artificial intelligence, and the growth of platform
monopolies. They have linked workers to other efforts forequality, civil rights, and healthy, thriving communities andhave, in turn, enabled organizations to learn from frontline
workers.
Depending on how fast Coworker.org and its allies can work,in the next 5-10 years, Michelle aims to see millions of people in independent, informed collectives; taking leadership in
their jobs; asserting agency to shape decisions; and expanding access to social, community, and cultural benefits fromchanges brought on by automation and machine learning.
This includes reforming labor and employment laws given
what the organization is learning from frontline workers
and given the new frontiers in our economy. For example,
as worker-generated data—e.g., the real-time data generated
by millions of ride-share drivers all over the world—becomesincreasingly valued (and monetized), legitimate questions
should be raised about who owns that data if it’s being produced by workers in their own vehicles and with their own
smartphones.
Coworker.org’s metrics for success look at the numbersof people taking leadership for change in the workplace;the scale and success rate of their ideas; the attention
to worker perspectives and needs in media, corporate,
and government conversations and decisions; and how
individuals and groups move along a path of increasing
innovation, strength, and success as civic advocates for theircommunity.

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ASHOKA 2020

“Across the U.S., from urban centers torural communities, many people feelas though the scales are tipped against
them. Coworker.org co-founder Michelle
Miller’s childhood in the coalfields ofWest Virginia showed her the promise of
economic security brought by a strong
labor movement as well as the scarcity
communities experience when industry
leaves.”Of course, workplace organizing has risks—people need
to be able to advocate for positive change without losing
their jobs, for one—and using media to connect withpeers to stand up for improvements should bring support
and not attacks. People who take a stand for equity andjustice (especially women, and particularly women of color,
LGBTQ+, and other marginalized people) face increased
hostility from political movements as well as concerted
online harassment. One key area for Coworker.org moving
forward is to understand more about the groups and forcesthat want to undermine human rights efforts and erode
the potential for worker-led initiatives, so that it can help
workers make progress safely and successfully.
Coworker.org’s budget for 2019 was $1,454,000. It began in2013 with an annual budget of $200,000 and was able toraise twice that amount from grants and partnerships withother nonprofits in 2014, 2015, and 2016. Michelle is keenly
aware that civic infrastructure for workers can’t rely only on
grants, so over the next 2-4 years, she plans to experimentwith revenue models that can provide educational, networking, media, legal, and other resources to peer groups of workers, such as mutual aid, shared costs, co-ops, data licensing,
and/or contracts with social responsibility investors. She will
test to see where there is traction to create sustainable funds
for infrastructure that can be shared by hundreds of thousands, and eventually millions of workers.

“...A pair of tech-savvy activists withlabor roots, Michelle Miller and Jess
Kutch, launched Coworker.org, which
creates networks of employees andprovides them with tools so they canpush for pretty much anything they feel
would improve their working lives. Tiredof finding hypodermic needles in store
bathrooms, Starbucks employees used
Coworker.org to petition the company forneedle disposal containers.”

freezing winters, passing out in the summer, skipping bathroom and food breaks, and hiding injuries. Further, the pay
they received was only marginally better than what they’d
get in fast food or retail work. They also described the transformation they’d experienced since they had become leaders in the fledgling group called Warehouse Workers for
Justice, where they were learning how to change the current
conditions.

THE PERSON

All this informed her decision to create Coworker.org with her
co-founder, Jess Kutch. Her years spent with workers whoshared their visions and hopes, as well as their descriptions of
the ingenious and generous ways they support one another,
led her to this point. And as Michelle says, “I know how to do
this work because they taught me how. My responsibility is
to share it back and help us all do a little better.”In the summer of 2012, Michelle was asked to meet withworkers preparing for a visit from philanthropists, policymakers, and advocates in large shipping facilities for companies like Amazon and Walmart. The workers mentioned that
their hours were long and backbreaking, and they describedMichelle is a child of the West Virginia coalfields—her grandmother is a miner’s widow who survived on her husband’sBlack Lung benefits and who reminded Michelle daily thatsurvival was a collective endeavor. She spent years in thelabor movement herself, recording and shaping the stories ofmembers into documentary film, art, or curricula that would
help other workers learn from their experiences.

ASHOKA 2020 |11

CIVIC ENGAGEMENT

Alison Lingane

United States@projectequity
project-equity.org

Security and Stability throughEmployee-Owned Business“Alison Lingane is [a] national leader
in the movement to harness employee
ownership to maintain thriving local
business communities, retain selling
owners’ legacies, and address income andwealth inequality.”

Alison Lingane is building economic demand for employee-owned
businesses and facilitating the transition of companies to thismore equitable model.
THE NEW IDEAT H E P RO B L E M

Project Equity is facilitating the transition of small businesses
to employee-owned companies in order to grow community
wealth and address racial income and wealth gaps in the
United States. Alison and her team do so by raising awareness of the benefits of broad-based employee ownership,by working directly with business owners and employees
to facilitate the transition, and by leveraging the public sector (beginning with cities) to encourage and promote thisunder-represented, highly impactful business model.

In the United States, the income and wealth gap between the
one percent and everyone else has reached its widest point
since the Gilded Age. The implications are manifold, including
rising economic anxiety and uncertainty that cuts across thepolitical divide. More and more American communities arefull of hard-working people fighting for economic security inthe face of low-paying jobs. Indeed, one-quarter of all jobs
in California pay less than the average cost of living (including food, shelter, healthcare, transportation, and childcare).
Meanwhile, nearly half of Americans cannot cover a $400
emergency expense.

With major forces from globalization to AI bringing uncertainty to the future of work, employee-owned businesses
offer a powerful opportunity to address the wealth gap
while bringing stability and quality jobs to millions of workers. Furthermore, the United States is at the beginning of a
“Silver Tsunami,” with nearly 2.5 million baby boomer business owners considering whether, how, and to whom to sell
their business.
Data consistently show that employee-owned companies
increase job quality, invest locally, and have demonstrable positive impact on job creation and business retention.
Job stability is also higher, given lower employee turnoverrates. Project Equity is focused on making transitions as easy
as possible, while simultaneously building demand so that
employee ownership moves from a misunderstood outlier to
a common, celebrated path toward an economy that works
for everyone. Project Equity is now collaborating with major
California cities on ways to accelerate employee ownershipand was involved in drafting recent federal legislation (the2018 Main Street Employee Ownership Act) to advance business transitions to employee ownership.
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ASHOKA 2020

The underlying causes of this inequality are multidimensionaland often the result of deliberate economic policy and business practices. Several factors in particular stand out:
1. Decreased power of labor - The decrease of unions andthe increase of so-called “absentee ownership,” along withcorporate consolidations, enable companies to make decisions that are disconnected from workers’ and community
needs.
2. Shrinking middle - Due to globalization and the outsourcing of jobs in key sectors, many U.S. communities have knowledge workers at the top and low-paid service workers at thebottom. The resulting “shrinking middle” of small businesses,
manufacturing, and other employers that traditionally provide better wages and benefits alongside professional development opportunities go far to explain the missing rungs in
the ladder of economic opportunity.

barriers to employee ownership. Their goal is to remove
major roadblocks and create a well-established market for
employee ownership where both the private and public sector have adopted it as a preferred model for achieving strong
businesses and economic equality. Alison and her team haveidentified several key leverage points to build this market.

Future employee-owners of Adams & Chittenden Scientific Glass
Cooperative meet with Shared Capital and Project Equity to discuss
their transition loan.

3. Racial wealth gaps - Starting with little or no wealth andfacing ongoing barriers such as modern-day redlining, marginalized communities now face even fewer avenues up—
either through employment or through starting their own
businesses.
Business transitions to employee ownership are a powerfulmarket-based pathway to address the wealth gap, but significant barriers remain. One-third of business owners over age
50 report difficulty finding a buyer for their company, yet few
consider selling to their employees. Over 85 percent of business owners don’t have a succession plan in place, and only asmall percent have a successor in the family. As a result, mostof these companies will quietly close or be sold to a larger
company or out-of-area buyer, laying off employees as they
consolidate. These patterns will exacerbate the wealth gap byfurther concentrating business ownership.
T H E S T R AT EG Y
Project Equity envisions a society where people of color, immigrants, and low-wage workers have the stability, security, andmeans to fully participate in the American Dream. It is working towards this goal by spreading awareness and demand for
employee-owned business models and addressing the major

A critical component of Project Equity’s work involves educating business owners and small business support providers
on the value of transitioning to employee ownership. They
share compelling evidence that employee-owned businesses
outperform their competitors, particularly during economic
downturns, because employees feel more invested—literally—in the company’s success. Project Equity has a dedicatedmedia strategy, and its research is now regularly cited—including to frame the need for the recent Main Street Employee
Ownership Act (passed by Congress in August 2018) thatmakes it easier for small businesses to transition to Employee
Stock Ownership Plans and worker-owned cooperatives.
To help business owners navigate the unfamiliar processof transitioning to employee ownership, Project Equity has
developed and refined a range of offerings to demystify andstreamline the process. Topics include financial feasibility,transaction details and financing structures, ownership culture and governance training, consulting and more. To date,they have worked directly with over 30 businesses acrossthe United States, including those in places as diverse as
California, Minnesota, Nevada, Michigan, and North Carolina.
They are developing partnerships and plans to expand to 10
regions across the country to help scale their employee ownership transition services.
Project Equity helps others understand the implications forbusiness retention as local businesses close or are boughtout by distant owners. Cities are particularly concerned asa significant portion of their tax revenue comes from business taxes. Thus, Project Equity works with local governments
to facilitate economic development plans, which includes
employee ownership as a solution to business retention andeconomic inequality. Beginning in key California cities, suchgovernment partnerships significantly legitimize employee
ownership while also creating an important “market-making” channel that builds demand for this transition and thesurrounding support network. Additionally, in 2019, Project
Equity co-convened the Government Equity Summit withASHOKA 2020 |13

Nexus Community Partners to provide elected officials withtangible tools and strategies for retaining assets while advancing equity. Integrating business retention and employee
ownership into city offerings mainstreams employee ownership and begins to anchor it in the public sector as a pathway
to scale.

“[Project Equity] is working to raiseawareness of the issue [of retiring
business owners struggling to sell
their companies]. It is urging local
governments to measure the impact on
their tax base by using business license
data to track how many businesses are
more than 15, 20 or 25 years old so that
local business and political leaders can
get involved.”

At present, businesses have few options for financing a democratic employee ownership transition, so employee ownership is not yet a viable option for a typical small business
lender. Project Equity is working to remove this barrier. Its
first step has been finding a lender and developing a model.
It has done so with a 40-year-strong CDFI (Shared Capital
Cooperative) which has made its first $4 million transaction funding and plans to expand. Using this model and thetools it has helped refine, Project Equity plans to educate
mission-aligned lenders and investors about the value andfeasibility of financing employee ownership transitions andhow they can get involved. In the long term, Project Equity
wants to eliminate capital access as an obstacle to employee
ownership.

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ASHOKA 2020

THE PERSONFor Alison’s family, education and access to asset building
was the path out of poverty. Within three generations, herfamily transitioned from immigrant farmers who could barely
scrape by to members of the middle class, through education, stable jobs, and access to home ownership. As Alison
grew into young adulthood, she learned that her family’s“bootstrap” opportunities—including access to bank loans tobecome homeowners—weren’t available to everyone, especially people of color.
In her early 20s, she led youth job training programs but saw
that training young people for dead-end jobs (as many programs did at that time) doesn’t address the cycle of poverty.
So, she launched a new program that the young people could
be promoted into with a focus on designing and launching
microbusinesses. It was powerful to watch young people
pitch the offerings they had developed to local store owners,
then be invited to display their products in those same stores,
and to see the impact of validation—both for the young people and for the broader community—about their strengths,
capabilities, and potential.
Inspired to learn to scale impactful programs, Alison got an
MBA, then gained experience through leadership roles at
mission-driven companies. At InsideTrack, a company thathas coached over a million college students to keep them on
track for graduation, she intimately saw how poverty thwarts
educational goals. For example, it’s hard to submit your classdiscussion responses through the online forum when yourpower has been shut off or to attend class when you suddenly have to care for your sister’s kids because the police
picked her up.
When Alison first met her co-founder, Hilary Abell, whotaught her about employee ownership, it just clicked.
Employee ownership creates jobs that provide financial stability through better pay and asset building. And it
invites—and expects—people to bring their full potential. She
co-founded Project Equity with a personal mission to support
working families to create more stable jobs and build wealth.

Growing Up

15

GROWING UP

Michael ElNemais Fawzy

Egypt@MElnemais
T H E P RO B L E M

Communal Care for Mental HealthMichael is helping Egyptian families and school authorities torecognize, understand, and deal with a range of developmental
behaviors in young people in ways that do not leave them isolated or withdrawn from school and other social activities.
THE NEW IDEA
What if—rather than shaming and stigmatizing—communities
rallied together to protect and support young people suffering with mental health challenges? Michael believes the best
way to reverse this common course is to shift the attention
away from “problem children” while, instead, focusing effortson the training and community building needed for the mostinfluential adults in these children’s lives.
In Egypt, children who need mental health support are generally ostracized, isolated, harassed, and left out of formal
schooling and the community. Children with even slightdevelopmental or mental challenges are often kept homefrom school so that “normally functioning” children can
attend, and developmental differences among adolescents
often lead to teasing and bullying.
The solution Michael came up with integrates the adults ina child’s life—parents, teachers, social service providers, andultimately a young person’s friends and classmates—uniting them in a plan to improve the environmental conditions
needed for children to be accepted and nurtured as theygrow up.
Michael’s initiative, “Hope,” offers a new, dynamic and adaptive resilience intervention program for communities andchildren who need mental health support. Through partnership among schools, parents, and healthcare professionals,
Hope promotes resilience in children (ages 5-14) to stop preventable mental health issues from developing and fosters ateam-based, context-aware approach to protect and support
vulnerable children when they do need mental healthcare.

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ASHOKA 2020

As a general rule, Egyptian parents will not trust strangers totreat their children. Thus, part of the reason appropriate support for children with mental healthcare needs is limited in
Egypt is because there are not enough trusted, trained specialists in communities. One underlying cause for this shortage is the fact that there is no specialized child psychiatry
degree in Egypt. People wishing to pursue this lengthy courseof studies must have the desire and the means to go abroad,leaving their communities in the process.

“The child population between 0 and
17 years of age in Egypt represents
37.1% of the total population (~ 33.4
million people), one in ten of which will
experience poor mental health.”

Beyond the lack of trusted healthcare providers, schools
also want for necessary resources to meet the needs of thisspecial population of learners. Children and young adultsin Egypt (ages 5-17) comprise approximately 25 percent of
Egypt’s population; yet, fewer than 2 percent of health professionals working in Egypt’s primary and secondary schools

Fellow Michael Elnemais Fawzy promoting a team-based, context-aware approach when children need mental healthcare.

teacher training and the public schooling curriculum. As news of the success of his approachhas reached educators in countries across theMiddle East and North Africa, Michael is creatinga Resource Bank as a starting point for others to
replicate and adapt his approach for use by schools
and parent associations across the Arab World.
THE PERSON

Michael brings the community together in support of children andadolescents who need mental health support.

have completed comprehensive studies dealing with young
people’s mental health.

As a child, Michael was an avid puppeteer, conducting puppet shows in his local church. His
dexterity, creativity and empathy caught the eyeof the staff at the Cairo Opera House, and soonafter Michael was staging regular shows there forschool groups as well as morning and afternoon
performances designed for family entertainment.
His interest grew beyond operating puppets to
exploring stage décor, researching a wide range of puppetry
techniques and materials, as well as script writing.

Faced with these obstacles, Michael decided to focus his
attention on coming up with a solution that could be embedded in the routines and daily lives of the families, teachers,
and fellow students who are part and parcel of young people’s daily lives.

What started out as a simple means to entertain people
evolved into a deeper desire to convey messages to his audiences. And, as he moved forward in his life, he continued
to think of the ways in which an individual’s context—like ametaphorical “stage” composed of stage lighting, characters,décor, etc.—affected one’s ability to succeed.

T H E S T R AT EG Y

At university, Michael focused on psychology and humanrights—completing training in psychiatry and postgraduate
studies at the Indian Law College. His research on the qualityof life of children in Egyptian mental health facilities underscored that these children often had to fight on two fronts:
illness, on the one hand, and marginalization as a result ofsocietal stigmatization and ensuing maltreatment, on theother.

The Hope model unites and invites adults surrounding vulnerable children together as a team to provide protection
and support. Starting on the school premises in underserved,
rural areas, participating adults are trained to know the difference between challenging but typical developmental
behaviors and those that may cause concern. When there isreason for intervention, the different parties work together
to buffer and protect the child in all the settings where they
have interactions. All are equipped with appropriate tools,
including positive reinforcement, safety and inclusion, childpsychology, or positive parenting.
Michael is currently in the process of expanding the scope of
his work through partnership with Masr El Ataa (Egypt Gives),
an initiative under the Egyptian General Medical Syndicate,with the longer-term goal of integrating it into the Egyptian

In 2014, he launched his new organization, Hope, and began
to test out a new approach, one that would unite families
and schools and could be replicated in areas with the greatest needs, beginning with poor communities in remote rural
areas. With the core method demonstrated, he is now moving from power prototypes to changing the system to a world
where all kids are treated with kindness and respect.

ASHOKA 2020 |17

GROWING UP

Carolina Contreras

Dominican Republic@missrizossalonrd
www.missrizos.com

Beauty Standards, Restyled
Carolina Contreras strengthens the identity and wellbeing ofpeople of the African diaspora, beginning by confronting deeply
held discrimination against the beauty with which they are born:their natural hair.
THE NEW IDEA
Carolina utilizes hairstyling as a social vehicle to confront
racial discrimination, implicit bias, and related invidious practices. Specifically, a means of addressing broad issues related
to race and color, she has launched Miss Rizos Hair Salon in
Santo Domingo as a community-level intervention to eradicate discrimination against the natural hair characteristic of
Afro descendants. Realizing that not much information about
this taboo subject existed online in Spanish, Carolina also
curated the Miss Rizos blog as a form of compiling knowledge,
anecdotes, and advice. The salon now naturally styles thehair of 1,000 clients every month, building their confidence
in their natural beauty and identity. At each salon, employees
are trained to explain how the Constitution of the Dominican
Republic can be used to fight hair-texture discrimination
Afro-Dominicans face in schools, the workplace, and within
the community.
Since the salon’s launch, Carolina’s approach to confrontingsocial discrimination has been adopted by the Peace Corps
for its training sessions. Carolina has expanded to form a
network of salons, including a second Miss Rizos salon in the
Washington Heights neighborhood in New York City, and she
has secured the support of social influencers like Lin ManuelMiranda. Her online presence in a Miss Rizos blog intersects
multiple social networks, which has led to her being measurably recognized as an influencer in more than 30 countries.
She is also featured periodically in mainstream networks like
CNN and the New York Times and is actively leading her network to advocate for more anti-hair-texture discrimination
laws in key cities.

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T H E P RO B L E M
While Afro-Dominican activists have made important strides,
lack of acceptance and discrimination are still tremendous
problems due to deeply entrenched societal norms that
uphold whiteness and European custom as the standards ofbeauty, professionalism, and success.
The population of the Dominican Republic is 92 percent Afrodescendant, yet Afro-Dominicans have historically had toassimilate their Afro-textured hair to succeed within a society dominated by European beauty standards stemming fromcolonialization. The dichotomy of hair in Latin America atlarge is infamously categorized into good hair, “pelo bueno,”
which is straight hair, and bad hair “pelo malo” which is hairthat is curly or tightly coiled. Ostracism begins at an earlyage, with Afro-Dominicans bullied and asked to leave theirclassrooms for not having their curls properly “tamed.” Signs
and posters in classrooms indicate how students should wear
their hair, showing natural curls as the “wrong” way to appear
at school, “Many people believe it’s an act of rebellion,”
Yaritza Reyes, Miss Dominican Republic Universe 2013 says,“it’s not rebellion, it’s nature.”“Her salon wasn’t just about stylinghair—it’s also empowering women andgiving them the tools they need to love
their curls, beyond products and combs.
Contreras has become quite a force inthe natural hair community for fighting
stereotypes and uplifting women[…]”CELIA SHATZMANWith 57,000 hair salons for styling straight hair and just 10
for curly hair in the Dominican Republic, the message is clear:conform to a straight-haired, Eurocentric image of beautyand propriety, or risk ostracism from society and exclusionfrom professional success. With a lack of Afro-Dominican
representation in the media, politics, and positions of power,

Rizos are needed as a comprehensive resource
for the future. The existence of a salon for the
Dominican-American community in New York City
by a Dominican-American social entrepreneur is an
impactful act of advocacy in itself in the face ofgentrification.
The workshops and online entries curated by
Carolina through Miss Rizos emphasize the holistic nature of taking care of textured hair, and how
it seeps into other aspects of life from reducing
waste to healthy eating to mental health.

Carolina leads the natural hair revolution.

Afro-Latinos in particular rarely see role models who look likethem in the face of the dominant messages of attractivenessfor men and women, which often has negative effects on
self-esteem and self-acceptance.

“I don’t think it’s just that I’m
Dominican, and so I want toerase my negritude and claim my
Europeanness,” she said. “It’s
more that society, including the world atlarge, and not just the DR, is sending methese messages about what success looks
like.”CAROLINA CONTRERAST H E S T R AT EG Y
The Miss Rizos strategy is comprised of three parts: thesalons, the online community/offline movement, and self-empowerment workshops.
Within the salons, clients can not only get their hair cut, butalso receive knowledge on protective styles alongside services by the hairstylists like wash-and-goes, simple braids,
and detangling. Instead of viewing their knowledge of caretaking of natural hair as a professional insight, they openly
share their regimen suggestions with clients to foster theclient’s relationship with their hair, leading to overall self-empowerment and agency.
Carolina’s online work as a social influencer/blogger speaks
to a universal discrimination against African descendants in
the Americas. In early 2019, New York passed the CROWN
Act, banning discrimination based on hair texture. Carolina
argues that the fact that this law needed to be passed
speaks to the severity of the issue, and that salons like Miss

Carolina also has a deliberate education effort beyond social
media influence to target mindset change around textured
hair in the education sector. For example, her comic book,“Super Rizadas,” depicts the story of Sara, a young girl dismissed from her classroom for showing up with her natural hair. As Sara makes her way from the principal’s office,a curly-haired superhero explains to her Article 39 of The
Constitution of The Dominican Republic which states that all
people are born free and equal before the law; Dominicans
may not be discriminated against on the basis of gender,color, age, disability, nationality, family ties, language, religion, political or philosophical opinion, or social condition.
Sara then returns to the office and enlightens the principalthat not permitting her to attend classes because of her curly
hair is an act of discrimination and a violation of her constitutional rights. The principal concedes, and Sara returns toclass for the day’s lesson. This issue of the comic has been
printed over 2,000 times and distributed to teachers andyouth organizations across the Dominican Republic. The art

ASHOKA 2020 |19

When Carolina returned to the Dominican
Republic to explore her roots, she first worked fora nonprofit that advocated for sex workers andthose affected by HIV/AIDS. It was through thisexperience that she came to learn just how pervasive the perceptions were that associated Black
people with prostitution and violence and White
people with being successful decision makers.
Around this time, Carolina decided to cut off all
her hair, something she had dreamed of doing foryears but always postponed. In response to thisbold move, women stopped her in the street to ask
how she dared to do it and what kind of hairstyle
she would adopt.
Fellow Carolina Contreras in front of the Miss Rizos Salon in Santo
Domingo, one of the locations embracing natural hair.

imitates life as Carolina had a 16-year-old girl write to her
this similar experience, and how she advocated for herself
with Carolina’s written guidance.
Now viewed internationally as a branded cultural reference point for standing up to discrimination, Carolina plans
to expand her anti-discrimination work throughout the
Dominican Republic, encouraging more women to set up
Miss Rizos branded salons and replicating her workshops inlocal schools and churches, with a goal of getting the Ministryof Youth to accept her self-empowerment workshops as amandatory part of the national education curriculum.
THE PERSON
Born in the Dominican Republic, Carolina migrated with herfamily to the United States at the age of six and grew up in apoor, multicultural community outside Boston. In high school,
she started a program called Atrévete Latino Youth, coaching
fellow students on how to create good study habits, set andachieve realistic goals, and deal with issues related to peerpressure or family drug and alcohol abuse. At university, shefounded a program to teach English to the Spanish-speaking
custodial staff, a program that she has helped replicate atother U.S. universities.

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ASHOKA 2020

Carolina turned her studio apartment into a mini beauty parlor to give her blog followers haircuts combined with empowerment talks, and soon after, she progressed to renting asmall space to launch her Miss Rizos Hair Salon. It is locatedon the same street in Santo Domingo where, more than two
hundred years ago, Africans were brought to market and soldas slaves.

“I always say the first step is there has tobe an internal switch, where you’re like,
I’m important, I’m worthy, I’m beautiful
and remind yourself constantly of thosefacts. Everything else will follow once
you feel that way.”

CAROLINA CONTRERASEnvironment

21

ENVIRONMENT

Abel Cruz

Peru@AbelCtuz
www.lossinagua.org

Unconventional Water Solutions forConventional Water Shortages
Abel is helping Peru’s citizens harness the power of the environment to tackle water scarcity.
THE NEW IDEA
Abel Cruz is equipping water-scarce areas—where people arereliant on imported, terribly expensive water for drinking andgrowing crops—with a simple, yet powerful tool to harvest
water from an unlikely source: the air itself. He installs nets
that capture droplets of moisture from the fog as it drifts
across the dry landscape. Each fog-catching net can harvest
up to 400 liters of water a day, and excess water is stored
in tanks for later use. As a result, families can significantly
reduce their cost of living, become more self-reliant, andgrow crops that were previously impossible to cultivate.

“With large sheets of mesh strung up
on hillsides, it is possible to harvest
the thick mists that drift across thearid Peruvian landscape. Tiny droplets
condense on the netting and dribble
down into pipes that carry the water
into containers where it can be used toirrigate crops or even as drinking water.”

BY MIGUEL TRANCOZO TREVINO 23RD FEBRUARY 2020

25 percent of Peru’s population lives in high-altitude areas
near cold, offshore Pacific Ocean currents. The majority of
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people living in these dry areas face issues of water affordability and availability. From about April to September, thePeruvian and Chilean coastlines are blanketed in a thick, seasonal fog called La Garúa, but this water source had been
overlooked until Abel began his work. He discovered thatthese high altitudes are ideal locations for installing fog watercollection systems. In ideal conditions, efficient fog collectors
can harvest up to 10 percent of the moisture in the air.
To demonstrate his approach, Abel set out to install over
2,000 fog catchers in 14 rural communities along Peru’s
southern coast. He documented the benefits this brought
to more than 30,000 people, particularly noting that theavailability of this new resource led over 1,000 families tostart new enterprises in these rural areas. In response, theGovernment of Peru has recognized fog water collection as avalid system for rural areas in a formal Ministerial Resolution.
Abel’s organization, Peruvians Without Water, is working with
universities, private companies, and governments to spread
his vision of installing a diversified mix of renewable sourcesof water and energy to serve communities facing issuesof water and power scarcity. Beginning with his successinstalling community-based fog collectors in Peru, Abel has
expanded his methodology and technology to safely capture
fog, rain, and sewage water in Peru and beyond into nearby
Bolivia and Colombia, and also in Mexico.
T H E P RO B L E M
In Peru, 3.8 million citizens suffer from lack of access todrinking water, and in Lima alone, this number is 2 million
people. Located in a coastal desert which receives less thanan inch of rain per year, Lima is one of the driest capitals in
the world. Those who live on the city outskirts must buy
expensive water that is trucked in, but many people in poorer
communities are only able to afford the minimum amount ofwater one person needs, just 40 liters per day.
Beyond human consumption needs, these communities
need access to water in order to raise farm animals or growcrops. Among those surviving day to day without clean water,
approximately 1 million live in deplorable conditions where
they are exposed to diseases through contaminated water
they are forced to find and use. The result is poverty, malnutrition, illness, and early death.

One by one, he demonstrated the viability of his
fog-catching nets to farmers. In one case, he convinced a farmer to install five fog catchers, andthanks to the additional water, the farmer wasable to raise 1,000 chickens whose eggs he soldat the market. Another farmer decided to use thecollected water to cultivate aloe for sale. Farmers
began installing their fog catchers on nearby landthat they had previously written off as desert andwere able to plant crops there.

Abel with small scale model of fog harvesting system.

Adding to the problem, the cost of purchasing water is 5-15
times higher than what it costs those who have a home water
access connection. Thus, disadvantaged populations who live
without readily available water sources end up paying muchhigher prices, which not all can afford. Furthering the challenge, citizens living in these areas are generally neglectedby the state and, given their complicated geography and distance from public services, these Peruvians living withoutwater find it difficult to gain the kind of economic resourcesthat would make it possible for them to build homes on landthat is connected to the water grid. Indeed, they are often
forced to migrate to even more remote areas in search of better opportunities for land and water.

Abel’s next step was to systematize this learning
so it could be shared with others. He created acommunity engagement plan which allowed local
communities and others to replicate his approach.
Abel’s materials provide a step-by-step guide fordesigning and implementing a location-specificplan for fog water collection and more. The steps
generally explain 1) how the particular conditionsof each community could be collectively assessed and alocation-specific strategy developed; 2) how the community
could be advised about the best building materials to use andspecifications for the fog-catching device, water catchment,
storage areas, and water distribution; and 3) how the community would need to be trained regarding how to maintainthe system.”“The fog nets mean we have practicallyno water costs in the winter months, it’sa saving of around 60% in our cost ofliving,”T H E S T R AT EG Y
Born and raised in an upland rural community himself, Abelknew that fog water collection could be a viable solution butthat he would need to start by building support for this idea
by approaching and convincing one farmer at a time. Acrossdifferent communities, he found farmers who were willing to
let Abel apply what he had learned through his own experiments of building dependable fog collectors. That way, neighboring farmers could see the results for themselves before
deciding whether to get involved.

ARTEMIO ALFARO, A PERUVIAN FARMER WHO BENEFITSFROM WATER COLLECTED FROM THE FOG-CAPTURINGNETS.

In southern Peru, Abel is spreading his idea through regional
government departments located between the Pacific Ocean
on one side and the highlands on the other. The governments
in Tacna and Moquegua have begun to finance expansion of

ASHOKA 2020 |23

equipped with both water and energy utilities, including fog
water collectors that could measure fog density, as well as
solar panels and biodigesters. That has led to collaborations
with corporations and international development agencies.
THE PERSON
Abel was born in the ancient, proud town of Cusco, southof Machu Pichu, to Inca parents who were community leaders. Since there was no water near their house, each day Abel
had to walk 300 meters to get to a water source. At age 10,
already concerned about access to water, he created a system to collect water from a river using gutters to funnel it
toward their home. He also cleaned the water, removing particles and dust naturally by using a rattan plant that had spiny,thorn tips. When it rained from September to April, he collected water from canals and thresholds using banana leaves.

Ashoka Fellow Abel Cruz installs a net to harvest water from Peru’s
coastal fog.

fog catching projects in areas where Abel has already demonstrated its success.
At the federal level in Peru, Abel is consulting with the
Ministry of Development and Social Inclusion. He seeks to
influence public policies for the gathering of water fromunconventional systems in the rural and peri-urban sectors,
with the goal of creating a system of water catchments andstorage that can offer an uninterrupted supply of water forcommunities engaged in small-scale agriculture and breedingof small animals.
He is also using global platforms to bring attention to his idea.
Recently, Abel won the Google prize. With the prize money,
he improved his technology for environmental monitoring
and analyses and was able to widen his community engagement strategy to consider eco-friendly forms of renewableenergy beyond fog water. The result was 53 acres of land
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When Abel moved from Cusco to Lima to attend college, helived in a settlement where the community’s only source ofwater was through expensive purchases of trucked-in water.
He was appointed a community leader with the responsibilityof figuring out how to find more affordable water. He experimented to find a solution until, one day after fencing a plotof land, he noticed that the fence net was full of water. Thatreminded him of the fog-traps he had seen growing up in
Cusco—a technology that his Inca ancestors had used.
He spoke with other settlement leaders and they agreed toplace fog-traps—6 vertical nets that measured 6 meters wideand 4 meters high—to catch water. Abel kept on experimenting with different designs and materials for the fog traps. He
eventually won a grant to install 20 fog-catchers to serve acommunity of 150,000 people. This success convinced him
to launch his initiative, Peruvians Without Water.

ENVIRONMENT

Ahsan Rony

Bangladesh@ahsanrony09
www.thegreensavers.org

Greening the Cities
Bangladesh’s cities have lost their gardens and trees. Rony ismaking them green through the ministrations of his new Plant
Doctors and by energizing the public, starting with kids.
THE NEW IDEA
Dhaka, Bangladesh’s biggest city, is one of the world’s
most densely populated (10 million people) and least green(only five percent). This hurts both public health and theenvironment.
Rony has set out to green all of the explosively growing cities
across the country. To succeed, he recognized that he had togive each city’s people the ability to grow gardens successfully in all sorts of places, from heavily trafficked streets torooftops. And he had to give them a new vision and matching
motive energy.
Key to both is the new profession he has created, the “plant
doctor.” After training and certification, plant doctors help
every type of client develop and maintain successful gardens.
They are required to train the client or staff members, not justprovide direct service. As the client experiences the pleasureof growing living things and gains confidence, they become
new recruits for Rony’s growing force of greening champions.
Indeed, each new garden also quietly invites emulation.
The plant doctors are a permanent driving force – seeking
out new clients, advocating, and making the greening work.
Dhaka alone has over 100 plant doctors -- and growing. Ronyhelps new graduates, but most are now running profitablesmall businesses. Everything else Rony does helps the plant
doctors and vice versa. As a result, Rony’s work will neverpeter out.
To help spread knowledge of how to do urban gardening,
Rony created the first open-source, open-to-all, and comprehensive database on urban greenscaping. His organization,
Green Savers, also actively uses all sorts of channels, from thepress and digital media to neighborhood meetings, to spread

its vision and the how-to competency that must accompany
it.
Who in society will be the most persistent and persuasive
champions of greening once exposed to Rony’s greening-vision? Hands down, it is children and young people. Once they
start pressing, adults will follow. Therefore, Green Savers also
focuses on kids. It engages community leaders, schools, andyouth to establish Green Clubs in schools. Each Green Club iscreated and operated by students, who meet at least monthly
to plan environmental protection and climate change awareness and action activities for their school. Green Club members run an Oxygen Bank, where students make small donations as payment for the oxygen that they now get from trees
for free, and they use the money to plant trees and create
green spaces on the school’s grounds. Any student in grades
6 through 10 who contributes 10 Taka (equivalent to lessthan $1 USD) to the Oxygen Bank is welcomed as a Club
member. There are already 20,000 members. The result?
Schools expand their vision and launch initiatives suchas community rooftop gardens. In the long term, children
become active forces of environmental change who contribute to a culture and community of greenspace planning at an
early age through the experience of owning, managing andtending to school gardens and participating in school leadership teams. It connects with the students’ values and given
them an opening to be powerful changemakers for the environment. And, of course, they take their fervor for gardens
and their changemaking power home.

“We are ingraining the concept of being
environmentally friendly in the minds ofour students. After 10 years, I hope thateach and every one of my students will
come to love and care for nature. I hopethat they transfer this knowledge to theirfamilies and the general public, since thatis how we can achieve a healthy life in
the future.”
SHARIFUL ISLAM, A TEACHER AT VIQURUNNISA NOONSCHOOL AND COLLEGE, A SCHOOL IN THE GREEN SAVERSNETWORK.

ASHOKA 2020 |25

and professional infrastructure to transform metro areas
into “Garden Cities.” By collaborating with universities, professional gardeners, schools, young people, and the generalpublic, he is building a powerful community of citizens andorganizations that is united by their commitment to green
their city.

Fighting climate change one plant at a time, a plant doctor cares fora tree.

THE PROBLEM
The severe shortage of greenspaces in Bangladesh’s densely
populated cities threatens public health, aesthetics, and theenvironment. Greenspaces, including parks, forests, treelined streets, and even gardens, help improve the air, soil,
and water quality. They also reduce a city’s dependence on
imported food, demonstrably improve the health and thewell-being of city dwellers, and combat the urban “heatisland” effect. However, most residents in Dhaka do not connect the challenges they face with the lack of greenspacearound them and are thus not motivated to increase the city’s
greenspaces.
There is also a web of institutional barriers. Government at alllevels has many structures committed to economic development, and they are supported by many powerful and well-organized constituencies. The environment, let alone urban
greening, has nothing remotely equivalent. Indeed, before
Rony, there were only a few greenhouses in Dhaka and they
served only a tiny elite.
Moreover, garden work was perceived as being near the bottom in terms of prestige, the opposite of much sought-after
white-collar office jobs. And perhaps a bit like a village’s landless laborers. This framing is a barrier both to recruitment andto the public hearing such workers and opening its mind to
new ways of seeing the city, their neighborhood, their homes.

To cultivate and build the supply of urban gardening services
in Bangladesh, Rony created the profession of plant doctors. He partnerd with agriculture universities to co-create
a curriculum and attract able youth who graduate from theprogram with a Diploma of Gardening. To help destigmatize
the pursuit of a gardening career, Rony gave it this university
foundation and framed the role as a “doctor”.
Plant doctors work with families and communities to help
grow and sustain green spaces. These doctors host citizen
workshops to demonstrate how to start and grow urban gardens. They pay “house calls” to people’s homes to maintainplants’ health and intervene with emergency “ambulance”
support when a plant is doing poorly. During a house call,
Rony requires that someone from the household be present
to shadow the plant doctor in order to develop the capacity to take over maintenance of the garden. The goal of theplant doctor is to help the client grasp and experience thehappiness and health that gardening and green brings – andthe competencies required. They are quiet, gentle movement
missionaries as well as doctors. Day after day they help more
and more people develop an affinity for gardening and a
growing awareness of the need to maintain green areas.

“[Green Savers] launched an android
application-based online service called
Plant’s Doctor. Users of the application
can get necessary information aboutrooftop or balcony gardening, knowledge
about plant disease and treatment, says
Ahsan.”T H E S T R AT EG Y
Rony fosters a culture of environmental stewardship on
multiple levels. He begins by creating a communal, cultural,
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ASHOKA 2020

Through his services, Rony has been able to fund andre-invest the revenue generated into employing more plantdoctors. Many of them are now running their own microenterprises, having created over 5,000 urban gardens in the cityof Dhaka and engaging with tens of thousands of school students across the country.

often played in the surrounding rural landscape of farmland,
forests and lakes – developing a lifelong respect for green
spaces and the many ways that humans depend on theenvironment.

For those who cannot afford plant doctor services, Ronyprovides free, easily accessible (e.g.: Through YouTube andother social media channels) videos at low or zero cost forpeople ready to start and develop their own urban gardens.
His materials, which are fun, engaging, and high quality, invite
and enable anyone to become involved in the movement.

He became the first person in his family to break the rural
agricultural lineage when he moved to the capital to pursue
a degree in Anthropology at Dhaka University. In Dhaka, oneof the most densely populated cities in the world, Rony wasshocked by the extreme contrast to his hometown. In particular, he noticed the skyrocketing of new construction projects, which came at the expense of the few green spaces thatwere left.

A second key dimension of his work is to empower young
people as protectors of the environment by spreading Green
Clubs and Oxygen Banks to as many schools in a metro area
as possible. Rony now has more than 100 schools in Dhaka aspart of his network and approximately 300 schools in otherareas of the country. With the support of the Departmentof the Environment, Rony’s goal is to leverage this broader
access to establish Green Clubs and Oxygen Banks in every
school across the country.
According to Shariful Islam, a teacher at one of the schoolsin Rony’s network, “We are ingraining the concept of being
environmentally friendly in the minds of our students. […] I hopethat they transfer this knowledge to their families and the general public, since that is how we can achieve a healthy life in the
future.”To shift public attitudes about the importance of urban
greening, Rony is undertaking awareness-raising campaigns,
each focused on creating more greenspaces in a specific areaof a city. The goal is to convince residents in different partsof these large metro areas of the benefits and value of collectively taking up gardening, as a first step to greening theircity. News of pending events become a trending hashtag onsocial media, helping generate local community interest andsupport, as well as encouraging more young people to form
Green Clubs and launch Oxygen Banks to further green theareas where they live.
THE PERSON
Rony grew up in rural Bangladesh in a family that was dependent on agriculture and the land around them for survival.
Their daily lives were deeply interconnected with nature. He
learned how to grow his favorite fruits and vegetables andWhen he was about to turn 18, Rony was tutoring younger
students after school to help pay for his tuition. One day a
student shared that he had zero interest in gardening but
loved strawberries. Rony gave him seeds, soil, and taught him
how to care for his strawberry seedlings, and soon the student was showing off his new strawberries to his teachers.
At the school’s invitation, Rony began giving presentations tostudents and parents about creating a home garden and felt
the initial spark of what would become a lifelong dedication
to building urban greenspaces. Teenage Rony began to beapproached by others at the university asking for his support
to grow plants, fruits, flowers and vegetables.
Rony decided to start a seed business on the Dhaka University
campus, where seeds were needed for research purposes.
He grew this business and, in the process, converted many
people into becoming planters and growers of their own produce. Seeing the need for more gardens and green spaces,
Rony turned his attention to studying why Bangladesh’s
major metropolitan cities were losing their green cover andwhat was preventing people from using the growing numberof vertical spaces to create more localized gardens.
After graduating, Rony launched Green Savers to build an
integrated movement with the vision of making Dhaka a garden city and creating a cultural shift to embrace urban green
space in other cities across the country.
Rony is looking to replicate his model through partnering withinstitutions in other key cities such as Sylhet and Chittagong,while simultaneously continuing to generate new methods
and exciting approaches to urban gardening that can be open
sourced and accessible to all citizens.

ASHOKA 2020 |27

ENVIRONMENT

Juliana GutiérrezColumbia@LowCarbon_City
http://lowcarbon.city/en

A Sustainable Future for Cities
Beginning in Medellín, Colombia, Juliana created the Low Carbon
City movement with its empowered citizen “Ambassadors” tolaunch and lead successful city-based campaigns all over theworld to cut urban greenhouse gas emissions, 70 percent of theworld’s total.
THE NEW IDEA
Juliana is taking on the biggest source of climate change—
the cities—which produce the majority of all greenhousegas emissions. Activated and sustained through a powerful
citizen-created and -led movement, Juliana’s engagement
strategy moves city by city and as a global alliance. Her local
climate “Ambassadors” are key.
Unlike other like-minded organizations in Latin America, theLow Carbon City movement goes beyond educating people about climate change. Its all-in approach engages citydwellers of all ages and backgrounds, as well as all types oforganizations—from companies to governments—to take on
this time’s most urgent climate challenge. Juliana translates
technical language about climate change into information
that’s easy to understand and links citizens with experts to
exchange knowledge, co-create climate solutions, and influence progressive policy changes. Climate Ambassadors pushfor metro-area, eco-friendly infrastructure and practices,such as sustainable transportation, zero-waste products andpractices, and greening through communal gardens, tree
planting, and parks.
Juliana’s unique approach allows Ambassadors in one city toshare solutions and practices with Ambassadors in nearby
cities within the same metropolis. Over 120 municipalities,
designated as “Ambassador cities,” are using the Low Carbon
City’s governance model. It relies on citizen Ambassadors ineach city to lead the application of Juliana’s methodology.
Linked together through a network of metro and global networks, these citizen-led efforts then have the power to make

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ASHOKA 2020

policy changes at the national level and to show Ambassadorsin other countries how to pursue maximum impact of thesocial mobilization efforts they undertake in their own cities.
While Low Carbon City campaigns are aligned with and driven
by local citizens and neighborhood groups, Juliana ensuresthat the overall campaign objectives—including growing thenumber of low carbon cities—are moving and measured, cityby city and overall. Now it is tracking 568 forums, projects,
workshops and urban interventions. Low Carbon City has
mobilized more than 48,000 citizens to tackle carbon emissions in over 120 municipalities worldwide. Its goal is to have
500 Ambassador cities in the network by 2024. Juliana’s
localized and integrated approach allows community issues
to surface, city-based solutions to be proposed and tracked,
and agreements that are made with city governments, local
businesses, and others to be made transparent and shared.
T H E P RO B L E M
Cities consume between 60 percent to 80 percent of energy
worldwide and generate about 70 percent of the world’s
GHG emissions, yet cities only occupy 3 percent of the global
surface.

“Cities consume between 60 to 80% ofenergy worldwide and generate about
70% of world’s GHG (Greenhouse Gas)
emissions.”

In Colombia, and Latin America in general, climate change
competes to be a priority on the public agenda as many ofthese countries struggle with other major social challenges
such as poverty, violence, drugs, unemployment, and migration. According to the Survey of Climate Change Perception
in Colombia from the Science and Technology Observatory in
2015, 80 percent surveyed weren’t aware of climate change.

Ambassador on Low Carbon City’s website. Once
plugged into this community of climate-passionate changemakers, Ambassadors can leverage its
network effect to implement innovative projects,
workshops, and campaigns. One case in point—an
Ambassador-led neighborhood sustainability initiative in Quito, Ecuador won recognition at the
UN-hosted World Youth Conference on Habitat
and the Right to the City for its youth-driven carbon reduction work.

The community in an Ecozone in Envigado plants a garden to help green theneighborhood.

Moreover, most Colombians who said they were aware
also claimed they felt either “poorly informed” or “not at all
informed” about climate change.
Though most are significantly unaware, city dwellers are
increasingly very much affected. Heat waves, violent storms,
increased pollution, and damage to the energy and water systems lower the quality of life and increase political division.
T H E S T R AT EG Y
The Low Carbon City movement differs from other efforts
because of its emphasis on empowering citizen engagementin every sector. Juliana’s approach tackles three main categories: spreading knowledge about climate change, connecting
citizen-led initiatives, and co-creating solutions in all efforts
to raise awareness about climate-friendly lifestyles. As climate change is not typically a part of standardized education,
Juliana’s movement fills an important gap. In doing so, she
focuses more on solutions and the attraction of engagement
than on the problem.
The network of Ambassadors leads and implements projects throughout their urban community. Anyone currently
driving a climate mitigation venture can apply to become an

The network drives outreach efforts to activate
additional citizens to take climate action. The Low
Carbon City movement connects people to its network by hosting webinars, public art interventions,storytelling competitions, sustainability workshops, and courses on urban agriculture. Once
directly engaged in the network, urban citizens
have access to educational resources and materials to expand their opportunities to fight climatechange.

Low Carbon City also co-designs solutions with schools, companies, and governments to reduce emissions. The 1000
Children for 1000 Solutions program, co-designed by Low
Carbon City and a network of schools, is an educational modelthat teaches children how to live sustainably and encourages
them to lead and create solutions for reducing CO2 emissions beginning in their school.
City-based action notwithstanding, Juliana knows that inorder for our global community to stand a chance in counteracting climate change, governments and big corporations
also need to act. Working with companies such as Comfama
in Medellín and STC in Beijing, Juliana has developed service
projects to help them reduce their climate footprint through10 different carbon reducing products. Juliana developed
a “Carbon Neutral” seal for companies who host events tofundraise for urban climate mitigation and purchase carbon
credits to offset emissions created during their events. The
money raised at these events, seven of which have been held
so far, pays for tree planting and/or other carbon reduction
projects in the city. In 2019 alone, Low Carbon City generated
and compensated 17 tons of CO2.

ASHOKA 2020 |29

In order to create holistic, sustainable changes, Juliana has
worked with the public sector to develop carbon emission reduction efforts. The Low Carbon City World Forum,a three-day co-creation venue, brings together different
actors, including local governments, to develop and implement solutions. During the first annual forum, a main avenue
in Medellín was closed as a pilot pedestrian-only area andwas, subsequent to the forum, converted into a permenantpedestrian area with bike lanes. The forum also instigatedthe process which resulted in the Decarbonization Policy of
the Metropolitan area of Medellin, which aims to reduce theaverage emissions in the city by 2030. Juliana participated in
the final policy deliberations where she included the provisions of citizen participation and education, measurable targets and goals, and open data and education.
Juliana also helped develop a sustainable policy plan for theValle de Aburrá region (including Medellín and 9 other municipalities) in response to the 2015, 2016, and 2017 Spring air
pollution crisis to improve air quality. The policy recommendation incorporated accountability measures for all actors
involved—public or private—and prioritized seven institutional recommendations to decrease air pollution causes. The
region now has follow-up and control mechanisms with clear
indicators of environmental health.

Low Carbon City takes their participatory lessons into publicschools for students and teachers alike to learn about climatechange and climate change alleviation measures.

helping implement solutions that will build resilient and low
carbon cities around the globe. These cities increasingly offer
a new social infrastructure that supports both citizen leadership and business and government initiatives to make cities
safe for the planet.
THE PERSON“Low Carbon City works for the collective
construction of solutions that educate thepopulation [and] generate changes withcompanies, governments, universities,
and communities.”

A PROMINENT NATIONAL NEWS OUTLET THAT COVEREDTHE IV WORLD FORUM OF LOW CARBON CITIES IN 2019

Today, Low Carbon City’s network includes nearly 800 climate
experts from 73 countries who are connecting with its citizen base. They work alongside local leaders co-designing and

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When Juliana was five, she would accompany her parents,
both medical doctors, on their trips to vulnerable communities in the countryside. At the time, the trips mainly meant a
fun time to play with her friends surrounded by nature, but as
Juliana grew, she gained first-hand consciousness about theinequalities in her home country; she had opportunities her
friends did not. This impact carried on to her academic years
when she had leadership roles and worked for students’rights. At 15, she graduated from high school and was a volunteer at the Red Cross. Torn about what she would do next
at such a young age, she applied to study in a range of majors
at various universities around the world. She had hoped thatthe admission decisions would help her narrow her path.
Ironically, she was accepted nearly everywhere she had
applied, and ultimately her passions aligned best with thestudy of global affairs. At university, she led efforts to provide financial scholarship and grants to students from less

financially advantaged families. At the age of 19, Juliana
joined AIESEC (International Association of Students in
Economic and Commercial Sciences)—a critical turning point
for her—and did volunteer work with Amnesty International
in Chile.
In her graduate research, Juliana focused on “Cities andClimate Change,” and discovered the great potential cities
have to become the driving force of solutions to this global
problem. However, she realized that the existing language
used to talk about climate change and most of the field’sorganizations were too specialized to effectively appeal tomost people. Establishing in 2015, Juliana decided to create
her own initiative where the citizens would have the leadingrole, and formalized Low Carbon City as an NGO in 2017.
Through these experiences and continued research, Juliana
has expanded her focus to climate change governance andrefined her idea for a citizen-led Low Carbon Cities movement, including many of the tools that the movement’s
Ambassadors now use to co-create solutions with different
city stakeholders. Today, Juliana is a well-known leader in thecity of Medellín and has rapidly growing global reach.

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Full Economic
Citizenship32

FULL ECONOMIC CITIZENSHIP

Apar Gupta

India@internetfreedom
https://internetfreedom.in

Maintaining Internet Freedom
Apar is addressing the most critical threats to the digital
freedoms of India’s citizens by building a broad and independent citizen movement. He is creating a model for digital rights
advocacy that is driven by the public, for the public.
THE NEW IDEA
Advocacy for digital freedom in India isn’t new. What is newis Apar’s approach—creating the first public-centered andmember-driven organization in India that mobilizes citizens tobecome champions for digital rights and net neutrality acrossthe country. Born out of the SavetheInternet.in campaign in2015 for Net Neutrality, the Internet Freedom Foundation (IFF)
unites organizations and citizens from a wide variety of sectors into a powerful, end-to-end attack and quick adapting
voice of planned public advocacy for a free, open internet.
In 2019, India had the second-largest number of internet
users in the world. As more people have gained access to theinternet, liberties guaranteed by the Indian constitution continue to come under threat as authorities seek to manage thishuge population of digital users. To hold those in positionsof power accountable, the IFF’s members engage with policy-making institutions to advance human freedoms in thedigital age through education, communications, organization,and litigation.

compromised net neutrality, lost access to information andallies, surveillance, internet shutdowns, arrests for online dissent, and breaches of privacy.
India had more internet shutdowns than any other country in
2018, according to a comparative study by Freedom House.
Government authorities do this for a variety of reasons,such as to prevent riots, address matters of national security, and deter cheating on school exams. With 128 internet
shutdowns in 2019 alone and with over 1 billion personal
data breaches of India’s national identification system, citizens face huge risks to their fundamental privacy and freedoms. Yet, a large portion of the public is relatively unawareof potential threats that exist online. Existing research about
the topic is also prohibitively academic in nature and fails toconvey laws and rights in an easily understandable manner.
While there is growing interest in protecting digital freedoms in India, many organizations fail to harness the powerof collective action as they are subject to numerous government restrictions. They thus lack the capacity to step in
effectively when people’s rights are threatened or dismissed.
Furthermore, most organizations are dependent on foreign
funds to operate, which makes them vulnerable under theForeign Currency Regulation and limits their ability to contribute to research and new knowledge generation.
To advocate effectively, public campaigns require substantial
citizen sector mobilization with broad reach and continued
access to resources and data, sustained over months andyears. Apar has overcome these hurdles by uniting thousandsof Indians to stand up together—to plan, to act, to protect
one another.

THE PROBLEM
While the frontiers of emerging technology open new dreams,
possibilities, and opportunities for India, these technologies present known and potentially serious risks that could
be weaponized to derail the constitutional rights and freedoms of the public. Unless digital rights and their structural
defenses advance in stride with technology, all, but especially those who are already marginalized, could be further
disempowered through suppressed freedom of expression,

Apar, pictured second from left, with fellow lawyers appearing
before the Supreme Court arguing for privacy as a fundamental
right in 2017.
ASHOKA 2020 |33

“Watchdog groups, however, have notedwith concern the Modi government’s
tendency to use sweeping policy
instruments for political ends. “Interms of being a singular act of web
censorship, it’s impacted more Indiansthan any before,” said Apar Gupta,
executive director of the Internet
Freedom Foundation, which promotes
digital liberties in India. The current
political climate in India is one inwhich nationalist sentiment is likely
to be accommodated above otherconsiderations, Mr. Gupta said.”

T H E S T R AT EG Y
The Internet Freedom Foundation is a big, broad, highly organized movement determined to achieve long-term systemicchanges that advance digital rights. When someone joins,they are plugged into a community of organizations and citizens who are passionate about changing policy and behavior in order to protect the personal liberties for all of Indiansociety.
Whatever the campaign may entail, the IFF follows a clear,strategic process for mapping out steps to achieve policy
goals. Participants are thoroughly educated about their fundamental rights through comprehensive and concise explanatory videos, articles, and the like that can be shared easily
to establish clear, accessible information about rather complicated issues. With the understanding that campaigns are
long-term commitments, volunteers’ and members’ experience from one campaign often informs the next and thisstrengthens the collective’s advocating power over time. To
maximize collective advocacy, Apar organizes IFF members
into groups based on the issues that they care most about,

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rather than their geographic location. Broadly, these groups
focus on four key topics: privacy, freedom of expression,
innovation, and net neutrality. From there, they initiate athree-step approach—campaigns to engage broad publicaudiences, institutional engagement through tools like petitions, and litigation to write permanent changes into law.
Through its litigation work, the IFF is providing critical citizen oversight of government activities. When citizens’ constitutional rights are threatened, members pursue aggressive
litigation against the state. For example, in 2020, the IFF successfully helped litigate the restoration of 4G connectivity
in Jammu and Kashmir where the state had slowed internet
speeds amidst ongoing conflict. The IFF has also intervenedin legal cases related to WhatsApp privacy, CCTV surveillance, and the accessing of citizens’ social media accounts by
Aadhaar (the world’s largest biometric ID collection system).
They are currently engaged with eight open cases, three of
which have reached the Supreme Court level.
The IFF seeks policy change through many channels. Recently,
it helped organize an online campaign to repeal criminal defamation and consolidate civil defamation laws which generated thousands of signatures and the support of 54 organizations—including India’s major publishing companies. It carried
this forward to Parliament where, working with MP Tathagata
Satpathy, the IFF drafted reform legislation—the Protectionof Speech and Reputation Bill, a clear blueprint for defamation reform in India.
The IFF uses the web for many purposes, including to provide new, immediate, and continuous reports on web rights,
areas of concern, and major campaigns across the county.
Starting with a thumbnail summary, the organization provides access to full reports and encourages all members to
document experiences, plan together, and offer feedback
to one another and the organization. This allows citizens to
directly access the developing campaigns and hashtags thatprovide essential information in situations where the safety
and privacy of others may be in danger.
As advanced technology becomes increasingly integrated inall sectors, the IFF in turn enforces transparency. Using theRight to Information Act, the IFF monitors how the state isusing technology and “blows the whistle” when authorities
infringe on citizens’ rights.

For example, during the initial COVID-19 lockdown in early
2020, the Delhi Police used aerial drones with facial recognition capabilities for surveillance of protests, riots, andpeople’s whereabouts in containment zones. These drones
were active night and day, collecting video and photo dataon citizens without any public disclosure of who could see
the information or how it was being used. The IFF demandedthat the government halt this mass surveillance and breach ofprivacy, forcing the Delhi Police to admit that they had used
drones without any legal guidelines in place.
THE PERSON
Early in life, Apar was intrigued by technology—computers,
video games, television. He sought out any opportunity to
explore this interest, assembling computers, learning how tocode, and navigating the early world of internet chat rooms.
In order to spend more time in front of computers, Aparestablished a computer club at his school where he got his
first experience organizing and leading a group of people
with a common interest.
In college, Apar chose to study Law. He was drawn to thesocial sciences and discovered that he could combine thishumanistic interest with his passion for technology. He particularly liked Moot Court—the exercise of hypothetical court
practices for aspiring lawyers—and he often won mock trials.
Apar went on to become a mentor to many younger students,and he began organizing large groups of students at his college to demand better facilities and more transparency fromthe administration. Taking an interest in defense of others’
rights, he became a go-to person for advising students onwhat actions to take when they got into disciplinary trouble.
In those days, when IT regulations were still relatively new,he also wrote a book on the IT Act that was issued by legal
publisher Wadhwa & Company.

to vaguely criminalize online dissent and threaten freedomof expression. Subsequently, Apar went on to file a petition with the Public Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) against
Section 66A, which contributed to the collaborative Shreya
Singhal vs Union of India case and led to the Supreme Court’s
landmark decision to strike down Section 66A of the Act as
unconstitutional.

A product of Columbia Law School andbefore that, Mount St Mary’s school in
Delhi, Gupta says, “It is true society will
be incredibly digital, but if you divorce
it from civil rights and constitutionality,
you will get something very unjust. We
want to push this back.”

Buoyed by the confidence and momentum of seeing fundamental civil rights on the internet progressing, Apar joined
forces with a group of prominent young activists to launch
the highly successful SaveTheInternet.in campaign to spreadawareness of net neutrality issues. The formation of the IFF
evolved from the campaign, driven by Apar’s concerns thatIndians’ constitutional rights were increasingly threatened.
Moving forward, Apar continues to establish strong systems
and processes that strengthen both digital rights and the
IFF’s essential bulwark—a growing, well rooted digital activism movement in Indian society.

After law school, Apar grew increasingly involved in public
interest law having to do with digital freedom. He created
his own firm, and his passion for litigation and technology
was evident in the portfolio of clients he developed, including the Internet and Mobile Association of India. In his firstcourt case, he represented a cartoonist in a Public Interest
Litigation case against Section 66A of the Information
Technology Act, which was being used by the government

ASHOKA 2020 |35

FULL ECONOMIC CITIZENSHIP

Immy Kaur

United Kingdom@ImmyKaur
https://civicsquare.cc

Community Over Profit
Immy envisions an approach to long-term urban renewal throughwhich marginalized communities rely less on governing councils,
gifts of grants, and landlords and more on themselves to effectregenerative change.
THE NEW IDEA
Immy’s work is based on the centrality of land to sustainableurban communities and the infrastructure that helps them
thrive. It reverses the effect of prevailing “renewal” practices
that use the land to extract value primarily for the benefit ofmore affluent outsiders, not the people who currently live inthose communities.
To effect this change, Immy places the needs of local neighborhoods in the driver’s seat in forging partnerships withmunicipal authorities and private developers. The organization she leads, CIVIC SQUARE, creates a stream of highly replicable new ways for communities to fund community-owned
upliftment that improves wellbeing, creates entrepreneurshipand employment opportunities, and improves the physicalenvironment of the local neighborhoods.
Immy’s “laboratory” for testing, verifying, and then sharing
proven and replicable methods is located in Birmingham’s
Ladywood neighborhood. Her vision—changing land ownership patterns, full transparency, publicly shared IP, collaboration with citizen groups, local authorities and private developers—is already spreading in the West Midlands and has
stirred interest across the UK and Europe.
THE PROBLEM
Local authorities have the power to decide what public
investments in city infrastructure will be made. In the UK,
these local authorities have been under increasing pressure for some years, brought on by reduced funding from36|

ASHOKA 2020

the national government. As a result, these authorities haveincreasingly prioritized profit over community ownership.
One effect is that landlord absenteeism has risen as thosewealthy enough to purchase property have focused on
extracting higher rents, attracting the more affluent alongwith the services to cater to their needs. In this new context, the economy hums but current residents suffer andface higher costs if they stay as well as reduced access toaffordable community services, e.g., childcare and other family services.
Birmingham, where CIVIC SQUARE is headquartered, is home
to one of Europe’s largest local authorities. However, as theresult of years of profit-dominated public-private redevelopment efforts, more than half of the land and buildings inand adjacent to the Birmingham city center are now owned
by absentee landlords. One effect of this concentration ofabsentee landownership has been to thwart community-preferred solutions based upon more informed participation of
local residents.
But something else has changed in Birmingham and manyother urban areas across the UK—there is a new generationof young people from diverse backgrounds born and growing
up in the country’s city centers who value the vibrancy of theheterogeneity of these communities and are willing to pushback with new solutions.
Immy Kaur was born and grew up in Birmingham in a Sikhhousehold, and it was to this new generation of residents
that she turned when she launched her CIVIC SQUARE vision:“A bold approach to visioning, building
and investing in civic infrastructure forneighborhoods of the future.”

Immy and her team bring experiences with co-building open
initiatives such as #RadicalChildcare, DemoDev, and Open
Project Nights that incubate community-generated solutions.
The resulting success of these efforts, both in Ladywood andwith other citizen groups in the UK who have taken up similar work with local authorities, has led the West Midlands
Combined Authority to name CIVIC SQUARE as a strategic
partner in doubling the size of the region’s social economy
by 2029. It is advising citizen groups in undertaking similar
efforts in Scandinavia and Western Europe.

“The reality is testament to the powerof that civic spirit: #radicalchildcare
and creative resistance, for instance, areactively improving the lives of locals,
one by redesigning the support system
for working families, the other by giving
citizens a voice.”

CIVIC SQUARE Impact Hub meeting in Birmingham.

T H E S T R AT EG Y
CIVIC SQUARE’s approach begins with finding new ways forexisting communities to control the land on which their communities live, and thereby determine the purposes to whichthat land will be put. One way that Immy does this is througha new type of lease—the affordable land leasehold. The local
council leases land for a nominal amount to a community trust
made up of the community’s members. Housing units can bebuilt and sold on that land, and the resulting profit—called the“citizen dividend”—goes into a shared neighborhood trust.
Local residents then decide how to spend that money in lightof shared priorities with a focus on reinvestment in the community’s continuing long-term needs to generate a stable andpredictable long-term revenue stream with priority on capital
circulating locally.
In the next step, CIVIC SQUARE works with the community
trust holding the long-term affordable land to create an arrayof opportunities for the community’s members. To this work

THE PERSON
Born in Birmingham and raised in the traditions of the Sikhcommunity, Immy felt a constant challenge about how she fit
in, given conflicting expectations from her family and friends.
Her passion for sport provoked family disapproval, and herstrong commitment to her studies found her sometimes atodds with friends in her social circle.
From her grandparents she learned of the struggle during
Partition and their consequent resettlement to the UK. Her
father also shared his own struggles growing up with racismand discrimination. After graduating from university and a
period of work, Immy travelled to India, where she worked
with women’s empowerment projects and founded a sewing
studio to help girls become self-sustainable.

ASHOKA 2020 |37

Immy Kaur at Impact Hub Birmingham based in Digbeth.

Armed with this understanding, Immy realized thatBirmingham was where she should launch her life’s work. She
moved back home with a new mission: to empower the newand more diverse generation of people who had grown up in
central city neighborhoods to be a force for social change.
Immy founded Birmingham’s first TEDx event in 2011 andTEDx Brum proved successful over the next four years in creating and fostering a social climate calling for social change inthe city. She co-founded Impact Hub in Birmingham in 2014
to accelerate this momentum, and this experience further
sharpened her thinking, with the result being the launch of
CIVIC SQUARE in 2018.

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FULL-ECONOMIC CITIZENSHIP

Abhinav Agarwal

India@anahad_ngo
https://anahad.ngo“backpack” studios in order to compete with other music
forms dominating the industry. For example, he helps the
local folk musicians build their own websites, digital streaming pages (YouTube, Spotify, etc.), and other platforms to beable to showcase their art form to a larger audience.

Power to Folk Musician
While 70 percent of the Indian music industry is comprised offolk music, less than 2 percent of its total revenue goes to folk
musicians. Abhinav is opening up economic opportunities for
India’s 8.7 million folk musicians who live under the poverty line.
THE NEW IDEA
Though folk music has traditionally been seen as a powerfulvehicle to promote social cohesion, in India the industry has
slowly diminished as fewer musicians are able to make a living by engaging in the art form. Abhinav’s Anahad Foundation
has created a new demand and value for cultural folk musicby helping musicians establish a self-sustainable economic
environment through which they can record and distribute
their productions directly to the public without an intermediary. In this process, Abhinav is reestablishing a folk musicindustry that is musician-led and responsive to the growing,collective voice of poor, marginalized musicians.

“Developed by Latin Grammy winnerGael Hedding for Anahad, the portable
recording studio [is] designed to meetrural Indian challenges such as lackof electricity and the unwillingness
on the part of musicians to leave theirhometowns (and daily livelihoods) totravel to studios in cities.”T H E P RO B L E M

Driven initially by a desire to record the folk music of his
small-town, childhood community, Abhinav collaborated
with engineers and producers to find a way to raise the production value of local folk music to that of accepted industry
standards. The result was a “backpack” studio: a lightweight,
state-of-the-art recording studio that runs on batteries and can shoot 4K videos. This portable studio includes
DIY instructions for artists to record themselves. Once therecording is done, the music can be sent through wirelessconnection to a centralized hub where the music is converted
to digital forms and readied for distribution.

In India today, 26.4 million people living under the poverty
line identify as being artists and, out of these, 8.7 million arefolk musicians. Most of these musicians in India come fromrural or tribal communities and rely on music and other art
forms for their livelihoods. The reality, however, is that manyof these musicians are unable to earn a steady income. As aresult, they struggle to gain the respect and recognition theyneed from their communities. Furthermore, the caste structures in India associate folk music practitioners as comingfrom a lower caste, which restricts their access to the professional expertise and experiences needed to be successful
not only in performing, but in mastering the technology, business, and legal dimensions of the industry.

Abhinav is developing musicians’ technical and production
skills and knowledge through each step of the music creation and distribution process, while bringing their collective
voice to bear on ending industry practices that have madeit impossible for these folk musicians to earn a living. At thesame time, Abhinav is building a brand for the folk musicians
who take advantage of the networked, community-based

Exacerbating this, musicians possessing the skills and talent
to create their own music don’t have the means to produce
high-quality recordings, are unable to access the market tosell their music, and find it difficult to produce new and original compositions. In an increasingly globalized world, therapid advancement of technology has further widened thegap between the mainstream music industry and tribal folk

ASHOKA 2020 |39

build their own websites and digital streaming channels, andhe works to connect folk musicians with award-winning singer-songwriters. He has created a popular YouTube channel
called “Equal Studios,” where folk musicians from across thecountry closely collaborate with each other and contemporary artists to produce new styles of music and reach wider,more diverse audiences.

Dapu Khan and Group, recorded by Anahad Foundation

music, which makes it even harder for musicians to compete
against newer forms of music and delivery. As a result, folk
musicians often migrate to work in other fields, and valuable
cultural heritage is lost.
Another deterrent to folk musicians’ success is an Indian law
stating that folk music written more than 70 years ago is categorized as public property. As a result, older composers and/or their heirs cannot demand royalties when key parts of their
original music are performed by others. These musicians arefinancially exploited because they don’t know how to protect
their intellectual property rights. Too many are unaware of
copyrights or of how recording labels work.
Looming over these obstacles is the reality that local folk
musicians haven’t had the ability to record and produce theirmusic at standards required by the industry for digitizationand dissemination. However, Abhinav and his colleagues
have found a solution to the recording quality problem andare spreading it to Indian folk musicians.
T H E S T R AT EG Y
Abhinav’s “backpack” studios are being rolled out throughpartnerships with state government skill development programs. Without burdening the communities to purchase andown the studios themselves, he has crafted musician-run
community studios that allow local folk musicians to record
their music. To help these musicians break into the mainstream music production and sales scene, Abhinav helps them40|

ASHOKA 2020

The Anahad Foundation works exclusively with folk musicians
living under the poverty line, targeting those who stand to
gain the most. Every musician in the program participates inlocalized workshops that teach them about intellectual property rights and copyright laws so that they are fully aware of
their legal rights as artists. Abhinav requires every person to
be registered “on the grid” with a bank account and national
identification, which enables him to open doors for them interms of accessing credit and social services. The experiences
during these workshops strengthen their sense of self-worth,identity, and respect in the community.

“Folk music is the melody of the humansoul. It talks about the happiness,celebration and positivity amid trouble.
Till the human soul is alive, folk music
will flourish.”

INTERVIEW WITH ABHINAV AGARWAL, AN INDIAN
MEDIA COMPANY THAT SPOTLIGHTS ENTREPRENEURS,CHANGEMAKERS, AND EMERGING TRENDS FROM INDIA’SENTREPRENEURIAL ECOSYSTEM

To strengthen folk musicians’ protections and cut out middlemen in the long term, Abhinav has established the
Performance Rights Organization (PRO), ensuring that all folk
musicians who produce music through the “backpack” community studios are entitled to royalties when their music isbought across digital platforms and performed at in-person
venues such as festivals and concerts.

To date, Abhinav has worked with over 1,200 artists from 46
different community groups and helped open market channels by recording 96 music videos across 5 different statesin India. This has increased the income of these artists on
average of 7-fold and a 4-fold increase in the demand forconcerts. As a result, many artists have started to entrepreneur on their own, with many establishing folk music schools
and other forms of local business both to make their art sustainable and to pass on their skills to younger generations.
Abhinav has also created a first-of-its-kind fellowship foryouth interested in music to encourage specialization in folk
music and is encouraging local folk musicians to self-organize
for the preservation of their culture.
THE PERSON
Abhinav grew up in Bulandshahr, a small village in western
Uttar Pradesh which was known for its rich culture and folk
music. These songs were used to welcome new seasons, celebrate important events, and express connection to nature.
Immersed in the natural world, music and folk tales fromgenerations before him, Abhinav learned that folk music andnature are deeply intertwined. He picked up his first instrument when he was 4 years old and had the support of his
parents from very early on to pursue music.

“Trained in classical [vocals in the Agra
Gharana tradition] and the tabla, Agrawal[…] got engaged with music early at
the age of 9. ‘Music for me is a deep
connection with nature. The urbanization
in my town led to fading of music culture
especially the local folk forms. I love the
Kajri, Chaiti, Hori and Dadra folk music
and have been singing these from anearly stage. My quest to record my guru’s
compositions and music led me to thisjourney,’ said Agrawal.”

Abhinav always felt strongly about preserving folk music andculture. His village began to feel the effects of urbanization
when he was a young student, and he witnessed the visible
decline of nature and local culture. Concerned by a watercontamination problem in the village that was polluting its
environment and threatening the villagers’ health, in his early
teens, Abhinav self-organized youth in his community todevelop a water filtration system to address this issue. Theirfiltration system won a national science competition and was
subsequently included in suggested guidelines for future
town planning.
Realizing that urban planning is an effective way to preserve
culture, Abhinav studied landscape architecture so that cities
and villages could be designed in a more sustainable way. At
the same time, he continued to develop his musical skills by
playing in bands. On weekends, he took the train to meet folk
musicians across the country to learn more about their lives,
their connection to music, and barriers to the preservationof folk music.
To ensure that musicians receive the royalties they deserve,
he founded the Anahad Foundation in 2013, while he wasin the 3rd year of college. Realizing that he needed greater
exposure to the folk music industry to bring this vision tolife, Abhinav pursued a master’s in music business administration at the Berklee College of Music’s campus in Spain.
Dissatisfied by the program’s lack of focus on social impact,
he convinced the college to hire a specialized instructor sohe could develop his understanding of the system that wasundermining folk musicians. His thesis explored ways technology could empower them.
After returning to India, Abhinav worked with a team todevelop the “backpack” studio and began advocating for thepreservation of India’s folk music heritage. Today, he partners
with the Indian Institute of Technology to promote researchin ethnomusicology, folk music, instruments, and other areasof interest. To reach every community and enable them toshowcase their music, Abhinav is seeking out more partnerships so that self-reliant, decentralized models can enable
these artists to generate a livelihood, innovate and preserve
their art forms.

ASHOKA 2020 |41

FULL-ECONOMIC CITIZENSHIP

Ryan Gersava

Philippines@virtualahan
www.virtualahan.com

Digital Roles, Full Lives
Beginning in the Philippines, Ryan ensures that the most
excluded populations of society are given equal opportunities forhigh-level work in the new digital economy, using a model that
integrates wellbeing sessions and community-building with digital job skills training.
THE NEW IDEA
Ryan sees the growing demand for digital workers as a historic
opportunity for previously disadvantaged groups, including Persons with Disabilities (PWDs), to gain employment.
Through his organization, Virtualahan (Virtual School), Ryan
identifies and addresses missed opportunities in employers’
management practices, upskills marginalized communities toboost their personal and economic capacity, and pushes for
progressive changes in government policies.
Ryan’s method was initially tailored for PWDs, but it now
also serves other socially marginalized groups, including
ex-convicts, recovering drug addicts, and former sex workers. In addition to removing barriers to immediate employment, Ryan and his team are fostering a community culturethat promotes self-care, empathy, and personal advocacy tobuild toward a future in which these populations can easilyfind jobs, launch their own initiatives, and share their successstories with others.
Through virtual training and coaching, Ryan and his team
impart digital literacy and life coaching to any Filipino withaccess to broadband internet and a computer. This method
is a cost-effective and accessible way for those who cannot
physically work in a traditional office setting to learn how to
perform high-value work from their homes. Virtualahan also
provides wellbeing and community building sessions to aid
participants in overcoming the debilitating effects of socialand economic exclusion. Over time, these experiences allow
them to transform their negative experiences into powerful
testimonials and connections with others.

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Beyond preparing the workforce, Ryan also recruits strategic
partners (drawn from business, government, and citizen sector organizations) who can adapt and adopt more inclusive
policies and practices. Using e-learning as a cost-effective
tool to spread Virtualahan’s vision and educate companies
on inclusive workforce practices, Ryan brings employers into
contact with potential employees from the excluded groups
and co-creates more successful approaches to recruitment,
support, and mentoring of disadvantaged groups.
Because the Asia-Pacific region’s supply chains are tightlyinterwoven, Ryan’s success in the Philippines has triggered
enthusiasm to integrate his approach in neighboring countries—in some cases, by the same companies that he originally partnered with in the Philippines.

“[Virtualahan] is breaking down
employment barriers for people who aresocially excluded in the workplace andworking toward the future of work where
no one is left behind.”

RIZAL RAOUL REYES, BUSINESS MIRRORT H E P RO B L E M
Filipinos with disabilities face considerable challenges insecuring a job that accommodates their needs. This lack ofopportunity has resulted in considerable underemployment
for PWDs. According to an early study, only 32.5 percentof the 1.4 million employable PWDs in the Philippines areable to secure jobs. Half of this 32.5 percent were underemployed, self-employed, unpaid family workers, or vulnerable
workers. Without viable, secure options for employment,
Filipinos with disabilities are in danger of extreme poverty
and all the attendant social risks.

deaf, or handicapped fails to recognize those who struggle
with “invisible” conditions such as mental or chronic illnesses.
Ryan argues for the spectrum of disability to be redefined insuch a way that all can recognize their vulnerability to temporary or long-term disability at least once in their life. From thispremise, Ryan is pushing for broader change in the mindsetof employers and employees alike wherein a time of disability
no longer prevents social and economic mobility.
T H E S T R AT EG Y

An in-house psychologist leads a life-coaching and wellbeing session for PWDs, emphasizing emotional intelligence and dignity.

Twenty-five percent of the Philippines’ disabled population
lives in the country’s ten largest cities, the largest portion ofwhich reside in the “metro Manila.” Consisting of approximately 4.4 million people and interlinking the cities of Manila
and Quezon City, this metro has widespread broadband
access. Despite this access, which allows PWDs in urban
areas to upskill to meet growing demand for a new digital
workforce, what they need first is a comprehensive and realistic path to opportunity and employment.
Two powerful forces are opening doors. First, the Philippines
plans to expand broadband access to 50 percent of the population by the end of 2021, and 90 percent by 2027. Second,
North American and European multinational companies
increasingly require suppliers and subsidiaries to favor the
disadvantaged in hiring policies. Ryan sees this as an extraordinary opportunity for those he serves to gain internet accessand jobs with prospects if he helps them develop the innerstrengths needed. These populations need digital skills training, broadband connectivity, social support structures, andlife conditions that make regular daily work possible if they
are to take advantage of this window of opportunity.
Ryan believes that most people experience disability one way
or another in their lives and that the conversation around disability vis-à-vis employment needs to shift to recognize thisreality. The traditional view of PWDs as those who are blind,

Backed by his Virtualahan team, Ryan set out to show how
every PWD can achieve deep personal growth, using endto-end tools that lead to sustainable and scalable workforce
inclusion. Virtualahan’s training skills program runs six toeight weeks, followed by sustained social support and assistance throughout the job application process. Students from
low-income backgrounds can apply for scholarships to cover
their up-front costs, with the understanding that they will pay
back the money within ten months of being employed. By
doing 80 percent of their activities online, including training
and employment support, the Virtualahan team has designed
an accessible, low-cost model that is highly scalable.
A vital feature of Virtualahan’s training skills program is theactive role of the participant. Going beyond formal skills
training, participants engage in wellbeing and community-building exercises to identify, address, and overcome
obstacles for their future success. They are responsible fororganizing the skills portion of their training and for choosing
the topics. Overall, the program equips citizens with the life
skills to become changemakers and leaders in their communities. Rallying behind one another, many of Virtualahan’s graduates have created their own initiatives and support groups,
including an emotional support group for quadriplegics, anempowerment campaign for young deaf girls, and workshops
to deal with the psychological stress of chronic or terminal
illnesses.
Virtualahan graduates have reported a 70 percent increasein their overall self-confidence. In a study conducted by doctoral candidates at the University of Manchester, 98 percent
of Virtualahan graduates felt a strong sense of belonging intheir community, 84 percent learned to become self-sufficient, and 92 percent credited Virtualahan with helping them

ASHOKA 2020 |43

THE PERSON
Ryan is the youngest of ten and spent his childhood in a town
called Sultan Kudarat—one of the poorest provinces in thePhilippines. Growing up, his family had to move several times
due to financial problems and conflict within their community. When he was seven years old, his family was forced tolive under a shacked-up tarpaulin at the back of a church
for three years. Despite setbacks, his parents always placed
great importance on their children’s education. Ryan and his
siblings were always at the top of their class—they had to be,since being short of number one in the class meant losing afull scholarship, their ticket to an education.

A Virtualahan client receiving training in digital job skills

accept their condition. These statistics translate into tangible
results for graduates, who are gaining greater socioeconomic
mobility thanks to the Virtualahan program. Currently, theaverage daily salary of a Virtualahan graduate is $20.12 USD—almost three times the national average of $7.91 USD.
Virtualahan’s commitment to participant selection, comprehensive training, and initiative-taking community members
has made its approach hugely attractive to its students aswell as would-be adopters. Three national government agencies in the Philippines are currently adopting Virtualahan’soverall approach and training curriculum for digital literacy
skill development for PWDs and other excluded groups. They
are also localizing the model to target additional vulnerable
groups. Davao City, for example, has launched a Virtualahan
initiative with prison inmates. While in Cebu City, the local
government is customizing a Virtualahan program for former
drug dependents. In Sultan Kudarat, the method is being
employed with a focus on at-risk youth.
Ryan is spreading his model to other countries as well.
Virtualahan has formed partnerships with companies andorganizations such as Accenture, HSBC, and BMW in a number of other countries, including the United States, Canada,
New Zealand, and Germany.

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During Ryan’s first year in college studying medicine, he discovered that he was positive for Hepatitis B. Upon advice
from a peer, he kept his diagnosis a secret due to thecareer-threatening implications and quickly brought the disease under control so that he was not a threat to colleagues
or patients. As he continued studying medicine, Ryan wasawakened to the negative stigma that surrounds those withdisease and disabilities, even amongst doctors and medical
professionals. Despite graduating from the program withimpressive marks, Ryan failed to secure a job in his chosen
profession due to his medical record.
Unable to achieve his professional ambition, Ryan decided
to work online where his condition wasn’t factored into his
employability. It was at this point that he began to focus on
the wealth of opportunities in the digital economy, the plightof people whose “disabilities” currently excluded them fromthe workforce, including the kinds of people he had known
growing up with far greater challenges than his own. Ryan
decided to focus his life’s work on addressing this problem
and launched Virtualahan with his siblings.

Health45

HEALTH

Paweł Grabowski

Poland@Fundacja_HPE
https://hospicjumeliasz.pl

Grace, Love, and Life in Last Years of Life
Paweł has introduced a new approach to end-of-life care in rural
Poland, triggering fundamental improvements in how these
services are provided across the country, in other EU member
states, and elsewhere across the world.
THE NEW IDEAAt the heart of Paweł’s approach is a question: can we understand death as an opportunity to bring comfort, dignity, andhonor to ourselves and our families? Paweł believes it is not
only an opportunity; it is a basic human right.
Reversing cultural tendencies to isolate the dying and overlook the fears or burdens of death on families, Paweł’s newmodel brings palliative and hospice care to people in rural
areas. Beyond access to these end-of-life services, however,
he is establishing new national and regional standards forcare; building supportive coalitions of medical professionals,
government actors, and local communities; and engaging
parents and young people in culture-shifting conversations
about death and dying.
Paweł has created a new societal role and profession:
Caregivers. They are recruited from the local community,
professionally trained, and compensated by the government
medical system for performing end-of-life services for the
dying and their families. In rural Poland, this work can entail
everything from chopping firewood and stoking the stove, toordering and installing a breathing machine and diesel generator along with the fuel to run it, to relieving family members
at times from the responsibilities of around-the-clock care.
The effect that the Caregiver has in increasing one’s quality oflife and the amount of time spent comfortably at home translates into savings that hospices can use to further support
Caregivers out in the communities—for example, supplying
a breathing machine when it is needed. And more importantly, it allows the hospices to become places where more46|

ASHOKA 2020

specialized care can be delivered and where the community
can access more education, training, and reassurance about
end-of-life care.
T H E P RO B L E M
In Poland and in neighboring countries, the percentage of the
population age 65 and over will increase by more than 50
percent in the next 15 years. Currently, only one in five people living in rural areas of these countries has access to eldercare or end-of-life care. Further, elderly people in rural areas
face additional challenges, such as unstable connections toelectricity, limited or no access to public transport, and insome areas, inadequate safe drinking water.
Even where hospice facilities are available, eligibility requirements for state-funded palliative and hospice care are quite
narrow. For example, in 2017 in Poland, 83,000 people
received state-funded palliative and hospice care, but 90 percent of these were for people suffering from cancer. At thesame time, approximately 45,000 people in Poland die fromheart and kidney diseases each year, but these illnesses are
not eligible for state-funded end-of-life support. Being terminally ill in such conditions is especially bitter. Because thecare system is not working for all, individuals have no choice
but to rely on their families and social networks to provide
makeshift hospice care for them. In the countryside, often
the only person who can provide such support is one’s elderly
spouse who may have his/her own health risks.

“Death, severe illness and suffering
are always extreme situations. For thesuffering of the sick, perhaps the mostdifficult is the dependence on otherpeople. However, according to Dr. Pawel
Grabowski, much can be done to makethese experiences less painful for thepatient.”

“In many houses in our area
people prepare for death, theywant to talk about it… So it’snatural thing for people to want todiscuss death.”

Dr. Pawel visiting with a patient in a rural hospice.

Only recently has professional credentialing for palliativeand hospice care received the legal attention it deserves.
Previously, there was a gap left within legislation barring
medical practitioners in other fields from providing care inthis field. For example, Paweł, who was trained as a head andneck surgeon, was denied in providing palliative care due tohis standing credentials as a surgeon. He had to petition andget both laws and regulations changed before he was able tocomplete his hospice training, but his efforts opened opportunities for other medical professionals to follow his example.
T H E S T R AT EG Y
Paweł launched the pilot of his new idea in a rural region near
Poland’s border with Belarus, an area chosen by Paweł for
its remoteness from Poland’s medical system, as well as forthe opportunity it provided to showcase success to Poland’sneighbor to the east.
His proof-of-concept model, The Prophet Elijah Hospice, provided the best possible palliative and hospice care available
in Poland. This new model offered help to all who needed
it and expanded the community of providers to include not
only doctors and nurses but also psychologists, physiotherapists, and—the newly added role—Caregivers.

Like other rural areas in Poland, unemployment
was very high in this rural site for the Prophet
Elijah House. The possibility for community members to be trained and compensated as professional caregivers has been an important addition
to household budgets and a critical step for popularizing his approach in the wider community.
Paweł understood that the new role of Caregiverwould bring paid, meaningful work to communities
and that this work would translate into big differences in the lives of families. For the patients, many of whomwere living in isolated areas, the most important function of
the Caregiver was human contact.
Paweł has been able to successfully demonstrate and spread
his new model among medical communities, communicating
his example of the Project Elijah Hospice as a “hub” that relieson the new role of Caregivers as “spokes.” This illustration
has been important not only to explain the superior qualityof service now provided, but also to demonstrate the savings
gained by eliminating hospice operating costs. His organization now provides training and other educational resources
to key partners in the medical community, including theSupreme Medical Chamber and the International Federationof Medical Students Association. Through these and otherpartnerships, it prepares hundreds of students and medical
practitioners each year for careers in palliative and hospicecare.
THE PERSON
During a medical examination when he was a young man,
Paweł’s heart stopped beating for 45 seconds. It was anexperience that, looking back, he believes helped him appreciate the fragility of life and the realization that it can end at
any moment.

ASHOKA 2020 |47

He was trained as a medical surgeon, specializing in diseases of the mouth, jaws, face, and neck. However, early in
his career, he was drawn to the problem that a significant
number of his patients couldn’t be cured with surgery andthat their cancer would drastically reduce the time they had
to live. He wondered what happened to these people once
they were released from the hospital after surgery. It wasthen that he hit upon the idea of preparing a “reverse business plan” for a hospice that could work anywhere—even inpoor, rural areas. To do this, he knew he would need to comeup with original solutions, like creating a new profession oftrained Caregivers. He left Warsaw with a small amount ofseed funding and set out to start The Prophet Elijah Hospicein a distant part of eastern Poland where he sought to help
patients whose lives he could not add years, but whose lastyears he could add life.

“In our foundation we provide care forthose who are living through loss…
sometimes the patient has already diedseveral years ago and we still come andvisit that person’s family and home todrink some herbal tea and to still discuss[memories of their loved one]. The familyis also our patient, we take care of thefamily even after the patient’s death.”
ASHOKA FELLOW, PAWEŁ GRABOWSKI

More recently, a mini-documentary of Paweł’s activities
in October 2019 aired during the evening news on Poland
public television and was watched by 1.83 million people. The work is also supported by an annual conference inMichałowo, the place where the first Prophet Elijah Hospice
was based. In the past eight years, more than 10,000 participants from countries around the world have attended these
conferences.

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HEALTH

Jeesun Lee

South Korea

www.seoulrh.com

All Doctors, All Dimensions Rehabilitation
Dr. Jeesun Lee is changing how South Korea treats people withdisabilities, both medically and socially.
THE NEW IDEA
Dr. Lee has introduced a new paradigm to the conventional
hospital system in South Korea through the establishmentof the Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) service, which
focuses on patients with disabilities and life-altering medical
conditions, especially children and adolescents. Working in
the medical field, Dr. Lee noticed that if a child developed
a disability, the entire family’s stability could collapse while
trying to provide care. The needed integration of treatment
and care was not available, so she decided to design a newmodel of care that redefines the roles of hospitals and medical workers.
Her CBR model offers a holistic approach to rehabilitation.
Focused on the concept of “recuperative care,” CBR provides
a seamless web of care for people who need rehabilitation
services that is connected with their communities, responsive to different demographic groups, and easily embedded
into family life.
Following the successful opening of South Korea’s first ever“day ward” to provide medical care for children with disabilities, Dr. Lee launched therapy programs to invite and engage
the outside community. Later developed into the CBR model,
the therapy programs prioritize the engagement of a patient‘sfamily to bridge reintegration. The therapies revolve aroundrebuilding family bonds through trips and family-school programs, all coordinated through Dr. Lee’s Support Center.
Not only does CBR connect with families, but it also
links communities across the full rehabilitation system. For
instance, Dr. Lee dispatches medical staff to patients’ schools
to provide guidelines and foster an inclusive community. CBR
extends further beyond patient stabilization after trauma toinclude convalescence and reintegration therapy, leading to
new roles for citizens. Dr. Lee’s unique model acknowledges
a continuum of need for patients and transfers decisions
related to convalescent care away from hospital-centered,temporary treatments to life-long, community-integrated
solutions. This approach works not just for young people, but
for South Korea’s aging population as well. Her inclusive andresponsive models have already spread and are now reflectedin the Public Rehabilitation Children’s Hospitals across thecountry, enabling greater equity, inclusion, and vitality for
individuals, families, and communities.
Dr. Lee aims to operationalize the CBR model in other countries as a low-cost intervention. She believes they can, step bystep, build capacity just as she has done in Korea over time.
To accelerate this global impact, Dr. Lee is in the process ofestablishing a brand-new rehabilitation center in Korea thatwill be the first full-scale lab for rehabilitation research anddevelopment, education/training, international collaboration, and community/family engagement.

“Jeesun Lee [...] has defined the conceptof rehabilitation therapy system witha focus on recovery of a person’s lifeand life-long management, and has
worked hard to establish a communitybased system...for the under-privileged
patients, such as children withdisabilities and patients who have tosearch for a new hospital at the endof each treatment, [which enables thepatients.]”

T H E P RO B L E M
Medical stabilization has its roots in Korea’s modern history—
its medical system having been structured on the need toprovide medical stabilization and physical rehabilitation forwartime veterans. Today, however, the demographics have

ASHOKA 2020 |49

lack of services in the field of community caremeans that aging patients do not receive adequate
outpatient support including home-visit rehabilitation, social services, and reintegration efforts.

Dr. Lee and her staff engage with their young patients during rehabilitation sessions.

drastically changed. There are more than 90,000 children
and adolescents in the county classified as “severely disabled” who need medical treatment and ongoing support.
Compared with the adult population, the ratio of children
and adolescents living with severe disabilities is significantly
higher.
Yet, out of 30,000 medical institutions throughout South
Korea, only 200 are children rehabilitation hospitals. And thegovernment has not provided them with the resources thatwould be needed to meet the affected families’ short- andlong-term needs. As a result, children and adolescents withdisabilities are generally excluded from the country’s rehabilitation care system.
These Korean youth face a lifetime of changing needs as
they grow. Without an approach that goes past immediate
medical stabilization, they generally live shorter lives withlow vitality. Furthermore, when children with disabilities missthe opportunity for well-timed care, their disabilities often
become permanent and families bear the weight of isolation,social stigma, and community exclusion.
In addition, the Korean population is aging, with rural Koreans
often needing interventions that differ from those of the“retired” South Koreans living in the urban areas. The current

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The conventional hospital system forces mostpatients with disabilities to “bounce” from one
hospital to another because rehabilitation facilities that treat patients immediately after a serious
incident try to discharge their patients as quickly
as possible to save money, regardless of their condition. In hospitals that specialize in nursing andprimary care, patients face the opposite problem: nursing hospitals aren’t incentivized to makerecovery a top priority since they can charge more
for patients with severe disabilities. Consequently,
there is no continuum of care nor a comprehensive medical delivery system encompassing acute,convalescence, and nursing treatments to aid thefull recovery of many different patient populations. This lackof coherent or patient-focused planning forces patients tobecome chronic “rehabilitation refugees.”
T H E S T R AT EG Y
Dr. Lee is building a movement of Community Based
Rehabilitation centers across nine metro areas in South Korea
to open doors to equal care and social reintegration. In eachmetro, she is establishing a new medical hub that incorporates her key insights, but that has the flexibility to address
its community’s unique rehabilitation needs.
In the process of expanding the CBR approach throughout
South Korea, Dr. Lee is investing heavily in strengthening
community-based institutions and bringing together intergenerational initiatives, schools, medical teams, and governments to improve the lives of people with disabilities andchronic conditions. To bridge the gap between hospitals andlocal communities, the CBR model relies on a multi-stakeholder coalition which includes patients’ families. Thanks
to the unprecedented collaboration between these various
actors, medical staff can be directly dispatched to schools
to educate students about issues faced by their differently-abled peers. By promoting empathy and acceptance, theseinteractions help reduce bullying of students with disabilities
in the school community.

undergoing an evaluation screening with a social
worker. This financial support programs provides
access to care patients otherwise couldn’t afford.

Jeesun tends to a pediatric patient in rehabilitation.

Empathy is critical in the hospital system, too. To foster an
empathetic culture, Dr. Lee has created “book clubs” for hospital staff to catalyze the study of empathy. Her approachencourages internal leadership and the organic spread of an
empathetic mindset from medical staff to each other andpatients.
Dr. Lee and her colleagues work with patients who havelife-altering medical conditions such as strokes, spinal cord
injuries, traumatic brain injuries, cerebral palsy, developmental disabilities, and musculoskeletal disorders, by promoting
a successful return to family and society. This year alone,over 105,000 people have received treatment, 38 percentof whom are under the age of 13. Dr. Lee’s hospital staff
provide holistic care and are democratizing patient accessto specialists in a wide range of fields including psychiatry,physical therapy, social work, and speech therapy. In 2019,
Dr. Lee’s team worked with over 48,900 minors with disabilities—about 54 percent of the 90,000 severely disabled youth
in Korea.
Dr. Lee’s guiding principle is to not discharge someone until
they are ready, even if they are financially unable to pay.
Costs are covered for those who qualify as low-income—meaning that they don’t have to pay their deductible—after

To assist patients with reintegration into their local
community and society after going through treatment, a significant challenge, Dr. Lee has designed
various programs to overcome obstacles. Her programs help patients both recover their physicalfunctions and cultivate a resilient, positive mindset to support them through future unknowns.
To date, 648 people have reconnected to theircommunities through these programs, 42 percentof whom are younger than 19. Reintegration sessions for these young people primarily focus ondeveloping social adaptation skills and returning toschool to continue their education. For older citizens, Jeesun runs therapeutic activity-based workshops, offers the chance to work, and connects
those who are disabled with personalized aids andfinancial assistance.

“It opened up a new path for our
rehabilitation therapy. It was the firstto open a “Children Rehab Ward” andintroduced the “Integrated Management
System for Children with Disabilities.”
It is also the first in Korea to introduce
robotic walking equipment for treatment
usage.”LEADING MAGAZINE SHIN DONGA

Lee has become the gold standard of disability care for the
Korean government. To date, more than 100 hospitals havevisited to learn from Dr. Lee’s model, including the government-affiliated National Rehabilitation Center. Through her
Education and Research Center, she spreads the model andtrains students majoring in rehabilitation medicine from 50

ASHOKA 2020 |51universities. Jeesun is also rigorously publishing research
papers, creating manuals, and hosting seminars to influence
the rigid medical sector. As a result of her continuous work,
she is now helping the government establish Public Children’s
Rehabilitation Hospitals across the country by 2022.
THE PERSON
Lee suffered severe anemia throughout her childhood andoften had to skip school when she was hospitalized. Even
after her condition improved, such experiences made her
deeply empathetic toward people living with illness and disability and contributed to her decision to become a doctor.
In 1988, after finishing her medical studies in rehabilitation
medicine, she helped to found Seoul Rehabilitation Hospital
under the social welfare foundation, Angels’ Haven. She had
two mandates from the chairman of the foundation at thattime: 1. Never turn away patients, even those who cannot
afford the care, and 2. Make the best rehabilitation hospital in the world. Her long service as a medical doctor known
for her empathy and ability to deeply listen has led Dr. Lee
to develop her humane, 360 degree vision of rehabilitation
care and to became a powerful thought leader who is tearing
down walls and changing in the field.
Over the years, Dr. Lee has been encouraged by what she
has been able to establish. Through the dissemination of hermodel, she is changing the societal framework by involving the private, governmental, and public sectors to work
together in an effort to make real, sustained, and comprehensive care available to individuals, families, and communities.
After visiting Uzbekistan to provide medical support early in
her life, Jeesun realized that it only takes one medical expert
to ignite a reformation of rehabilitation medical care in marginalized regions of the world. Since her visit, she has dispatched colleagues to provide medical training and spreadher rehabilitation model and system abroad. By partneringwith KOICA (Korea International Cooperation Agency) andsocial welfare organizations, Dr. Lee has built a new, international network to provide trainings across 11 countries.

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HEALTH

Germana Soares

Brazilfacebook.com/
uniaodemaesdeanjos

Mutual Support for Families in Crisis
Directly affected by the Zika crisis in Brazil, Germana is leading a
movement to guarantee lifelong access to healthcare, education,and peer support for families with children who were born withdisabilities.
THE NEW IDEA
When Germana’s son was born in 2015 with microcephaly—aneurobiological disability related to Zika Virus Congenital
Syndrome (ZVCS) that’s characterized by an abnormally small
head—she realized that the critical medical and communal
support necessary for raising a child with disabilities wasn’t
available to families like hers.
When the Zika virus struck Latin America that year, theabrupt surge of babies born with this new disability createdan unprecedented situation, but no organization in Brazil wasaddressing this sudden outbreak. Determined to create abrighter, more inclusive future for the generation of children
born with ZVCS, as well as all children living with disabilities,
Germana founded União das Mães de Anjos (UMA), meaning
Union of Mothers of Angels—Brazil’s first State organization
to address the uncharted territory of the Zika outbreak. UMA
provides these underserved families with peer-to-peer support and collectively pushes for equal access to healthcare
and education.
Germana has brought new leadership and tools to the disability movement. Built on a replicable organizational structure made up of nine branches spread throughout the Stateof Pernambuco, UMA can reach remote areas of the State
where the most vulnerable populations live. Members gather
to share the news, distribute legislative updates, and organize local actions to press for access to medicines, medical
procedures, and government benefits to which they should
be entitled. Other grassroots disability organizations haveallied with UMA and often adopt its organizing strategies
through their parallel federal, state, and local chapters.

In addition to its grassroots membership of affected families,
UMA has forged a broader coalition of influential institutions such as the Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), the Public
Prosecutor, the State Department of Health, and various
media outlets. UMA is working to destigmatize the way governments and societies address people with all types of disabilities, while also demanding accountability from the state
to address the public health issue of microcephaly.
Prior to Germana’s work, financial aid through the National
Institute of Social Security (INSS) was legally available tolow-income families raising children with disabilities, butmany families who qualified didn’t know about this national
benefit program or how to access it. During the “first wave” ofmicrocephaly births, only a fraction of the 89 percent of families who qualified for the monthly $65 USD actually applied.
Those who did apply had to deal with the INSS’s prior wait
time of four months to secure appointments to receive payments. With most mothers having to quit their jobs to takecare of their children and many fathers unemployed, waiting
four months was simply not economically feasible.

“My life changed a lot after [mydaughter] came into my life. I learned
to fight. Not to give up on my rights
and the rights of my child. Because,since she could not walk or talk, I would
be walking and talking for her. And
fighting, alongside my sisters in struggle,
for the rights of our children.”
INGRID ADRIELLY, A MEMBER OF UMA.

In response, Germana’s team pressured the INSS until, ultimately, they sat down and co-created a better process thatmade the funds far more accessible for the affected families. UMA quickly realized that most of these families werespending 70 percent of their income on rent alone—leavingvery little to pay for essentials like food and medicine. UMAASHOKA 2020 |53

collected and presented this compelling data to the federal
public housing program Minha Casa, Minha Vida, which it
successfully leveraged to change rent laws. Under the newlegislation, federal assistance for families of children withdisabilities is prioritized and the quality of life for these families has improved now that they can allocate more money tomeeting their basic needs.
As the first generation of children with ZVCS are growing
old enough to attend kindergarten, the movement Germana
has built is pushing for classroom inclusion of these children
as well as kids with other disabilities who face similar challenges. She is leading the charge in guaranteeing disabledchildren’s rights to enroll in public schools and by extension
to be accepted in society.

them to aspirate, which can induce pneumonia. Parents needaccess to specific medications and related healthcare services and must provide around-the-clock care.

“According to the Ministry of Health,between 2015 and 2018, approximately
3 thousand children with microcephaly
associated with Zika were registered. Of
these, 300 died. Children born in that
period still need special care today.”THE PROBLEM
In Brazil, there is very little government support for families
affected by the permanent disability of a child or young person, and a strong stigma against people with disabilities persists. This situation disproportionately affects mothers withkids who have disabilities. With little or no information onwhat to do, limited access to medical care, and few childcare
options, these mothers typically become full-time caregivers.
Mothers who stay home to care for their children are often
unable to work and must rely on the limited support provided
by social welfare, which places further economic hardship on
the family.
When the mosquito-borne Zika virus exploded in Latin
America in 2015, Brazil was hit particularly hard, and thousands were infected. During that year alone, nearly 2,800
babies were born with microcephaly in the country, including Germana’s son. Zika disproportionately affects poorer
communities with open sewers and inadequate sanitation, as
standing water is an ideal breeding grounds for the species ofmosquito that transmits Zika. These families face harsh circumstances, with nearly 60 percent of Zika-affected families
earning $22 USD or less per month.
The long-term challenges for a child born with Zika syndrome
are daunting. They experience significant neurobiological disabilities that affect vision, hearing, and swallowing, and they
may be unable to walk or speak. Trouble swallowing leads

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Furthermore, Brazil’s daycare and public education systems
are not structured to accommodate children with disabilities.
Germana experienced this issue firsthand when her attempt
to enroll her son in a daycare center was met with resistance.
Most facilities are not equipped to meet the needs of children with disabilities, and teachers are unwilling or unprepared to take on the responsibility of caring for children withdisabilities—those with Zika syndrome as well as other disabilities such as autism. This situation discourages families
from putting children with disabilities into daycare centersand schools, which is detrimental to their cognitive and social
development as well as acceptance in society.
T H E S T R AT EG Y
UMA serves as a support network for families impacted by
Zika and as a way to exchange information, raise awarenessabout rights, and strengthen community voices among mothers and families of children with disabilities. Through the
network, Germana identifies the most pressing challenges
and gaps for families with disabled children in terms of theiraccess to healthcare, medications, and government aid. Withher home team of mothers campaigning for change, she connects with different actors—private and public—to create
solutions.

hire more neurologists—more than doubling thecount from 12 to 27 in the state.
At the federal level, UMA coordinates strategic
activity of their nine branches alongside otherorganizations as they relentlessly seek to influence legislation to support lifelong access to services and increased support for caregiver families.
Germana has influenced and supported the creation of analogous organizations in other States;
together with UMA, these organizations are committed to advancing rights for all disabled people.

UMA provides support for families of children with disabilities.

The knowledge acquired by UMA’s nine branches throughout
the State of Pernambuco is distributed within and beyond the
network. Each branch is responsible for organizing the community and exchanging information about legislation, accessto medicines, proper medical procedures, and government
aid benefits they are entitled to in order to defray the costs ofcare and ongoing treatment of disabled children. This is done
to combat the systemic inaccessibility of critical information,
ensuring awareness of their rights. UMA also provides bothpeer-to-peer personal support along with collectively organizing which actors and institutions need to be lobbied if they
are to win the legislative changes they require.
To get going in her efforts, the first thing Germana had to
do was create a way to find families affected by Zika andother disabilities. She formed the UMA network from theground up by partnering with local radio stations and traveling throughout the State of Pernambuco to meet with andmobilize families to join the movement, both rural and urban.
Her outreach strategy was so effective that the governor of
Pernambuco consulted her to learn how she had achieved
such strong ties with these underserved families. The UMA
network started with a foundation of 130 active families andhas grown steadily as the idea has gained traction.
Most children whose mothers belong to UMA see speech,
occupational, and physical therapists every day through
UMA’s services. Kids with ZVCS can also access child neurologists and orthopedists to assist with their developmental
needs. To increase access to these critical resources, UMA
successfully pushed Pernambuco’s Public Health System toGermana has achieved important victories in thefight for better healthcare and living conditions.
Families with disabled children now have freeaccess to anticonvulsant drugs through the Public Health
System, and all health centers in Pernambuco are required toprovide the DTP (diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough)vaccine for children’s immunizations. Another major victoryfor UMA was securing access to the Benefit of Continuous
Provision (BPC)—a specific type of government financial aid
for people with disabilities about which many were unaware.
Now, thanks to UMA’s influence on the Minister of Health,
the government has initiated a “fast-track” process in theStates of Pernambuco, Bahia, Maranhão and Rio Grande doNorte that granted about 800 families access to BPC.
Germana is now focusing on inclusive education. Representing
UMA, Germana advocated for months to legally compel
schools to accept and accommodate students with disabilities by participating in numerous public hearings and appealing to the Court of Justice, the Brazilian Bar Association,and municipal councils. Her efforts yielded an official document requiring the schools to accept those children with theappropriate infrastructure, and her family together with fourother Zika-affected families in Pernambuco became the firstin Brazil to send their children to daycare. She then mobilized
the State Department of Education to create widespread,inclusive programs for enrolling children with disabilities in
the public educational system—accepting children with ZVSC
as well as other types of disabilities. She has since observedthat schools which accept Zika-affected children tend to also
include a higher percentage of autistic children.
Leading by example, Germana and other parents are shifting
the mindsets of families that still feel hesitant about letting

ASHOKA 2020 |55

their children attend daycare. Socialization with other kids is
critical for the cognitive and social development of a childwith a disability. In the long term, this integrated approach
fosters a broader culture of inclusion among children of thesame age, who will grow up to shape societal attitudes in the
future.
UMA is now Brazil’s main reference in fighting for the rightsof people living with ZVCS, with more and more organizations forming across the Northeast region of the country,
including other States that bore the brunt of the first waveof the Zika virus. It is the nature of the organization—that it isby families, for families—that allows it to lead advocacy workand serve as a source of mental and emotional support forfamily members of those impacted by ZVCS.
THE PERSON
Germana was born in Jaboatão dos Guararapes, a small city in
the State of Pernambuco where domestic violence and drugtrafficking was common. When she was 5 years old, she losther 3-month-old baby sister due to poor conditions at thehospital and a delay in emergency care. This loss impacted
her greatly and left her with a profound understanding oflife’s inequalities.

“We’re over that time when a family of ababy with micro[cephaly] was considered‘poor and sad’. In reality, it was neverlike that. We want to show everyone ourstrength.” GERMANA SOARESIn primary school, Germana suffered prejudice from bothstudents and teachers due to the darker color of her skin.
In sports and when putting on plays, she would often be
excluded. As an adolescent, she started to understand thecontext of that prejudice and learned to successfully standup for herself and defend her peers. Germana became arespected leader of her class and felt responsible for creating bridges of dialogue between students and teachers. She
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Ashoka Fellow German
Soares advocates forguaranteed accessto healthcare andeducation for children
born with Zika Virus
Congenital Syndrome.

most enjoyed the annual competitions to collect food andclothes for donation and in her three years of high school,
Germana’s team collected the most among her peers andwon the competition each year.
After graduation, Germana studied History at a public university and became a teacher at a public elementary school.
The school was in an underserved area, with inadequate conditions in terms of school structure and management, andGermana quickly began to observe the larger problems of theBrazilian education system. In response, Germana decided
to create new opportunities with her students, incorporating activities that involved the arts, culture, and play. For
example, she introduced various recreational activities thattook place in museums and cultural spots, giving her students
contact points in the city to broaden their perspectives. Overtime, other teachers at the school started to replicate her
ideas. Soon after, she moved out of the city, married, andbegan her studies in Marketing. The economic crisis in Brazil
hit while she was working in sales for a large company, andGermana was laid off.
When she was 12 weeks pregnant, she contracted the Zika
virus, but the doctors who attended her claimed that there
was no risk to the baby and gave her the standard treatment
for Zika, similar to what is given to people with dengue. Yet a
few days before she gave birth, her husband read an article
about the relationship between the Zika virus and cases ofbabies with microcephaly that was beginning to emerge inBrazil. In November 2015, Germana gave birth to Guilherme,her first child, who was born with microcephaly. The birth ofher son changed Germana’s life, setting her on a path to create the nationwide movement for the rights of children withdisabilities that she leads today.

HEALTHClaudia Thomas Riche

Haiti

https://nech-cieh.org

Strengthening Haiti’s Health Care throughCollaboration
Through education and community partnerships, Claudia is cultivating the first coalition of nurses with a medical mission to
improve patient welfare and public health in Haiti.
THE NEW IDEA
Imagine a Haiti known for its high-quality public health care.
Claudia sees this future and believes that Haitian nurses willbe the ones to make it a reality. Through partnership with
the Ministry of Health, ongoing education, and community-based engagement strategies, Claudia is professionalizing
and vesting Haiti’s healthcare frontline—licensed nurses—toimprove patient welfare and public health for all.
Haiti’s fragile healthcare system does not utilize its mostpowerful and skilled force of healthcare workers—licensed
nurses—to support, build, and transform the country’s healthcare. Claudia strongly believes that nurses can and must taketheir place as leaders of healthcare change and that nurses
must act as agents of transformation and lead the innovative
solutions necessary to address the nation’s greatest publichealth problems.
Through her organization, the Nursing Education Collaborativefor Haiti (NECH-CIEH), Claudia is creating a professional network of nurses—by nurses, for nurses—who go out into thecommunity, help train other nurses, and teach and promote
good healthcare practices. By doing so, she is bridging traditional healthcare delivery and community development andis empowering nurses to lead positive change beyond a perception of nurses as little more than “helpers” to physicians.
On a national level, Claudia’s published nursing standards are
the first to be distributed to all 900+ healthcare facilities in
Haiti. By partnering with the Ministry of Health, 1,000 copiesof the 72-page manual with follow up clinical training andprofessional development plans are underway for further
clinical practice advancements.

“The NECH-CIEH –a non-profit
organization that partners with the
McGill University in Montreal, Canada...
offers an opportunity for Haitian nurses
and their North American counterparts
to work together on projects aimed atpromoting nursing as a profession...
another major objective of the NECHCIEH is to collaborate with nurse
educators in Haiti to develop a system forcontinuing nursing education...”T H E P RO B L E M
Haiti ranks at the bottom of health indicators in the world.
80 percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
Malnutrition affects half of all children, and less than half ofthe population has access to clean water. Less than a half of
medical facilities are considered adequate, and less than 10
percent of people living in rural areas have access to such
facilities.
There are approximately as many practicing nurses in Haiti as
there are doctors, but the resulting ratios (between 2.4-2.6
per 100,000 people), coupled with the poor condition of public primary care facilities, translates into poor availability ofquality care in urban areas and little or no access to primarycare in rural areas.
Although equal to doctors in numbers and with the skilled
training that allows them to independently treat a wide rangeof primary care issues, the nurses have not been deployed
to the communities to play this role. Instead, their roles havebeen restricted to directly supporting doctors in treating
patients or playing supporting administrative roles. Very few
occupy leadership posts. Consequently, nurses are unable tooperate independently and advocate for the communities
they serve, as well as the critical need to grow the numbers
and improve the skills of trained nurses.
ASHOKA 2020 |57lectures to multiple healthcare sites on topics thenurses request. The presentations are delivered bynurses to nurses in French and cover a range of
topics such as vital signs, neurological triage, nutrition, and transformational leadership. All lectures
are recorded and made available for download.
The next step in her work was improving communications across the nursing profession by coordinating an annual workshop series, “Working
Together for the Future of Nursing Education in
Haiti,” which convenes participants from the full
spectrum of nursing professionals, from students
and clinical practitioners to the deans of Haitiannursing schools, heads of hospital nursing departments, university professors, and health ministry
officials. This allows nursing professionals to network, share experience and expertise, and identify
and plan joint projects and collaborations.
Fellow Claudia at the 7th Annual NECH-CIEH workshop on
November 7th, 2020 covering topics such as prevention/infection
control, CPR, oxygen therapy, and more.

“The voices of Haitian nurses havebeen largely absent from the publishedliterature and the vast majority of
research to understand nursing careissues in Haiti has been published by
non-Haitians.”
CLAUDIA THOMAS RICHET H E S T R AT EG Y
Claudia created a collaborative network of nurses as a firststep towards positioning nurses to lead and promote better health practices in communities. She began by tapping
into the collective knowledge that nurses already have. For
example, nurses from different hospitals meet virtually every
week to discuss their “dilemma” cases and share their notes
with nurses working on the same kinds of dilemma cases.
Her organization, NECH-CIEH, also offers videoconference

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Now nurses are leading initiatives in hygiene,
healthcare, and community development. For example, theylaunched the Handwashing Initiative, in which nurses conducted a research study in twelve of the major hospitals in allten of the country’s geographic departments, in collaboration
with the Director of Nursing Care at the Ministry of Health.
To promote better habits and disease prevention, NECHCIEH nurses are also training other nurses and hospital staff
in effective handwashing techniques; through collaboration,nurses have installed alcohol-based hand sanitizer dispensers, soap dispensers, and baskets of handwipes for cleaning
infant scales and other equipment. Nurses are trained toserve as hand hygiene ambassadors and educators at eachof the facilities.

and integrating a culture of health and cleanliness
into people’s everyday lives.

Haitian trainees at a NECH-CIEH session promoting hygiene via
selling soap in their community.

To translate these changes into new standards,
practices, and mandated proficiency at thenational level, Claudia is working in partnershipwith the Director of Nursing Care at the Ministryof Health to improve and enhance the nursing
curriculum, with a mutual goal to identify and fill
the gaps between what nurses learn in school andwhat they need to know to be effective in clinicalpractice and community outreach. Further, Claudia
secured financing and oversaw print publication of
the first-ever compilation of a 72-page manual ofnursing standards for Haiti: Normes pour la Pratiquedes Soins Infirmiers (“Standards for the Practice ofNursing”). Copies have been distributed to all 900+
healthcare facilities in the country.
THE PERSON“NECH-CIEH holds workshops
where nurses meet with economists,
psychologists, and other support
personnel. They design and conduct
research projects and learn to write
articles for journals and present atconferences. They engage in data-driven
discussions. All nurses should be involvedin these activities.”

Most recently, Claudia has expanded the reach of this initiative at the community level through the Haitian Women’s
Soap Project, through which nurses train local women on
how to make and market an affordable multi-purpose soap intheir local communities. This allows Haitian nurses to become
more deeply involved in their communities, educating theirneighbors on the role of basic hygiene in preventing disease,

Claudia was born in Haiti. The daughter of a teacher anda nurse, Claudia saw through her mother’s work the many
ways in which nurses could go beyond doctors to provide
hands-on patient care. When she was six, her family moved
to Montreal, Canada, where she grew up and completed her
training to become a licensed medical nurse.
In 2004, Claudia decided to return to Haiti to take a position coordinating an advanced nursing course at Groupe
Haitien d’Etude du Sarcome de Kaposi et des Infections
Opportunistes (GHESKIO). Founded in 1982, GHESKIO had
been the world’s first medical institution dedicated solely tothe fight against HIV/AIDS. Right away, Claudia noticed how
severely the work of nurses was oriented around the work of
doctors. From her perspective, this orientation held nurses
back from all they could do for patients, for other nursing
professionals, and for the public.
Claudia realized that to change the perception of nurses andtheir standing among healthcare providers and society, sheneeded to get nurses together. She founded NECH-CIEH as
an organization designed by nurses, for nurses with a mission
to improve patient care and public health through nursing
education and community partnership.

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HEALTH

Bob Bharij

United Kingdom@FDNforChangefoundationforchange.org.uk

Addicts Reclaim Freedom
Bob believes that the only reliably effective and lasting approach
to treatment for substance abuse and recovery is to offer someone the opportunity to “go deep” into their lived experience sothey emerge as the leaders of their own change.
THE NEW IDEA
Conventional responses to substance abuse focus largely on
managing symptoms. Private treatment programs are about
getting clean, and recovery is about staying clean—usually
by engaging in prescribed behaviors or routines with otherrecovering addicts. Little time is spent addressing an addiction’s root causes, and funding is generally dependent on
demonstrating forced, short-term “success stories” rather
than effective, post-treatment support for long-term, reintegration achievements.
Rejecting the social care sector’s tendency to infantilize addicts, Bob knows that those in recovery must be
invited—and challenged—to reclaim their agency. Rather
than approaching them as victims who need fixing, Bob’s
Foundation for Change offers a new approach through which
addicts are viewed as protagonists who can learn about theharm that structural othering does and use that knowledge
to plot a new path free from substance misuse.
Bob and his team believe that systemic marginalization andtrauma are inextricably linked. Sexism, racism, classism,
homophobia—each of these undermine a person’s well-being. Substance misuse is just one of the ways people try tocope. In his approach, shame is no longer associated withtreatment and recovery. The way that the program’s courses
unfold discourages participants from remaining in social bubbles with other recovering addicts. Instead, they are empowered to apply what they learn to reintegrate into their homes,
workplaces, and communities. In fact, participants cometo view community engagement and employment as signs

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ASHOKA 2020of personal stability and pride which are success measuresincorporated throughout the program.

“I believe that everyone has a story, thatevery body tells a story. People need tobuild a relationship with themselves,
their bodies, and the world aroundthem, and that making sense of the pastis crucial in moving forwards into the
future.”BOB BHARIJ

77 percent of all enrollees have completed the course
successfully without relapse. In this process, 60 percent
earned credits from the Open College Network, and 63
percent participated in a post-course work placement.
These numbers are exceptionally high for the addiction carefield.

T H E P RO B L E M
A decade of government austerity has meant that treatment
and recovery programs have had to rely more heavily on private sector support. But that type of funding is nearly always
tied to evidence of need and impact, which leads to box-ticking for sets of metrics that tend to assess short-term, cosmetic “success stories” rather than long-term, holistic carethat is more fundamental to durable recovery.
Those who successfully complete publicly funded treatment
programs also find minimal post-treatment support. AcrossEngland, those in recovery are afforded just one hour of aftercare per week. And because that one hour includes neither
job training nor career advice, far too many are left with little
choice but to seek jobs that provide a paycheck but little else.

T H E S T R AT EG Y
There are three key elements to the Foundation for
Change approach—providing structure and support, contextualizing addiction and trauma, andchanging the lens through which those in recovery
understand their past and plan their future.

Foundation for Change participants reflect on their experience in a
Feminism for Change course.

“Thirty percent of adults — or almost
88,000 people — in treatment for
substance abuses in England — arewomen, according to the latest statistics
from the UK’s National Drug Treatment
Monitoring System.”High rates of relapse expose the inadequacies of thisapproach. For example, available results from Public Health
England reveal that only 42 percent of people enrolled successfully completed the training provided by the Drug andAlcohol Treatment Program from April 2018 to March 2019.
Of those who did, the percentage who sustained sobriety forat least six months is lower still. In 2017, for example, only 7
percent of opiate users, 37 percent of non-opiate drug users,and 39 percent of alcoholics sustained post-treatment recovery for at least six months.

Foundation for Change participants enroll in one ofthree courses: Psychology for Change, Knowledge
for Change, or Feminism for Change. Each course
requires attendance at lectures and discussions
for 8-12 hours every week. The message thisdemanding curriculum sends to participants isclear: “Our expectations for you are high, and wetrust that you will meet them.” A combination ofgroup sessions and biweekly one-on-one tutorials
creates space for participants to build resilience as they learn
more about trauma and its impact. Participants are invited tosee their potential more clearly and visualize healthier paths
forward. They are given opportunities to develop skills as
well, such as learning how to give and receive constructive
feedback, analyzing problems from multiple perspectives,and sharing one’s story confidently.
All Foundation for Change courses culminate in formal recognition of the participants’ success at the Foundation’s annual
birthday celebration with its board and donors. Qualifications
from the Open College Network provide something tangible for course graduates to take pride in and celebrate. The
high percentage of post-course internships and work placements—all of which the Foundation organizes with network
partners across greater London—translates into stability andpurpose for graduates as they continue their recovery.
Several leading UK institutions with a long-term commitment to Substance Abuse Treatment and Recovery—
Shoreditch Trust, St Mungo’s, and the Wandsworth Drug
and Alcohol Community Service—have been trained to apply
the Foundation for Change approach. Local authorities in the
London boroughs of Hackney and Wandsworth help to fundthe Foundation’s work. A forthcoming qualitative study from
City University London recommends that the Foundation’s
methodology be scaled to the UK’s homeless sector.

ASHOKA 2020 |61

THE PERSON
Bob was born in the UK to parents who had migrated from
East Africa. The family’s home situation was abusive, andBob’s mom chose to divorce and raise Bob and his brotheralone. She encouraged both her sons to do what they loved.
Her encouragement gave Bob confidence and helped himchange direction when he needed it most. At school, Bob felt
the sting of racism among his peers on the playground andwas bullied by his classmates. And from a young age he knew
he was gay—something that was difficult to reconcile withthe culture in which he was raised.
Bob’s study of Psychology at university and subsequent yoga
training laid the foundations for a healthier personal relationship between body and mind. He subsequently spenttime with a Buddhist monastic order in Ladakh, India and,upon returning to the UK, set up a foundation to support themonks’ expressed desire to learn English.
At the same time, Bob went to work for the UK charity, We
Are With You (formerly Addaction), which works across all the
areas of treatment, research, family support and professional
education related to substance abuse and recovery. Over thefollowing decade Bob was able to refine his own thinking,and to identify and recruit people who also saw the need tomove the field in a new direction. This led directly to his decision to launch Foundation for Change.

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HEALTH

Pavitra Mohan

India

https://bhs.org.in

Democratizing Village Healthcare
Dr. Pavitra Mohan has created a replicable primary health caresystem for citizens in poor, remote communities of India througha new network of tribal, nurse-led clinics.
THE NEW IDEA
Steering away from hierarchical and rigid, doctor-led healthdelivery structures, Dr. Pavitra Mohan is building a networkof affordable and decentralized primary healthcare clinics inIndia’s remote, last-mile regions. Overcoming the absenteeism of medical staff and the irregularity of medical services
in these remote areas, Dr. Mohan’s solution, Basic HealthServices (BHS), takes a new approach—the building of community AMRIT clinics and the training of tribal nurses drawn
from and living in the clinics’ communities. In turn, thesenurses recruit a network of public health workers in evensmaller, far-flung settlements from the village, each 4-5 km
apart and connected by unpaved roads. Together, the networked health care providers offer a “circle of care” througha full, continuum of preventative, promotive, and curative
services at the village-level that connect to the state healthinfrastructure.
Located in South Rajasthan in the Salumbar block of the
Udaipur district, today, six AMRIT Clinics provide care toabout 125,000 people. The clinics have recorded 180,000
patient visits (including repeats), providing consultation,
basic laboratory testing, treatment for illness, safe childbirthservices, hospital referrals, community education, and emergency management.

To make the services both available and affordable, Dr.
Mohan has chosen to connect AMRIT Clinics with livelihoodsand financial inclusion organizations, Aajeevika Bureau andRajasthan Shram Sarthi Association (RSSA), led by another
Ashoka Fellow, Rajiv Khandelwal. Together, the partnerorganizations bring low-cost and high-quality health careto remote, rural, and underserved populations -- including
those that depend on migrant labor.
One example among the many things BHS does in partnership with the Bureau to make its services affordable is its
approach to full tuberculosis (TB) patient treatment plans.
While TB treatment plans generally require 6-8 months of
medical care, Mohan’s team noticed that most patients of
AMRIT Clinics were opting out after 3-4 months and returning
to work, aggravating the risk of a relapse. Working together
with the RSSA, Dr. Mohan designed a monthly health loan
program to provide 3,000-5,000 INR ($40-65 USD) to cover
patients’ essential costs. These loans are then consideredrepaid upon the patient’s completion of the treatment at anannual interest of 8-9 percent. This flexible payment model
syncs with the acute cash flow volatility faced by migrants
and the new loan process has led to a high treatment completion rate: 52 out of 54 patients are now completing theirfull course of treatment.

“The primary healthcare models will
move from the current paradigm ofreactive care to proactive care, and fromfragmented to integrated and accountablecare. This will require a cultural shift
from hospital- and physician-centric
to person- and population-centric care.
Such shift will strongly integrate publichealth functions with primary care.”

While nurses are at the heart of his community-based model,
Dr. Mohan has also addressed the challenge of recruiting
doctors through a Fellowship program. Created in association with the Academy of Family Physicians of India andEquitable Access to Health Care Consortium, the Fellowshipenables young medical graduates to engage in a long-distance diploma program with field work in AMRIT Clinics.

ASHOKA 2020 |63

health outcomes. Among the statistics, a February 2020 article in the Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care foundthat 30 percent of all malaria cases in India and 50 percent of
the deaths caused by malaria occur in the tribal population.
Furthermore, the under-five infant mortality rate in the tribal
population is 57.2 percent.
T H E S T R AT EG Y

Basic Health Services volunteer giving training in Manpur Village.

These impressive outcomes have resulted in BHS being
invited by the state Government of Rajasthan to manage
one Primary Health Centre (PHC) and by a large NGO, Sewa
Mandir, to run their community hospital under the aegis of
AMRIT Clinics.
THE PROBLEM
India counts 104 million people, 8.6 percent of India’s total
population, as “Tribal.” Many live in remote areas, are burdened by poverty, and migrate to find work. In fact, tribal
populations make up a significant share of the more than 120
million migrant workers who seasonally travel to cities towork in the construction trades and other occupations where
heavy manual labor is required.
Families in these tribal communities across India are burdened by poverty and geographical isolation. Historicallydependent on forest produce, unfriendly forest laws coupledwith rampant deforestation have resulted in a near loss of
traditional livelihoods. Pushed deeper into poverty, the men
often migrate to cities, ending up in low-paying and exploitative, unskilled jobs. In the absence of the primary male member and constrained by low mobility, tribal women face significant challenges in seeking timely healthcare for themselves
and their families. Further, erratic and volatile cash flows
ensure that nutrition and health are hardest hit, with mostdelaying medical attention until later in the disease cycle.
As a result, these communities have the country’s worst

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Recognizing that young, tribal nurses are the most likely
to stay and work in rural areas, the optimization of humanresources in ARMIT Clinics starts with the recruitment andupskilling of these healthcare professionals. Through an
intensive induction and monthly refresher trainings, nurses
are trained in critical tasks for which their formal training
would not have equipped them, such as diagnosing, analyzing, and making decisions on cases, patient communicationand counselling, and following standardized protocols.

“[I]n early 2013, AMRIT Clinic opened in
Bedawal with a small team of qualified
nurses and healthcare workers, whoconstitute the core of AMRIT HealthServices (AHS) in the villages. They aresupported by a doctor who visits once aweek and is also available for telephone
consultations on other days”

Each clinic is managed by three female nurses who arebacked up by a proficient, three-tier system of upward anddownward support. Upwards, doctors visit the clinic once aweek and are available for teleconsultation with nurses 24/7.
Downwards, the nurses supervise a cadre of trained community health workers who flank out into villages to influence
positive health behaviors such as family planning, childcare,nutrition and hygiene practices. They deliver antenatal andpostnatal care and follow up on chronic patients. Furtherdownstream, community health volunteers or Swasthya
Kirans (“light of health”) interface between the communities
and the clinic staff. They are drawn from the local community and run health education and counselling services. Most
importantly, they build the fundamental trust necessary for
uptake of the clinic’s services. Because each clinic is staffedby three nurses, each takes turns to visit villages and keep
their ears to the ground.
With new technologies placed in their hands (such as thosethat allow the accurate detection of malaria) and doctors
available over WhatsApp for consultation, nurses at AMRITClinics experience autonomy that they would not find inother private hospitals. Accommodation is made available tothem, breaking through the mobility barriers that obstructfemale nurses to travel and serve in remote areas.
Most tribal patients are now accessing formal healthcare in
their neighborhood for the very first time. Areas served by
AMRIT Clinics show a greater adoption of healthy practices,for example, family planning and birth control, measures toensure safe pregnancy or abortions, early care-seeking forsuspected tuberculosis, and acceptance of referrals to more
specialized facilities. Cure rates for tuberculosis patients
have increased from 45 percent to 70 percent over the past
three years and one clinic has the proud distinction of having
increased childbirth rates from 5 percent to about 50 percent
after five years.

“Primary healthcare models of the
future will empanel a defined catchment,
stratify the population by risk, andwill be responsible for providing
comprehensive care to that population.”

THE PERSON

campaigned alongside Gandhi. Surrounded by deep spiritualconversations and philosophy, Pavitra’s growing years were
infused by Gandhian thought.
Wanting to serve the nation, Pavitra was inclined to join thearmy, but a chance viewing of a Hindi film based on the lifeof a compassionate doctor kindled his interest in the medical
profession. While preparing for admission to Wardha Medical
College—set up by Mahatma Gandhi—Pavitra studied philosophy and this further fueled his passion for community
medicine and his commitment to the India “that lives in itsvillages.”
After completing his MD, Pavitra was given charge of thenursery of a well-known government hospital in Delhi. Withhigh mortality rates—4 out of 10 children dying—Pavitra
insisted on simple practices such as using sanitizers, washing hands, and ensuring maintenance of appropriate temperature. After initial resistance, the staff complied, and themortality rate went down significantly to just 10 percent. For
Pavitra, the experience demonstrated how, through collective action and implementation of simple solutions, significant impact is achievable.
In 2001, he was part of a research team set up to study the“role of counseling [services] in ensuring families bring theirchildren to Public Health Clinics when they fall ill.” The study
took him to almost every clinic in the district, providing deeplearning and insights into rural mindsets where healthcare isconcerned. The study also brought home the glaring gaps inthe system as well as the inability and lack of will to address
them.
Pavitra set out to explore the models that existed. While thereach of auxiliary nurses and Accredited Social Health Activist(ASHA) workers was huge, he saw their limited capacity torespond beyond data collection and inputs in maternal andchild healthcare. Hospitals set up in rural areas by dedicated doctors offered another option. But they were capitalintensive and centralized. Telemedicine could not penetrate
remote outposts of the country with no connectivity. Neither
did they offer the needed personal connection. After yearsof listening and reflection, Dr. Mohan founded Basic HealthServices to demonstrate and entirely new, comprehensive,highly effective system for delivering healthcare.

As a child, Pavitra was deeply influenced by his grandfathers—
one a scholar of Sanskrit and the other a freedom fighter who

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Human Rights

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HUMAN RIGHTS

Ioana Bauer

Romania@IoanaBauer
www.eliberare.com/en

Dismantling Systems of Human Trafficking
To combat human trafficking made possible by many elementsof society, Ioana is taking the whole enabling system apart. Who
has the most influence on young people? Their peers, teachers,
beauticians, and others. Ioana is changing how each of these elements sees the world and their roles.
THE NEW IDEA
Romania has the highest rate in Europe of trafficking of its
children and young women, and it is also the primary avenue through which traffickers bring de facto slaves—someas young as 12 years old—into Europe from the rest of theworld.
Ioana came very close to experiencing this in her teen years,
and she saw how profoundly damaging it is to those who fallvictim to its enticements.
She also came to understand how all the elements work
together and realized that, to have anything more than a palliative impact, she would have to change the whole systemthat, consciously or not, facilitates the trade.
Put yourself in the position of a vulnerable young woman in
her teens. There’s a lot to be frustrated about. The idea ofgetting a good-paying job and seeing a new part of the worldis pretty enticing. Your peers think this is a cool idea. Others
don’t see the danger or have come to accept it, community
leaders and teachers very much included.
To have any serious impact on the trafficking, Ioana understood that she had to change the culture in which vulnerable
young people are growing up.

far to understand the system, spot the symptoms, and know
how to intervene. These teachers are helping build their students’ understanding so they can act as collective antibodies.
Where do teens have a space where they can talk openly?
Many can talk more openly in a beauty salon than either atschool or at home. Therefore, Ioana has recruited beauticians against trafficking. They hear the conversations of their
young clients. They can participate. And, with training, they
can spot the danger signs and know how to intervene. This isa new and very satisfying role for the beauticians. They also
get some glossy magazines from Ioana for the coffee tables in
the waiting spaces of their salons. (This is strikingly similar to
Truckers Against Trafficking that Ashoka Fellow Kendis Parishas made into a very powerful national phenomenon in the
U.S.)
Each of these pieces (and more) is important. However, theyneed to come together and each reinforce the other. Ioana
accomplishes this through meetings of the key actors, community by community, so that they can consciously become ateam and help one another.
One can’t defeat a giant, society-wide pattern of behaviors
if one doesn’t change the whole system. That is Ioana’s core
insight. And she’s now demonstrated how to do that. The
result is that her model has been copied by some 20 othercountries.

“Romania has become a major transit
for the sale of people into the European
Union. Victims as young as 12 years
old are trafficked into Romania fromdestinations as far-reaching as
Honduras, Afghanistan, the Congo, andChina.”

Who is most influential in a teen’s life? Her peers. Therefore,
Ioana has a whole series of thrusts designed to build awareness among teens so that they protect one another. She now
has mandatory anti-trafficking courses in all high schools. She
also has a program that has trained over 6,000 teachers so

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Cultural stigma further exacerbates the problem of trafficking in Romania. Harmful stereotypes and myths desensitize
society to cases of exploitation, thus preventing neighbors
from taking action. Common perception and thought patterns such as: “Only promiscuous girls and uneducated people can be lured in by traffickers” and “As long as the trafficker
offers them a better life than before, it cannot be considered
exploitation” create a culture of not seeing, of not acting.
Members of the community, who do not have the necessary
pattern-recognition framework may well think nothing of asudden disappearance. That means that good people ultimately cannot play a role in stopping the slavery system.
Those who are vulnerable due to any cause or combinationof causes—for example, poverty, job loss, illness, subpar education, abuse, and/or the death of a family member—need
those around them to help them see and avoid the risks.
T H E S T R AT EG Y
eLiberare’s magazine: Aripi

THE PROBLEM
Romania is the epicenter of trafficking in Europe. It has thehighest number of identified labor and sex trafficking victims in Europe, nearly half of whom are minors. Of Romania’s
human trafficking victims, 45 percent were recruited byan acquaintance or friend. Globally, human trafficking is
an industry worth 150 billion dollars annually and directly
impacts at least 40 million people who are currently living insome form of slavery.
Traffickers exploit the vulnerabilities and socioeconomic
isolation of those dreaming of a better life, leading many
to become subjected to forced labor, sexual exploitation,or forced begging. Despite the pervasiveness of the issue,
Romania’s government and state institutions inadequately
enforce international standards for preventing and ultimately
eliminating human trafficking. Corruption, lack of training,
and, in some cases, even alleged complicity has resulted
in very few convictions for alleged traffickers. Judges inRomania also lack the needed, specialized training for dealing
effectively with trafficking cases, leaving many victims without proper witness protection and restitution while offering
perpetrators easy sentencing deals.

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Ioana is tackling the trafficking system at its roots—at thecitizen level—by concentrating on shifting mindsets andbehaviors of individuals through lobbying efforts, education
initiatives, and public campaigns. To build a protective barrier
between vulnerable individuals and human traffickers at thecommunal level, eLiberare follows a five-step strategy.

“Ioana Bauer helps prevent humantrafficking through information
and awareness efforts, prevention,
identification and referral workshops,
external assistance for reintegration,
but also through advocacy and public
policies. Along with 5,000 teachers,
it modified the national curriculum
to include antitrafficking prevention
classes, reaching over 600,000 young
people.”Ioana and her team begin by mapping the ecosystem topinpoint where their intervention will have the greatest
impact. Next, they conduct rigorous research to identify andempower groups of stakeholders who would be the mostimpactful in driving change. Third, eLiberare connects withthese key stakeholders to co-create tools for anti-trafficking partners in order to address the specific needs of thegiven at-risk group. To ensure these mechanisms are used byanti-trafficking stakeholders, Ioana reinforces their involvement with tailored incentives. These incentives can be as
simple as distributing eLiberare’s magazine “Aripi” to beauticians, or giving highly-appreciated diplomas to first responders who complete anti-trafficking trainings. The last step isknowledge and material circulation, including through digitaloutreach, to achieve significant penetration of the market
with a given tool.
Recognizing the key role peers can play in preventing trafficking, eLiberare has persuaded the government to requireanti-trafficking classes for all teenagers in Romania. Ioana
designed engaging sessions that help students see how thewhole system works—from the initial enticement on the
web—and how to help protect their friends. She also follows
up to ensure the classes are given and issues certificates ofcompletion. Over 600,000 high school students have undergone this training and thousands of certified teachers havebeen trained to recognize warning signs and respond tohuman trafficking threats.
eLiberare’s tools are designed to spread. Ioana has translated the course materials into English and is piloting education awareness programs in 18 other countries. Throughher five-step learning process, Ioana has developed trafficking prevention and early identification training materials
for society-wide use. They include, for example, “Hidden in
Plain Sight”, a manual for community members, and “TraumaInformed Care” manuals to train first responders. Throughher training and subsequent campaign efforts, eLiberare has
ensured that every Romanian embassy in the EU has a professionally trained person available to identify victims ofhuman trafficking and prevent further exploitation.
To drive the national movement, eLiberare also lobbies forpolicy changes to address trafficking. They launch highly creative, accessible social media campaigns that have reach andare effective for building support for desired changes from a
broad public audience. This support becomes behavior andpolicy change. Once recent campaign was effective in targeting targeting young people and potential victims reached
150,000 people offline and 727,700 online—with 84 percent
of viewers reading the whole page.
Ioana is also leading her anti-trafficking community groupsto 1) create alternative employment for people who mightotherwise fall victim to trafficking; 2) encourage community members to be alert for signs of trafficking activity andreport any suspected changes, e.g., prolonged absence fromschools; and 3) build a movement making it illegal for privatecompanies to engage in any way with trafficking activities.
THE PERSONAt 16, Ioana took the path that many Romanians of her generation followed and moved abroad for a better future. It was
during this time that Ioana was most vulnerable to potentiallybeing trafficked. Despite the various unverified jobs she took
on to survive, exploitation remained at bay.
Once Ioana completed her bachelor’s degree remotely, shestudied in America with plans to move up the corporate ladder. As she maintained ties with her home country throughvolunteering and donations, it became increasingly apparent that efforts to prevent the problem of violence against
women and to abolish human trafficking often went ignored.
The catalyst for Ioana’s work occurred during a conference,
where Ioana listened to a trafficking survivor recount asimilar experience she had—a girl from a loving family who
had lost her dad to cancer, accepted an offer from a friend
to go abroad and study, and got caught in the nightmare of
exploitation.
Within six months, Ioana shifted her life focus to interning
in a shelter for survivors of human trafficking in Greece. She
repeatedly heard from survivors that they had known humantrafficking existed, but never thought it could happen tothem. Ioana witnessed how the enticement/entrapment system worked up close and began to see how Romania, withthe highest levels of slavery in Europe, impacts the international slave trade. Recognizing far more comprehensive
approaches within the community are required for combatting human trafficking around the globe, she asked the social
entrepreneur’s question: “How can I spike this system?”

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HUMAN RIGHTS

Pablo Lecuona

Argentina@pabloltfl
https://tiflonexos.org/
como-nos-financiamos

Building Connections through Translating the
Inaccessible
Pablo has created a digital problem-solving hub, Tiflonexus,
where Spanish speakers with severe visual impairments fromaround the world can gather knowledge and increase technological access to foster autonomy and self-reliance.

“Tiflonexos, with few resources buttitanic effort—managed to extend its
networks throughout the world withthe proposal of promoting tools that theInternet makes possible and the use of
screen reader programs to produce andexchange accessible digital books for theblind.”

THE NEW IDEA
Imagine if someone suddenly removed 80 percent of what
you would have read or watched today. What impact wouldthat have on your day? Now imagine that experience for a
lifetime. What impact would your lack of access to information have on your ability to experience—let alone change—
the world? On your relationships with those around you?
People with visual impairments need full access to information and reading materials in order to reach their personalpotential, to feel true autonomy, and to participate as active
citizens in their communities. Having lost his sight as a child,
Pablo knew very directly that there was not enough being
done to change laws, build communities, and support accessto information for people with visual disabilities of all ages.
Beginning in Argentina, Pablo founded the civic associationand virtual social community: Tiflonexos—an integrated network of “hubs” for access to adaptive technologies, free andaccessible books, community engagement, and for gathering
the voices of citizens with visual disabilities around the world.
Pablo’s Tiflonexos began as a small book exchange program,
Tiflolibros, for people with severe visual impairments. Using ascanner and a program called Optical Character Recognition(OCR), Pablo’s organization can make any printed text accessible to visually impaired learners. How it works: after scanning text, the OCR program converts it to a format that’s
recognized by word processors and screen reader programs.
Then, using a screen reader on their computer, cell phone, orother device, a visually impaired person can listen to an audio
recording of the text and/or print out a copy in braille.

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Today, Tiflonexos has become a reference organization foradapted reading material that focuses on the user. Having
expanded to include more than 55,000 books adapted tobraille and other accessible formats, this lending library
makes materials available for uploading and downloading
for a growing number of individual members and 400 organizational members in Latin America. These include associations of the blind and national libraries from the Dominican
Republic to Peru.
T H E P RO B L E M
For people with visual disabilities, a lack of access to information and reading materials prevents their full engagement at
school, work, and in the community in the most basic ways.
In Argentina, Pablo noticed that government attempts toimprove access repeatedly fell short.
For visually impaired school-aged children to learn effectively, they need to be able to follow along with their teachers and classmates. However, in the decentralized education
system of Argentina, reading materials are generally chosen
by individual teachers and, more times than not, the materials
selected aren’t available in formats appropriate for students
with disabilities. The Argentine Government has attempted
to provide braille texts for school children, but these attempts
have been unsuccessful due to delayed publishing cycles formember can request the books they want andupload accessible works themselves. Additionally,
Tiflonexos offers its members a variety of opportunities for skill development for autonomous living, peer support, access to adaptive technologies,
leadership development and project support, as
well as job and scholarship information.
Pablo developed a program in Argentina called
Access Points to grow membership and encourage
participation in Tiflonexos. These Access Points are
physical and digital hubs where Teflonexos-trained
managers help sight-impaired individuals solve
problems they’re facing, provide orientation for
new members, and offer internet access.
Pablo and Sylvia Forbin, World Intellectual Property Organization(WIPO) deputy director, at a WIPO committee meeting to discuss
implications of Marrakesh Treaty.

new and updated content. The result: students are left trying
to follow along in school with texts they cannot make out orseverely outdated braille alternatives.
The education system’s inability to meet the needs of thevisually disabled directly impacts their employment opportunities following graduation. According to data provided by
Argentina’s National Rehabilitation Service, 80 percent ofall visually impaired people do not have a job. Data releasedby the World Blind Union indicates that only 5 percent ofpublished books are available in accessible formats, andalarmingly lower in developing countries. In Latin America
it is estimated that not even 1 percent of Spanish language
reading materials are accessible to people with visual disabilities. Without an opportunity to develop their skills andknowledge through truly accessible reading materials, people
with visual disabilities become “quite invisible,” Pablo states.
T H E S T R AT EG Y
Pablo’s own experience with visual disability has guided his
design of solutions that suit users’ short- and long-term
needs. First, to make resources as accessible as possible,
Tiflolibros library membership is free for Spanish-speaking
individuals with visual disabilities around the world. EachTo build networks and empower community members, Tiflonexos offers a virtual meeting place
where individuals and organizational members can exchange
information about their experiences and partner in mattersrelated to autonomy. Participants can volunteer through the
network to help troubleshoot member access issues, consult
with banks or other service/business owners on projects toimprove accessibility, and coordinate with educational organizations on schooling issues.
On a larger scale, Pablo collaborates with the World Blind
Union to influence public policy. He has joined campaigns
to provide political defense and technical advice to the governments of the region. In one case, the team promoted theWorld Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Treaty of
Marrakesh, which eliminated legal barriers to the production
and distribution of works in globally accessible formats. Pablo
then collaborated with Latin American countries to ratify andenforce the treaty. Together with the Unión Latinoamericanade Ciegos (Latin-American Union for the Blind), Pablo has
visited several countries to implement the goals of the treaty
by coordinating with local organizations and government
officials.
With a growing body of knowledge about the needs andwants of visually impaired people, Tiflonexos has entered into
agreements with 40 magazine and book editors whom Pablo
trains on how and what to write for people with visual disabilities. Additionally, the organization has created and distributed Accessible Reading Resources Kits to schools and libraries all over the country. In each kit, all Tiflonexos-produced

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because he had trouble reading the teacher’s writing on the chalkboard. These moments of necessary adaptation significantly influenced his life
and taught him the importance of an educational
environment that could support visually impaired
students. Access to educational materials continued to pose a challenge year after year; printed
braille books generally arrived six months after the
beginning of the school year, and the content was
out-of-date.

Fellow Pablo’s work through Tiflonexos has resulted in 40 magazine and book
editor agreements who Pablo trains on how and what to write for people withvisual disabilities.

adapted materials cost 10 times less than the average market
price.
Tiflonexos has also acted to influence public policy so thatcitizens with visual disabilities are further recognized. Before
Pablo’s active influence on Argentina’s legislation, people
with visual and reading disabilities were required to makecopyright payments in order to have published materials
converted to accessible formats. Pablo joined in legislative
discussions which ultimately ending in these payments being
waived.
THE PERSON
Pablo was born into a family of professionals and avid readers. Despite receiving an early diagnosis that he would lose
his sight during childhood, Pablo’s mathematics professor
mother and engineering father chose to send him to a traditional school and arranged for him to work with a special
education teacher. Pablo strongly felt his parents’ support for
his own autonomy.
Though he felt the support of his family and school community, in fifth grade Pablo had a less accommodating teacher.
The lack of support in the classroom forced Pablo to develop
alternative strategies, like borrowing his classmates’ notes

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Outside of school, Pablo started to participate
in the Argentine Library for the Blind (BAC) as ateenager. He was invited to lead several projects—
one of his first steps as a young leader at the BAC
was the development of a small reading group forexchanging books. The initiative succeeded andeventually became the concept for Tiflolibros.

Collaborative
Entrepreneurship

The Power to Change the World............................................................................................. 74
Older People: Givers. Ashoka Next Now............................................................................... 76
The Next Generation’s Best Changemakers. Ashoka Young Changemakers................. 82

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The Power toChange the WorldAs the world hastens through the turning point years from millennia of organizing around repetition to the new everything-changing and -connected reality, the changes needed to get there become ever clearer. Ashoka has a unique ability to see these paths
forward—in part because the patterns that cut across the work of its roughly 4,000 Fellows, the world’s top systems and framechange, big-scale social entrepreneurs (i.e., committed to the good of all) are reliably predictive.
The challenge then is how in fact to get all the world to hear and to change.
Over the last six-plus years, Ashoka, led by its São Paulo team, has found the answer. A critical step is to identify the most powerful (and ethical) organizations relevant to the needed framework change, help them grasp their new everything-changing strategic
reality, and to shift their core strategy in time. When they do, they become “jujitsu partners”. They give Ashoka’s vision and its
practical grasps of the necessary steps ahead the power to truly change the world.
Here are some of the early results from Ashoka’s jujitsu partnership with Santillana, the largest education publisher in Spanish
and Portuguese.

The Value of Your Voice
Brazil’s Ministry of Education has approved “Everyone a
Changemaker” learning materials that have been co-authored by Ashoka for up to 1.5 million high school students.
Brazil is undertaking a national effort to reform its school
curricula so that teaching no longer fragments knowledge bydisciplines, students learn to master empathy, and learning
is built around students’ life projects. Which, in an everything-changing new reality, gives them the key to a good,
contributing life -- being a confident changemaker. As partof this effort, Ashoka is partnering with the Santillana Group,
one of Spain’s largest publishers and owner of Moderna,
the leading educational publisher in Brazil, to incorporate
an Everyone a Changemaker framework into textbooks andeducational platforms for public and private school systems.
For more than six years, Ashoka in Brazil has been establishing strategic partnerships with governments, schools of
education, teachers’ unions, media, and publishers to change
the definition of what constitutes success in growing up.
Santillana is present in 132,000 schools in Brazil that serve
27 million primary and secondary students taught by 1.7 million teachers.
“The partnership between Ashoka and Santillana isn’t
ordinary,” said Luciano Monteiro, Santillana’s Institutional
Relations Director. “This book results from a unique

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co-creation approach. Our collaboration is based on ashared vision and mutual trust. Our efforts to create learning resources that emphasize care, solidarity, responsibility
towards the other and the environment reflect the values wecherish.”Santillana and Ashoka are collaborating on educational materials and methodologies that develop three competencies:
personal (self-awareness), social (empathy and interpersonal relationships), and planning (imagining the future while
practicing changemaking). Last October, Brazil’s Ministryof Education approved Everyone a Changemaker educational materials that were co-authored by Ashoka as part ofPrograma Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD) that purchases
textbooks for nearly 30 million students and supplemental
resources for teachers in public schools.

Over 50 percent of the students use at least one educational
resource developed by Santillana,” said Monteiro. “This bookis an opportunity to affect the lives of about 8 million Brazilian
students. The partnership with Ashoka brings Santillana
into the changemaking know-how. The gain for Ashoka,

Rhenan, founder of Brejinho Creek Revitalization Project andelected to Ashoka Young Changemakers at 13, and other Ashoka
Young Changemakers have their stories featured throughout thebook.

1.5 million students across the country in the next year, helping high school teachers and students establish a new pathway towards changemaking and students’ self-development.

we assume, is precisely the outreach scale that we provide,
which can accelerate the vision of Everyone a Changemaker.”
The educational materials, titled The Value of Your Voice, comprise a student textbook, a teacher’s guide, and three video
tutorials that can be used in Brazil’s three-year high schools.
The Value of Your Voice provides dynamic and modular learning tools that millions of students can use to take action in
their schools and communities. Ashoka and Santillana, thepublisher of these materials, agreed to adopt the Everyonea Changemaker framework as the narrative backbone of thebook.
This effort sets new standards for textbooks that speak
directly to the students and stimulate teachers to put students in charge,” said Flavio Bassi, Vice President of Ashoka
Latin America. The Value of Your Voice will potentially reach

These educational materials can also be chosen by teachers
throughout Brazil to support an independent study trackcalled “Life Project” that was included in the high school curriculum by the Ministry of Education in 2017. The Life Project
independent study aims to develop students’ socioemotional
skills so they can envision and design a dream for their future,and make changes to their world that allow them to realize
their dream and build a better world for all. Any young person who has thus had a dream, built a team, and changed
their world has what is now the key to a good life -- being achangemaker for the good.
Santillana, now positioned as the first publisher to support
schools, parents, and young people in seeing this new, essential path to success in growing up, has decided to bring thisapproach to the Spanish-speaking countries, starting with
Argentina and Spain. That it has stepped into this first actor
position is more than a brilliant strategy for the company; itgreatly strengthens other categories of core Ashoka partners
in that work -- education unions, general publishers, education schools, and cities/states. And it is a model for education
publishers from Jakarta to London.

ASHOKA 2020 |75

Older People: Givers
Throughout most of human history (and prehistory), threevery large classes of humans have been relegated to secondary roles: Women, children/teens, and older people. And they
have accepted frameworks that say they don’t have or are
losing qualities that would justify equality.
Perhaps these debilitating stereotypes and role definitions
could be explained in a world where hand-to-hand combat
was important. However, they are disastrously destructive inthe world’s new reality -- a place where everything is changing faster and faster and where all of us are intimately andinstantly interconnected.
In today’s reality, everyone must be a powerful changemakerin order to be able to contribute, to be a part of society. These
ancient barriers need to be replaced by their opposites.
Indeed, this is what the world’s leading social entrepreneurs,
the Ashoka Fellows, are doing. One-third of the Fellows focus
on kids; and over 90 percent put them in charge. That’s the
only way they can learn and practice being the changemakers
they must be to have a good life.
The same is true for older people and women. Don’t think
how to help an older person; instead, ask how that older person can help the world.

they’re 35! That requires every youth culture to be “everyonea changemaker” cultures.
There are two fundamental reasons for focusing first on
young people. It is ethically criminal to allow any young person to go into life without the ability to contribute, ensuring
a life of marginalization and failure. That’s what we are guaranteeing right now for millions of young people.

Ashoka and the “everyone a changemaker” global movement
are very much focused here.

Second, once society recognizes that mastering the sophisticated abilities required to be a changemaker is essential for
success in life for young people, all the adults are going toknow in two minutes that that is true for them as well. And
for their organizations and all the people in them.

S TA R T I N G W I T H YO U N G P EO P L E

N E X T: O L D E R P EO P L E

The first major framework Ashoka and the movement havefocused on is a redefinition of what constitutes success ingrowing up. It is not learning a set of skills that will lead to a
job and a lifetime of repetition. That world is dead, and repetitive jobs of all sorts are dying at an exponential rate. Just as
the new everything-changing and -connected world is growing exponentially.

Now, Ashoka’s Next Now cutting edge has taken up and is
working towards similar global thrusts for women and older
people. This paper will introduce you to some of the thinking of the group working on older people/longevity. The firststep is to fully understand the strategic situation and themain avenues for structural and framework change. The goal
is to have a clear map of how older people (and all people)
will best fit in the new reality. What abilities do they have tobring, and how does the whole structure of society need tochange to enable them in fact to play dramatically different
roles? Getting answers and seeing this way forward starts
with mapping the work of the current Fellows and electing

Any young person who doesn’t know confidentially that they
are a changemaker in their teens, preferably early teens, ison a path to failure in life. Imagine the level of change andinterconnection to which they must contribute by the time76|

ASHOKA 2020

at least 10 new Fellows focused on these deeper structural
questions in each of the next four or five years (thereby
strengthening the core leadership of this part of the “everyone a changemaker” movement).
Once one has that map, Ashoka has the ability in fact tochange the world quickly once it is clear where the world
needs to go. Learning in part from the patterns of prior great
framework transformations, over the last five years, Ashoka
has developed, tested, refined, and is now using what it calls
the “collaborative entrepreneurship jujitsu” (CEJ) approach togetting the world quickly to see and adopt new patterns. One
key element is going to the most powerful relevant organizations (also chosen for ethical fiber and likely collaborativefit) and helping those organizations see the change in theirstrategic environment in time for them to shift their core
strategy. When they do so, they and Ashoka have the same
purpose and many ways of collaborating. These collaborations are among these “jujitsu partners” as well as between
them and the several elements of the Ashoka and “everyonea changemaker” movement.
What are some of the key elements in the redesign of whatlife should be like for older people? Here’s a quick summaryof some of the key insights.
A R E D E FI N E D L I FEC YC L E
Historically, old age has been perceived as a time of decline.
This is a destructive and inaccurate framework. Many Fellows
are showing what the alternative looks like and how to getthere. This overview memo is followed by a special Next Now
paper summarizing the Fellows’ work and Next Now’s thinking regarding how to change this framework. It also deals
with the closely related, key element of caring. And it provides a fuller introduction to Next Now, which is Ashoka’s
next-generation way of finding the most fundamental framework-changing ideas and entrepreneurs and then engaging
them individually and together.
CARING
Almost everything about caring and older people needs tochange. The healthiest thing we can do is to stop pushingolder people away and instead welcome them as powerfulgivers and changemakers -- as carers. In a world where every
year, everyone must learn higher and higher levels of changemaking abilities, this is the area where demand is building rapidly. Older people are particularly well-suited to contributing.

Ashoka Fellow Jeesun Lee supports the rehabilitation of a man in
Korea.

When older people are changemakers, aren’t they going to bedramatically more effective in helping young people and one
another be changemakers? And indeed, everyone?
Almost everything about how we currently provide care forolder people needs radical revision. Who the caregivers are
and how we treat them. insurance, finance, housing, howhealth care is provided, and much more.
O L D E R P EO P L E : C H A N G E M A K E R S
The new reality is an everything-changing and everything-connected world. This strategic environment is not justdifferent; it is fundamentally opposite to what went before.
These are hard facts.
Like everyone else, older people must master the fourchangemaking abilities and know that they are changemakers. And all the cultures of which they are part need to be“everyone a changemaker” cultures in which all the people
are changemakers and the architecture is a “fluid, open, integrated team of teams.”
To the degree that older people are given the opportunity to
break out of the old self-defeating stereotype and take on
the new power of being a changemaker, that will allow themto leapfrog out of a trap and into a very satisfying life of giving and therefore of happiness, health, and longevity.
To the degree that older people do not make this transition,
they are going to be trapped on the wrong side of “the new
inequality”. This divides those who have the abilities andare playing in the new game and constantly growing thoseabilities in this team of teams environment. Those who do
not make the transition will be literally unable to contribute.
Worse, as those in the game become more and more skilled,
this second group will fall further and further behind.

ASHOKA 2020 |77

Therefore, ensuring that all older people make this transition
quickly has to be the most urgent priority. It flows into and isalso strengthened by the others. But this is the heart of thematter.

jobs in the U.S. and sharply encourage conservation as well.)(See www.getamericaworking.org, an organization affiliatedwith Ashoka.)It’s so easy to envisage all the things that an older person withthese abilities, with this superpower can contribute. They cando the most valuable thing in the life of a grandchild -- givingthat person their first steps into being a changemaker, a giver,a good and therefore happy, healthy person.

Consider the damage done by this one (unintended) bad priceincentive patterns. How can we structure society to do a far
better job with the full array of old and many new incentive
patterns? And how can we create decision-making that will
adjust the information and incentives flows as change andconnection continue to accelerate exponentially?

Second, in a world desperate for people with these abilities,
they will have the (very satisfying) knowledge that they will
always be needed and wanted. And they will, in fact, experience so many opportunities.

The faster things change, the shorter the half-life of any solution is. Solutions are still important, but the decision-making
framework is becoming more important every day, and solutions less so.

GETTING THE STRUCTURES RIGHTThis is a very different world. The mental, financial, and ahundred other structures from the past all must change.
Here’s an example. Because we have gotten the pricing
wrong, there are far too few jobs. Through payroll taxes
and other interventions, we have driven up the cost of laborand (responsive to power lobbies) have reduced the cost ofenergy, materials, and other natural resources. The result isa dramatic, completely unnecessary structural job shortage.
Older people are, of course, one of the chief victims.
Therefore, it’s critical for older people (and all other marginalized groups) to get this pricing fixed. (Ending payroll taxes andsubstituting budget neutral taxes on energy, materials, andnatural resources would create 45 million full time equivalent

How can we build decision-making structures that will reliably be helpful to older people (and the other disadvantaged
groups)? Here we can get help from the work of a rapidly
increasing number of Fellows working to ensure Good Tech.
I.e. to deal with the structural challenges of AI/the web. For
example, how can one make sure that the rapidly multiplying number of algorithms and self-correcting algorithms ina world of accelerating artificial intelligence does not havebias against older people? One Fellow has a rapidly spreading
90-percent AI system that audits algorithms of all sorts tocatch these sorts of problems. Another Fellow has brought
together community groups and leaders on the one handand scientists and tech creators on the other systematicallyto also seek out unfairness, untruths, and bias. Another has
engaged scientists as part of their professional responsibility in reviewing the scientific factual accuracy of reporting, regardless of media. (This is one of many examples of
Ashoka’s advantage as the largest community of the world’s
leading social entrepreneurs—in every subject matter andgeography.)
The above are all important building blocks in what Ashoka
hopes will soon be a coherent vision for the lives and contribution of older people in this new, far more promising world.
Once we know where the world must go, we will shift into
the work of ensuring that it gets there – using the collaborative entrepreneurship jujitsu methodology to tip the world.

Report from Ashoka’s
Next Now: Longevity
Danish Ashoka Fellow Ole Kassow, founder of Cycling Without Age,peddles a trishaw in Minnesota so senior citizens can feel the joy ofcycling.

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Ashoka’s Next Now is demonstrating better ways of finding
and engaging the world’s best new ideas and entrepreneurs;
seeing and developing the deeper patterns; and then usingAshoka’s new ways to tip societies. It is showing how to do
this in four key areas, one being longevity.
A S H O K A N E X T N OW
The Next Now team catalyzes all of Ashoka to invent andchange by finding the most powerful social entrepreneurs
and partners and then all together taking on four of theworld’s greatest challenges. This is how entrepreneurs learn.
This team (of four teams) then has two mandates, both critical for Ashoka and its “everyone a changemaker” movement:(1) Quickly seeding and then discovering/defining where thatfield must go in the new reality of an everything changing
and connected world – and then make the needed changes
happen, and (2) helping all parts of the Ashoka movement
to collaborate in developing much-improved approaches forsearch and engagement—and for our working together as a
“fluid, open, integrated team of teams” globally. The goal isto have all Ashoka adopt these much improved approaches.
Next Now has chosen four areas that are hugely important,that are becoming more so, and where Ashoka would benefit greatly by expanding the number of Fellows and partners
dealing with each of these issue areas. The four fields are:Tech and Humanity, Gender, Aging/Longevity, and Climate.
A paper that highlights early mapping in Aging and Longevity
field follows.

years of launch. And then multiply that impact as they collaborate with one another, with almost 4000 other Fellows,
and with Ashoka’s many (carefully chosen) partners. Each ofthese steps, synapses, and Ashoka reforms helps open thedoor to solving these challenges, showing how to take on all
the future challenges.
N E X T N OW/N E W LO N G E V I T Y
For the first time in history, there are more people above
65 years old than there are below five. This unprecedented
demographic shift requires us to rethink the very fabric of oursociety. From business to public policy, education, employment, housing, finance, family life, healthcare, transportation,
you name it – there isn’t one aspect of our lives and economies left untouched by this shift.
While aging is a natural phenomenon, it is also a social creation — how we think, talk, act; the influence of history, culture, language, science, religion; our habits, routines, sharedbeliefs and individual expectations; our society’s policies,
programs, systems, institutions, agencies, organizations.
The current mental model for aging is so entrenched that it
has largely escaped scrutiny. It claims that we typically reachour peak performance between the ages of 28 and 45, after
which we begin a steady decline in old age and obsolescence(see Figure 1).
Such a perception of unavoidable decline creates a world
view where we prize security above all. It is leading us downa destructive path where the older we get, the more socially
isolated we become – a reality made tragically visible by
Covid-19. We have over-commoditized our care systems forthe elderly, segregated young from old, and largely eroded
older people’s agency.

Ashoka Fellow Anne Basting empowers the aging and their caregivers with practices rooted in creative expression.

Searching globally, using new tools and deeper questions,and drawing on Ashoka’s world-wide highly skilled presence,each of the four teams will launch ten top social entrepreneur Fellows and their pattern-changing ideas each year for
five years. Consider the impact on each field, given that threequarters of Ashoka Fellows have changed the patterns of
their field at the national and/or international level within five“In overseas nursing homes that have
implemented the TimeSlips programme,
it was observed that there were more
frequent staff-resident and social
interaction, and social engagement…staff
who participated in the programme also
had more positive views of the residents
with dementia.”

ASHOKA 2020 |79

Figure 1 Stages of Human Life and Interventions. Alex Zhavoronkov

Now more than ever we need social entrepreneurs to redefine success as we age. For 40 years Ashoka has believed thatthe most powerful lever for social progress is an innovative
idea in the hands of a leading social entrepreneur–Ashoka
Fellows. We have bet on the optimists and the adventurous
among us who see the world not as it is but build it as it should
be. We have supported more than 3,800 Ashoka Fellows
across 90 countries, guiding them to grow unexpected ideas
into transformative social progress (three-quarters of Ashoka
Fellows change national or international policy within five
years of joining).
The defining challenges of our times, such as this unprecedented demographic shift, however, require not a solo entrepreneur changing a big system but a team of the world’s bestsocial entrepreneurs working together to redefine the paradigm. There is no more powerful engine available to keep theworld’s systems moving in the right direction than collaborative entrepreneurship. Powered by Ashoka, Next Now/New
Longevity is working precisely on that.
Luckily, roughly 80 Ashoka Fellows, have already anticipatedthis Big Shift. Over the last year, we have looked closely at
all their proven ideas and brought them together to uneartha few future-defining patterns across their work. Above
all, Ashoka Fellows are leading the way towards the New
Longevity, a critical new paradigm essential to building an
Everyone a Changemaker world. A mindset where aging is
synonymous with growth, not decline. Ashoka Fellows haveredefined longevity to mean not the number of years one
lives, but the ability to find maximum growth, security, andhappiness at any stage of life, and to manage the transitions
between these stages in ways that enhance both security,
growth and agency.

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From Today’s
Paradigm…

…to Tomorrow’s
Paradigm• Security over growth• Growth throughout life

• Three-stage life ending in
obsolescence / retirement• Social isolation• Multiple stages
that sustain lifelong
fulfilment/contribution• Young and old segregated• Rich networks• Retirement monolith• Young and old integrated• Difficult transitions• New roles and options• Commoditized care

• Skillful transitions• Careers neglected,
undervalued• Natural care
• Careers protected,
rewarded, integral

Ashoka Fellows point to several growing economic trends:
new professions, new services, and technologies that serve
the particular needs of senior citizens; and new forms of
employment that not only keep seniors connected andengaged, but find real value in their knowledge and experience. Sergio Serapiao from Brazil and Marc Freedman fromthe USA are key architects of this transformation. Meanwhile,
Fellows like Ximena Abogabir reframe the expectations, attitudes, and actions of aging individuals by driving a “Plan for100” movement in Chile. You may not make it to 100, but the
point is to have a real plan for security, growth, and happinessbeyond age 60.

Marc Freedman, Encore (USA)
Marc has primed American seniors, public organizations, and citizens for the Big
Shift by drawing seniors’ strengths: a lifetime of experience and advanced empathy. Matching seniors to young people
not only creates mentors, but has paved
the way for intergenerational changemaking.

Ximena Abogabir, Travesia100 (Chile)

Anne Basting, TIME SLIPS (USA)

What if everyone envisioned a century-long life? Ximena found that 65% ofChileans wish to continue working, after
retirement age, not just for income but
for meaning and connection. Her programs and digital platforms allow seniors
to take stock of their needs and abilities
and present them to employers seeking
to add the senior advantage.

Dementia, memory loss, and cognitive
decline all demand new ways of thinking and communicating. Anne’s motto is
Forget memory, try imagination! Bondsof love, trust, and dignity can be sustained through shared creativity justas well as shared memory. Creativity istherefore a fundamental skill both forindividuals and for institutions. Anne’s methods are in use in
more than 20 countries.

Sergio Serapiao, LAB60+ (Brazil)
Sergio works with major employers suchas banks and tech companies to create
senior-specific roles, products, and services. He has created a “gig economy”
platform for seniors, which allows them
to work on a flexible schedule. A paycheck is nice, but Sergio measures success in terms of health and well-being,
including social connection.

We are also seeing important patterns in the ways ourFellows are redefining care. Caring is rooted in the experience of millions of ordinary people learning and doing in “situations of care” — often with great creativity. They may be
unpaid family carers in Canada or Bangladesh, or the staff ofnursing homes in the American Midwest. Care establishes its
own context, and is a powerful re-organizer of human relationships, whose moral fibers take on new meaning: trust,
respect, dignity, communication, service, friendship, empathy, love. Developing the ability to care means developing
and spreading these positive values.

Al Etmanski, PLAN (Canada)
Al created a system of mutual support
among families with disabled children,then used their collective insight to shape
new models of financial planning, while
informing new areas of law and public
policy. He later addressed employment
and savings. Today, as a veteran social
entrepreneur, Al is developing the concept of Natural Caring, a recognition that all human well-being—
including that of the elderly—depends largely on family, friends,
neighbors, and community.

Anil Patel, CARERS WORLDWIDE (India)
Caring is a universal phenomenon, anduntold millions of children and adults
worldwide dedicate their lives to thewell-being of another, often to the detriment of their own health and security. In
addition to direct programs that improve
the lives of tens of thousands of carers,
for the first time, informal family carers
are being counted by census and included in policy formulation.

We are well on our way to identifying the new paradigms
that will define the Longevity field in the future. The teamsof Fellows listed above are our inaugural Next Now/New
Longevity co-creator team. Together, we are narrowing in on
the one or two things that must happen if the world is tomake this leap. And then we must make them in fact happen.
Which is when the full entrepreneurial force of the hundredsof top entrepreneurs collaborating comes into full play. If we
can together make those few critical things happen in sevento ten key places on the planet, we will tip the world.
This will only be possible if we continue to find, select andengage the most innovative social entrepreneurs and partners shaping this field. In 2020, a year where the wholeworld was shaken by the global pandemic, the need for more
solutions that reimagine caring and longevity could not havebeen made clearer. This year we welcome five new social
entrepreneurs into Ashoka’s network who are shaping the
New Longevity in France, Poland, Canada, South Korea, andVenezuela. Help us find the next generation of partners for
Next Now/New Longevity.

ASHOKA 2020 |81

The Next Generation’sBest Changemakers
Ashoka Young Changemakers are their generation’s bestchangemakers.
They have had a dream, built a team, and changed their world.
Having done so, they know they are changemakers: and theywant to keep growing their changemaking superpower—and
help everyone else get this extraordinary, life-changing gift.
They are selected by Ashoka using a process very similar to the one it uses so reliability to find the world’s best
adult social entrepreneurs, the Ashoka Fellows. The chief
difference between the Ashoka process for Fellows and for
Ashoka Young Changemakers (age 11–20) is an added step:
the Ashoka Young Changemakers (AYCers) are interviewed
by a small panel of AYCers from other parts of the world. Not
surprisingly, this has proven to be, in many ways, the toughest step—and also the one most useful to the candidates.
There is one big difference in what Ashoka seeks other than
the stage in the human life cycle involved. AYCers are selected
not only for their remarkable qualities, but also to be very
important co-leaders in the everyone a changemaker global
movement. They need to decide that this is a sufficiently
important and natural fit for them that they will commit to
the time involved—even though their life already includes
studying and the venture they have launched. AYCers are, infact, critical for the movement. There are three reasons:• What significant social change movement in history has
not had young people play a central role? The values
involved are especially clear and important to young
people. A new field has room for new leaders. Youngpeople have far, far less to unlearn than any adult. And,as one Ashoka young person said to a business personfrom Texas who doubted that young people could dothese things: “There is a difference between you and us.
If it doesn’t work, we can just start over.”• No animal species would exist if the adults did not spend
much of their life force helping the young grow up. In
other words, at the deepest level, adults are moved,sometimes to tears, when they experience a young
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ASHOKA 2020

TransEnd Team with members of their 2000-strong network oftransgender people in Bangladesh

good. They are experiencing in that moment what the
deepest success in life is. That is a power that no adult in
the “everyone a changemaker” movement has.
• Who could conceivably be half as good at providing
leadership for young people? (Or, for that matter, influencing parents or teachers?) Who else knows the forces
facing a young person who is ready to step up with her
dream, her team, to change her world than someone
who has had to face down the old youth culture, theadults, and all the bureaucratic barriers the adults havecreated (the “insurance problem,” “the janitors won’t
allow it,” etc.)? And who else has the savvy and credibility of having done it and truly knowing how to do it?
This understanding is revelatory for adults even morethan for young people.
Here are two stories of Ashoka Young Changemakers atwork—Manat from the United States (but also working inIndia and Palestine) and Tanha from Bangladesh.

M A N AT: O B J EC T &FI R S T S T E P S

United States

Finding herself ‘uncool’ in middle school, thanks to her interest in STEM, Manat began questioning gender stereotypes
that rob young people of opportunities to explore their passions. This led her to launch Object, at the age of 12, as asupport system for young girls to build self-efficacy in theirchosen fields.
Object, as in “objecting to female stereotypes,” hosts monthly
workshops for girls of ages 8-15 with successful women
speakers from various fields – Olympic medalists to city
mayors to authors and start-up CEOs. The guests share theirstory, lead an activity to give girls exposure to their field ofwork, and mingle with girls over food. Starting with support
from her friend and parents, Manat did her first workshops
and soon built a team of five other young girls who coordinate

Participants at a monthly Object Workshop

young people out there who may have the drive but not theknow-how of launching impactful initiatives. With stories
about the first days, weeks, and months of changemaking in avariety of fields, Manat is helping readers and viewers make adifference in their community, and in the course of doing so,
become confident, life-long changemakers who a fast changing world will always seek out.
Since her election, Manat has been an invaluable co-leader
in Ashoka’s “everyone a changemaker” movement. She has
worked closely with the leadership team at the American
Federation of Teacher in creating webinars for their members across the country on ‘Fostering Changemaking in theClassroom’ and adding knowledge resources on the topic to
AFT’s ‘sharemylesson’ online platform for educators.

Young girls engaging in activities during an Object eventsocial media, speakers, outreach, and organization building.
As of Summer 2019, when she was elected an Ashoka Young
Changemaker, Manat had connected over 500 girls withwomen role models in various fields - sports, politics, entrepreneurship, among others. Their work has since expanded
to India and Palestine, reaching over 2500 young womenprior to the pandemic, and many more virtually since.

She teamed up with Ashoka Fellow Riccarda Zezza to create the ‘Parenting Changemakers’ videos and resources tohelp parents learn the ‘how tos’ of supporting their kids (andthemselves) get started on their changemaking journey. As
a student journalist herself, Manat has brought the stories
of young changemakers and the core message of the larger“everyone a changemaker” movement to further thousandsof young people through publications like the Log Angeles
Times – High School Insider.
Young girl listing her‘superpowers’ during
an activity at a monthly
Object workshop

Manat represents a generation of young people determined
to build each other up so everyone can be successful, happy,
and healthy. Recognizing that the world today needs everyone to have her changemaking superpower, Manat createdFirst Steps, a campaign that chronicles the stories of youngchangemakers and the earliest steps in their changemaking
journey – making these stories more accessible to other

ASHOKA 2020 |83

TA N H A : T R A N S E N D& G E N D E R- D I V E R S E
CHANGEMAKERS

Bangladesh

As a child, having encountered transgender women who visited her neighborhood for events, Tanha asked her motherand learned that Bangladesh has over a million transgenderpeople, most of whom are marginalized. She began talking
with transgender people at bus stops and parks. Her empathy
grew as she came to understand the number and complexities of issues faced by the transgender community in South
Asia.
This deep understanding led her to create TransEnd. Itempowers the transgender community in Bangladesh
through education, employment, and entrepreneurship.
Tanha gathered a team of five passionate and driven peers.
Their first activity was to survey members of the transgendercommunity in their area to better understand their needs andidentify opportunities for solutions. Learning from this effort,
the team worked on training and securing employment in the
fashion industry – modeling, sales etc. – and had their firstsuccess, eight eligible transgender people with new jobs.
From that initial win, Tanha has grown TransEnd into a trustbased network of over 2000 transgender people from different parts of Bangladesh – coordinated by the ‘gurus’ ofeach group. Transgender people, abandoned by their families,
have little to no choice but to move into living with transgender social groups for their survival. These groups are led by aguru whose identity is shared externally only with those who
the group holds in high confidence. With this network at thecenter, TransEnd has worked on a series of awareness activities designed to build an army of allies. Their social media
campaigns that use stories, animated videos, creative posts,
webinars, and celebrations reach over 100,000 people every
month.

Tanha with members of their TransEnd network during a business
opening event

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ASHOKA 2020

Tanha’s team is steadily building new alliances, career openings, and needed services. It has built strong bridges to the
LGBTQ movement. In early 2020 Tanha launched a logistics startup ‘TransPort’ which trains and employs members
from the transgender community as delivery personnel andback-office managers. Third, through collaborations withmental health organizations, TransEnd has built ‘Project
One Nation’. It trains volunteers to be mental health first
responders for three hotlines dedicated to the transgendercommunity.

“Bangladesh has never been part of the[International Day Against Transphobia]
celebrations before, but this year,
TransEnd is taking this initiative for the
first time”

After interacting with other young changemakers at Ashoka,
Tanha realized the transgender community had to find theirown power as changemakers. With this insight, TransEnd has
collaborated with several organizations to conduct workshops for transgender people interested in becoming changemakers. She then offers follow-up support including mentorship and seed funding for participants. Moving forward,
Tanha is looking to create other forms of access to credit for
the transgender community, predominantly unbanked andconsidered un-bankable. Through this support system forgender-diverse changemakers, Tanha is making the ‘everyone’ part Ashoka’s ‘everyone a changemaker’ movement ademonstrable reality in Bangladesh.
Tanha is also helping build our movement by co-leading various aspects of it in Bangladesh. Recently, Tanha spoke withY TV, one of Bangladesh’s major youth media platform, sharing her journey, helping thousands of young people imagine
a new, far more powerful future. Working with the Ashokateam and other young changemakers in South Asia, Tanha isco-leading conversations with major media houses like The
Daily Star and The Dhaka Tribune and other jujitsu partners
in her country, helping them see the new game of changemaking and learn the ‘how tos of supporting a whole generation of young people to break out from the old game of repetition. Similarly, Tanha is a partner in Ashoka’s global Next
Now initiative on Gender & Justice, where she works withmany Ashoka Fellows and ecosystem partners in showing theworld why changemaking is the key to success in growing up
and in addressing old and new inequalities – for all.

Organizing the Movement

World Council............................................................................................................................... 86
Board, North American Council............................................................................................... 87
Offices Worldwide....................................................................................................................... 88
Ensuring the Future: The Endowments.................................................................................. 90
Gifts with Special Impact........................................................................................................... 9785

Ashoka LeadersWORLD COUNCIL

Marjorie C. Benton
Marjorie, very much a fellow spirit,
has founded and co-founded manysocially important organizations
including: the Chicago Foundation
for Women; the Women’s Issues
Network; and The Peace Museum.
She has been board chair of Save
the Children, and she served as a delegate to the United
Nations special sessions on disarmament in the 1970s, andthen as U.S. Ambassador to UNICEF.

Vera Cordeiro
One of the early Brazilian Ashoka
Fellows, Vera Cordeiro founded
Associacao Saùde Crianca which
addresses the root causes thatprevent poor families from providing
adequate care to their children when
discharged from the hospital.

Marian Wright Edelman
Marian Wright Edelman is a lifelong advocate for disadvantaged
Americans and is the President of
the Children’s Defense Fund. Under
her leadership, CDF has become thenation’s strongest voice for children
and families.

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Anupam Puri
Anupam ("Tino") Puri founded
and managed McKinsey’s practicein India. In 1996, he was electeda managing director, and from1998 onwards, he oversaw all of
McKinsey’s Asian and Latin American
practices. Tino was an incorparator
and a founder board member of Ashoka.

Sir Shridath Ramphal
Sir Shridath Ramphal is Co-Chairof the Commission on Global
Governance and President of theWorld Conservation Union. He is
Former Secretary General of the
British Commonwealth, Chancellorof the University of West Indies andformer Foreign Minister and Attorney General in Guyana.

Muhammad Yunus
Nobel Prize recipient, Muhammad
Yunus, provided the global leadership that made microcredit a universally accepted development tool. He
went on to create a series of social
businesses, including the largest
telephone service in the region.

ASHOKA BOARD

Richard Cavanagh (On Leave)

Fred Hehuwat

The Kennedy School of Government
Harvard University
Former President and CEO, The Conference Board
United States

Founder, Green Indonesia Foundation
Former Director, National Institute of Geology andMining of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences
Indonesia

Bill Drayton

Sara Horowitz

Chair and CEO, Ashoka: Everyone a Changemaker
Chair, Get America Working!
Former Assistant Administrator, U.S. E.P.A.
United States

Ashoka Member
Founder, Working Today and the Freelancers Union
United States

Mary Gordon

Writer and Former President, Ashoka
India

Ashoka Fellow
Founder & CEO, Roots of Empathy
CanadaRoger Harrison
Newspaper Executive and Chair, Leading Charities
Chair, Royal Dance Academy
Former Chair, Asylum Aid
Former Chair, Toynbee Hall
United Kingdom

Sushmita Ghosh

Felipe Vergara
Co-Founder and CEO, Lumni
Peru

Kyle Zimmer
Founder and President, First Book
United States

NORTH AMERICAN COUNCIL
Marjorie C. Benton

Eugene Ludwig

Trustee, President’s Commission on White House
Fellowships
Former Chair, Save the Children
Former United States Representative to UNICEF

Chair & Chief Executive Officer of Promontory Financial
Group
Former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency

Richard Danzig
Former Secretary of the NavyFounder & President, Social Accountability International
Founder, Council on Economic Priorities

Peter Kellner

Theodore R. Marmor

Founder and Managing Partner, Richmond Global
Co‑Founder, EndeavorFounder, Environmental Management and Law Association(Hungary)
Founder, Ural Petroleum Corporation

Professor of Public Policy and Management andProfessor of Political Science, Yale School of Management

Alice Tepper Marlin

ASHOKA 2020 |87

Offices
Worldwide
Ashoka Global and North
America
1700 North Moore Street, Suite 2000
Arlington, VA 22209 1939
UNITED STATES
t: 1 703 527 8300
f: 1 703 527 8383

Ashoka East Africa
Nexus Co-Working
Ground Floor, Riara Corporate Suites
Riara Road, Nairobi
KENYA
t: 245 0 202 628 738

Ashoka Argentina
Zapiola 1451
CP 1426 Caba
ARGENTINA
t: 54 11 4393 8646
e: infoargentina@ashoka.org

Ashoka Anglophone West
AfricaF8 Lasode Crescent
Off Ozumba Mbadiwe Street
Victoria Island, Lagos
NIGERIAt: 23 412 950 872
e: jnzerem@ashoka.org

Ashoka Austria and Central
Eastern Europe
c/o Haus der Philanthropie,
Schottenring 16/3.OG
Vienna A-1010
AUSTRIAt: 43 1 3840100
e: austria@ashoka.org

Ashoka Belgium
Rue Joseph II/20 Jozef-straat II1000 Brussels
BELGIUMt: 32 2 675 2219
e: ashokabelgium@ashoka.org

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ASHOKA 2020

Ashoka Brazil
R. Dr. Virgílio de Carvalho Pinto
433 - Sala 8 - Pinheiros
São Paulo - SP
05415-000
BRASIL
t: 55 11 3085-9190
e: brasil@ashoka.org

Ashoka Canada
336 Adelaide Street West, Suite 606
Toronto, Ontario M5V 1R9
CANADAt: 1 416 646 2333
f: 1 416 646 1875
e: canadainfo@ashoka.org

Ashoka Chile
Gral Bustamante 26
Providencia, Región Metropolitana
CHILE
t: 56 2 220 00232
e: bdominguez@ashoka.org

Ashoka Egypt (MENA)
25 Masr Helwan Agricultural Road
ElZiney Tower (10th Floor)
Maadi, Cairo, 11451
EGYPT

Ashoka France
Station F, 55, boulevard Vincent Auriol
75013 Paris
FRANCE
t: 33 1 40 26 30 83
e: france@ashoka.org

Ashoka Germany
Prinzregentenplatz 10
Munich 81675
GERMANYt: 49 89 2175 49 754
e: ashokagermany@ashoka.org

Ashoka India, Bangladesh,and Sri Lanka54, 1st Cross, Domlur Layout
Bangalore 560071
INDIA
t: 91 80 4274 5777
e: india@ashoka.org

Ashoka Indonesia
Jl. Durma No. 17, Turrangga
Bandung, West Java, 40264
INDONESIA
t: 62 81 1222 7201
e: indonesia@ashoka.org

Ashoka Israel
POB 170
Ein Carmel 30860
ISRAEL
t: 972 52 6967722
e: israel@ashoka.org

Ashoka Italy
Via Soperga 36 C/O COSV
20127 Milano
ITALY
t: 003 934 788 35904
e: italy@ashoka.org

Ashoka Japan
1-11-2 Hiroo, Shibuya-Ku, Room 407
150-0012 TokyoJAPAN
t: 81 3 6459 3144
e: japan@ashoka.org

Ashoka Korea#507 Heyground22-8 Sungsoo 1-Ga.
Sungdong-Gu, Seoul
SOUTH KOREA
t: 82 2737 6977
e: korea@ashoka.org

Ashoka Mexico andCentral America
Av. Álvaro Obregón 168
Piso 2, Col. Roma Norte
Mexico City DIF 06700
MEXICOt: 52 55 5256 2820
e: ashokamexico@ashoka.org

Ashoka Middle East and North
Africa25 Masr Helwan Agricultural Road
ElZiney Tower (10th Floor)
Maadi, Cairo, 11451
EGYPT
t: 2 02 253 285 86
f: 2 02 236 544 04
e: venture-assist@ashoka-arab.org

Ashoka Netherlands
Lange Voorhout 32
Den Haag, 2514 EE
NETHERLANDS
t: 221 33 825 43 43
e: info@ashoka.nl

Ashoka Nordic
Fack 46, Norrsken House
Birger Jarlsgatan 57 c 113 56
Stockholm
SWEDENt: 0046 72 579 7376
e: scandinavia@ashoka.org

Ashoka Philippines
c/o co.lab
Unit 301, Three Brixton Building,#3 Brixton St., Barangay Kapitolyo
Pasig City, Metro Manila 1603
PHILIPPINES
t: 632 899 4587
e: philippines@ashoka.org

Ashoka Poland
Ul. Michała Paca 40
04-386 Warszawa
POLANDt: 43 1 38 40 100
e: info_pl@ashoka.org

Ashoka Romania

Ashoka Thailand

Strada Gina Patrichi 6
Bucureşti 010449, RomâniaGăzduiţi de RAF
ROMANIA
t: +40 799 827 088
e: romania@ashoka.org

101/8 Phahonyothin 32 Road
Senanikom, Chatuchak
Bangkok 10900
THAILANDt: 66 29 41 9294
e: thailand@ashoka.org

Ashoka Sahel (Senegal)

Ashoka Turkey

Cite Sipress II Villa 176
Dakar, Dakar Fann, BP 15090
SENEGALt: 221 33 827 37 19
e: ctoure@ashoka.org

Asmali Mescit Mah. Mesrutiyet Cad.
Gen. Yazgan Sk. No:14
Beyoglu—Istanbul
TURKEYt: 90 538 437 9498
e: turkiye@ashoka.org

Ashoka Singapore/Malaysia

Ashoka United Kingdom

112 Robinson Road #10-03
Singapore, 68902
SINGAPORE
t: 65 9154 890
e: singapore@ashoka.org

People’s Mission Hall
20-30 Whitechapel Road
London E1 1EW
UNITED KINGDOM
t: 44 20 8980 9416
e: infouk@ashoka.org

Ashoka Southern Africa
Office 15, The Business Exchange
195 Jan Smuts Avenue
Rosebank
2193 Johannesburg
SOUTH AFRICA
t: 27 011 447 1758
e: southernafricainfo@ashoka.org

Ashoka Spain/Portugal
Calle de Méndez Álvaro, 9 Bajos
28045 Madrid
SPAIN
t: 34 91 448 9962
e: coordinador@ashoka.org

Ashoka Venezuela/Andean
RegionAv Francisco de Miranda
Mene Grande Bldg, 5th Floor
Office 5-4 URb Los Palos Grandes
CaracasVENEZUELA
t: 58 212 421 9005
e: venezuela@ashoka.org

Ashoka Switzerland
Rue Rothschild 501202 Geneva
SWITZERLAND
t: 41 078 685 45 60
e: switzerland@ashoka.org

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Ensuring the Future: The Endowments
Ashoka’s endowments provide an enduring base of support for innovation across the globe. Their growth also
helps ensure Ashoka’s long‑term ability to serve a field that will be critically needed as long as society must adapt
and change. Ashoka’s endowments have had good results over the last 35 years. Managed with a five‑year perspective by three endowment trustees, the trustees invest with a long‑term perspective and are committed tomaintaining the real value of the funds before agreeing to disbursements. Given by both institutions and individuals, Ashoka endowments often create a permanent statement about or memorial to someone the donor especiallyloves or respects.

The Amaterasu Endowment
For the support of women Fellows working outside the Americas in the areas of women’s reproductive rights,
women’s empowerment, or sustainable community. Endowed by Katherine Victoria Randolph. Established in
December 1999.

The Henry Beal Endowment
In memory of Henry Beal, a founding friend of Ashoka and, before his death, one of its Endowment Trustees.
He was one of America’s most inspired and effective environmental managers and leaders. The endowment isfocused on environment issues and HIV/AIDS. Established in 1992.

The E. Noel Bergere Endowment
In memory of Noel Bergere who, though crippled by polio at three years old, became Master of the High Court.
He was also a leader of the disabled and a patron of education in Australia. Focused on supporting a Fellow who
is handicapped and/or whose work relates either to education or the law. Established in 1984.

The Joan Bergere Endowment
Joan Bergere came to America as a young musician and later helped other young musicians get their first career
opening at major New York City public concerts. She was a loving parent and a citizen of the world with broadinterests. Established in 1982.

The Benjamin and Anne Bloom Endowment
Ben Bloom was a successful lawyer and businessman who, as the son of immigrant parents, believed
strongly in creating opportunities for others to succeed as he had succeeded. This endowment has
been established to honor his desire to provide opportunities for those who are willing to work hard
but need a chance in life. Anne, his lifelong partner, passed away in 2019, and thoroughly agreed withhim about providing opportunities for others. She would be honored to add her name to this endowment. Established in 1996,
expanded in 2019. Unrestricted.

The Columbia Ashoka Fellowships I and II
The Columbia Foundation created two endowments to enable Ashoka to elect more women as Fellows. Established in 1986.

The C.M. Cresta Fund
Established in 1986. Unrestricted.

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The Padma Rag Datta Endowment
Dr. Padma Rag Datta dedicated his life’s work to using science to improve human welfare and preserve the environment. His father, Parasuram Datta, founded a wildlife sanctuary in Assam and was a strong believer in social
justice. The family wishes that their legacy be continued through this endowment so that Ashoka Fellows may findtheir own path to the simple and profound acts that make a difference. Established in 1996.

The Sarah Dunbar Endowment
Sarah Dunbar had an enduring concern for downtrodden people whose environment had been destroyed or
reduced by modern times, especially by war and industry. Contributing to maintaining a people‑friendly environment was another of her passions. Established in 2000.

Endowment Fund B
Established in 1999. Unrestricted.

The Michael Fein Honorary Endowment
This endowment is in memory of Michael Fein and his tremendous ability to touch so many lives. He was very
passionate about the social enterprises that Ashoka fulfills. Established in 2001.

The Maurice Fitzgerald Ashoka Fellowship
Maurice Fitzgerald taught in the Philippines after the Spanish American War. He loved teaching and the people of
the Philippines. Created for a teaching and education fellowship. Established in 1986.

The John and Eleanor Forrest Ashoka FellowshipJohn and Eleanor Forrest were the loving parents of long time Ashoka partner Jack Forrest. Established in 1986. Unrestricted.

The Fort Hill Endowment Fund
Established in 1993. Unrestricted.

The Fox Peace Endowment
The Fox Peace Endowment is inspired by the Peace Testimony articulated by George Fox in 1651
and by the commitment of Tom Fox, who was killed in Iraq in 2006, while serving as a witness forpeace. Its purpose is to identify and launch social entrepreneurs and their projects dedicated to thedevelopment of structure, conditions, and communities that nurture peace.

The Buckminster Fuller Ashoka Fellowship
For Fellows working to alleviate hunger in South Asia. Established in 1983.

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The General Endowment Fund for Ashoka
The General Endowment for Ashoka was established in 1998 from numerous individual contributions earmarked
for endowment purposes. Unrestricted.

The Sanjoy Ghose Endowment
This endowment is a tribute to the work and sacrifice that Ashoka Fellow Sanjoy Ghose made in building a cultureof volunteerism and a sense of citizen responsibility among the youth in India’s northeastern state of Assam. It isa legacy of the work he began to reorient the area’s youth away from violence and anarchy towards constructive
and active social involvement in the face of ethnic strife, insurgent movements, and state repression. Sanjoy was
abducted on July 4, 1997. The United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA) claimed responsibility for this event.
Unrestricted. Established in 1998.

William T. Golden Ashoka Endowment
Bill Golden helped launch Ashoka in 1980.
Bill Golden held lifelong enthusiasm for science and the arts. He studied business and used his skills to accomplish
useful work in diverse fields. He was himself an artist, repeatedly forging ingenious and effective ways to promote
education, research, and understanding.
If asked about his purpose, Bill would answer, with a twinkle in his eye, “to do interesting things.”
In common with Ashoka, Bill Golden brought opportunity to people with ideas for highly constructive ends. For over three
decades, Bill was a close partner and advisor and also an Endowment Trustee for Ashoka.

The James P. Grant Ashoka Endowment
Named for the late Executive Director of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and created by his friends,
colleagues, and family to “continue his life’s work and world vision.” The endowment’s purposes include supporting innovative leadership that contributes to social development among children and the disadvantaged, developing new methods and low‑cost technologies to further social development, and encouraging dialogue leading topolicies that improve the lives of children and all humankind. Established in 1998.

The John and Judy Harding Investment FundJohn was from the Midwest and Judy from New England. They met at a Yale-Brown football gamein 1948. They brought up seven children and were engaged Catholics. He brought his experiencein law, banking, and accounting with him when he moved to Omaha to become Warren Buffet’s
second hire. Buffet commented: “John Harding was my friend for more than 50 years. Everyone
he dealt with knew he had their best interests as his only consideration.” Like John, Judy lived a life
guided by values reflecting her deep New England roots. She was engaged with the elderly and the poor. She was a passionate
humanitarian and social justice advocate. John and Judy lived lives of love and respect in action quietly, modestly, deeply. Bothpassed in 2019, marking a very deep loss for the Ashoka community. They recognized the historic turning point now before theworld and Ashoka’s unique ability to help it through the transition quickly, safely, and wisely. Because Ashoka will therefore haveto innovate faster and more broadly than ever, they left a gift to Ashoka designed to continue their support for this innovation
during five or more years of intense innovation.

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The Jeroen Hehuwat Endowment
In memory of Jeroen Hehuwat, an easygoing young man, with many interests and many good friends. His greatest
passion was the natural world and he loved hiking, climbing, and whitewater rafting. In April 2015, he was on ahiking and climbing expedition to Yala Peak in Nepal when an earthquake struck, causing a landslide in the Langtang Valley where Jeroen and his team lost their lives. The endowment will support Ashoka Fellows and Youth
Venturers in Indonesia. Established in 2015.

The Albert O. Hirschman Fellowship
Given to honor Professor Hirschman’s long leadership in the field of practical, grassroots development. Established in 1986. Unrestricted.

The Jimmy Hopkins Fellowship
Jimmy Hopkins was a Judge in the New York State Supreme Court, Appellate Division. He was known as a verykind man who was a master of the law. Many of his decisions and interpretations are the basis for important legal
precedent. Created for a Fellow in the legal or judicial arena. Established in 1997.

The Harris and Eliza Kempner Fund
Ashoka Fellowship
For support of Fellows working in Mexico. Established in 1989.

The Abdul Waheed Khan Memorial Endowment
Abdul Waheed Khan, who was elected an Ashoka Fellow in Pakistan in 2003, was assassinated in 2013, following
death threats for his work. This Endowment celebrates his life and work. Abdul is remembered by his colleagues
for his gentle, empathetic, persistent and values-driven approach to finding peaceful solutions to problems. He
wanted all children to learn and be prepared to succeed in the modern world.
Because of his country’s inadequate investment in education, poor communities often create their own schools, typically madrassas. Responding to what parents and local communities wanted, Abdul brought new approaches to and modern subjects to learning, including mathematics, science, computers and English. Abdul leaves a legacy of great courage and determination; a spirit thatwas committed to change in spite of risk; and work that will have a lasting impact through the many thousands of children who
will be able to live far richer, more open lives because of Abdul. Established in 2013.

The Martin Klitzner Endowment
Marty Klitzner was an anomaly. He spent his life in the financial industry, most of it as president of Sunrise CapitalPartners, a successful hedge fund. Yet he and his family lived comfortably, not opulently. The family’s extra money
was for others—in the local community and world-wide. Marty was one of the most loved and respected men in
the American financial community. He was known for his integrity, ready smile and good humor.
In the mid-nineties when Marty learned about Ashoka he said, “This is my kind of an organization.” Until his deathin 2012, he was a fervent fan and contributor. He was delighted to have dinner with Bill Drayton and discuss their shared ideal of
helping others in the most effective way.
The greed and excesses of the financial industry are a shame on it and our society. Hopefully, the Ashoka Fellows supported inMarty’s name will help start the reversal of this culture. Established in 2012.

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Svayam Krishi Endowment“The soul of India lives in its villages.”-Mahatma Gandhi
India has 640,000 villages, which saw three revolutions since the 1970s: rice and wheat, milk and poultry. As
a result, India is number one in milk production and among the top five in poultry. Smart village revolution can be next in providing
holistic and integrated development.
Svayam Krishi Endowment was created to support social entrepreneurs and changemakers to build models for sustainable villages and self-reliance among villagers and to spread the models across villages in India. Sustainability means that villagers areable to meet their human potential and flourish within the village on a long-term basis rather than needing to migrate to cities
for sustenance. Self-reliance means that families and individuals within the village are able to meet their needs without external
assistance. The Endowment meets these objectives: (1) through the election and support of Ashoka Fellows whose work strongly
supports these objectives and who will bring significant pattern change across India, and/or (2) through enabling young people
in the villages to play important roles contributing to these same objectives, first (a) by helping them to dream their dream, build
their team, and change their world for the better, and second (b) by enabling them to be role models and to provide active andbroad-impact self-reliance leadership.
Dr. Ratnam Chitturi has taken this initiative with the hope that many others will join and contribute to this Endowment to bring asustained benefit to rural India. Established in 2018.

The W. Arthur Lewis Ashoka Fellowship
Given to honor Professor Lewis’s remarkably broad contributions to our understanding of development and of key
areas of the world. Established in 1986. Unrestricted.

The Mack Lipkin Sr. Memorial Endowment
In memory of Dr. Mack Lipkin, a much loved friend and doctor who was also a leader of the medical profession
and a founding friend to Ashoka. Dedicated to innovations in the effectiveness and humane quality of health care.
Established in 1991.

The Jan Schmidt Marmor Endowment
Jan Marmor was a wise counselor to her family, friends, and patients. She was a fine poet and artist. She was aclose friend to Ashoka from its launch. With commitment and love she built a family that believed that “no goodidea should go unexpressed—or unheard.” Established 2003.

The Francisco “Chico” Mendes Endowment
In memory of Chico Mendes, a friend and early Ashoka Fellow. Chico created an approach to grassroots organizing in the Amazon basin that Gandhi would have recognized but that was adapted to his own, very different, environment. Chico, like Gandhi, was killed pursuing peaceful change. The preferred uses of the funds are grassroots
work and environmental issues, though the endowment carries no restrictions. Established in 1988.

The Helen Meresman Fellowship
In memory of Helen Meresman, the personification of breaking boundaries with determination, grace, and charm.
The Helen Meresman Fellowship was established by Roger Barnett in 1997. Unrestricted.

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The Jawaharlal Nehru Endowment
As the first prime minister in India, Jawaharlal Nehru was far more than a great national leader: He helped build
a global community; he was a democrat; he was a historian; and he used his reflective power to hold himself to ahigh ethical standard. Unrestricted. Established in 2003.

The Nguyen-Phuong Family Endowment
Dedicated to supporting social entrepreneurs who operate in emerging markets; a permanent symbol of the family’s keen commitment to social services in the developing world. Established 2014.

The Jacob H. Oxman Memorial Fund
In memory of Dr. Jacob H. Oxman, a devoted husband and father, and a kind, caring, generous, and principled man.
This endowment is used to support an Ashoka Fellow. Any additional funds can be used either to support another
Fellow or to cover operating costs. Established in 1986. Unrestricted.

Diane Pierce Phillips Ashoka Fellowship Endowment
Diane Pierce Phillips led an exemplary life of spiritual integrity and servant leadership as a U.S. Peace Corps volunteer, wife and mother, registered nurse, hospice volunteer, minister of the United Church of Christ (Congregational), and spiritual director. Established in 2003. Unrestricted.

The Eiler Ravnholt Ashoka Endowment
In memory of Eiler Ravnholt, a friend and role model to the founder of Ashoka, a man of values and hard work.
He was a dedicated public servant and active citizen, generous with his time, voice and heart. He was a lover ofhistory and defender of our collective responsibility to assist those in need—his own life was shaped by the Great
Depression, World War II and the GI Bill. Eiler was a fervent and loyal supporter of the vision of Ashoka throughout its existence: He will be missed by the entire Ashoka community. Established in 2012 and devoted to social justice.

The Daniel Saks Ashoka Fellowship
In memory of Dan Saks who, had he lived longer, would have changed U.S. employment policies even more profoundly than he already had. Dan was also one of Ashoka’s earliest creators, beginning in 1963. This fellowship is
focused on creating work opportunities for the poor or otherwise disadvantaged. Established in 1986.

The Morton Sand Memorial Endowment
Mort Sand, long a highly successful business entrepreneur, turned his energy and creativity to solving society’s
ills over his last decades. He helped build Ashoka’s Entrepreneur‑to‑Entrepreneur program, created business
opportunities for Brazil’s street girls through three Fellows there, and was key to the launch of the Ashoka U.S.A./
Canada program. The Mort Sand Endowment will be used in the U.S.A./Canada. Although it is unrestricted, theEndowment will give priority to enabling disadvantaged young people through opportunities in business. Established in 2002.

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The Ibrahim Sobhan Endowment
In memory of Muhammed Ibrahim Sobhan, the first Ashoka Fellow in Bangladesh. He launched the innovative
Association for School Based Education (ASBE) to improve rural primary education for Bangladeshi children
attending government, non-government and community schools. Established in 2014.

The Richard H. Ullman Endowment
Dick Ullman cared deeply about others—from the wellbeing of the world (reflected in his scholarly and journalistic
work in the difficult field of international relations) to that of his students (who repeatedly rated him the best professor). As a young professor in the 1960s, he encouraged one of his undergraduate students in the early thinking
that eventually led to Ashoka. Over the ensuing decades he was always with Ashoka—sharing ideas, opening
doors, and serving on the North America Council.
Why was Ashoka such a close fit for Dick? One reason was that he believed in and helped develop young people of values. Thisbelief—plus, in the words of his students, his “combination of rigor and candor,” his “dry wit,” and his “genuine kindness”—changed
many lives and, as a result, many important foreign policy decisions. He intuitively knew why the Ashoka Fellows are so powerful,and he recognized the importance of supporting them.
These qualities also allowed him to change the country’s course more directly. In addition to teaching at Princeton University for
35 years, he headed the 1980s Project of the Council on Foreign Relations, helped lead Foreign Policy magazine, and served on
the Editorial Board of the New York Times. Established in 2014.

The Father Eugene Watrin Endowment
In memory of Father Watrin, a remarkable educational founder and builder for over 50 years in Nepal and Ashoka’svolunteer Representative there for our first 15 years. His special commitment to the Ashoka vision and to all in its
community, which he did so much to build, exemplifies why he had such a powerful impact on all around him. His
greatest legacy is the model of how to live life well through service that is both highly important and performed
with the modesty of true caring, love, and faith. For the support of Fellows working in Nepal. Established in 2004.

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Gifts with Special Impact
Please consider making a bequest to Ashoka and/or building an endowment. The impact of such planned giving is
profound. (Please keep in mind that Ashoka accepts no government funding.)

About Bequests

About Endowments

Making a bequest to Ashoka is a very powerful,
moving statement. It says that you believe deeplyin Ashoka’s work and that you have given this careful thought. When you specify such a gift in yourwill, you will also very directly and importantly bechanging lives. You will, for example, be helping
launch the next generation of leading social entrepreneurs—and their impacts will grow and multiply
over their lives after their launch.

An endowment will support Ashoka’s work in perpetuity. Ashoka’s Endowment Trustees will maintain the real value of the endowments before disbursing to Ashoka. Endowments that give Ashoka
freedom to use resources where they are mostneeded allow Ashoka itself to invent and also to
support Fellows with the most creative, unforeseen ideas. You may also direct that the income
provided by an endowment be used for specific purposes, for example, in a field such as theenvironment and/or a geographic region, such as
Africa. Endowments are often named in memoryof or to honor a person.

Bequests can be “restricted,” meaning the donor
specifies that the gift be used for a specific programor purpose. Unrestricted bequests allow Ashoka tofocus their use where and when the need is greatest. Given that Ashoka and the Ashoka Fellows areat the cutting edge of change for the good, having
freedom to innovate is especially valuable.

If you are interested in a bequest or endowment,
please contact Bill Drayton, CEO, at wdrayton@
ashoka.org.

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Opportunities
Ashoka is working hard to support, accelerate and magnify
the groundbreaking work of our ever-growing worldwide
fellowship. We are fostering collaborations, opening doors
to new partnerships, and building bridges across borders
and to new sectors.
Volunteer changemakers can be found at every step of
the way and during each phase of an Ashoka Fellow’s
trajectory. From as early as the nomination and selection
process, through different levels of organizational growth,and with operational support virtually and on the ground,volunteers are crucial to maximizing scale and impact. They
also lend their specific knowledge and skills to our global
and country offices around the world, helping Ashoka staff
and partners grow a variety of initiatives that underpin an“everyone a changemaker” world.
A partnership with LinkedIn has allowed us to reach a wide
global audience of professionals who want to contribute
their time and talents to help propel our work and thatof our Fellows. Through the Ashoka-LinkedIn Volunteer
Marketplace, we post current needs and provide a shortapplication that goes directly to the staff or Fellow
who posted on the Marketplace. In this way, we quickly
and efficiently facilitate direct and fruitful connections
between volunteers, Ashoka staff and Fellows. Almost
every Ashoka office has opportunities.
Needs vary widely and change regularly. Some requireassistance on-site and others can be met virtually. Recent
volunteer opportunities have included:
•
•
•
•
•
•

Developing business and strategic plans
Creating communication and marketing strategies
Building or improving websites and their contents
Editing books and videos
Filming documentaries of Fellows’ work
Helping young people and adults learn• Project managing initiatives withina variety of organizations• Conducting impact assessments• Documenting conditions and needs in rural areas• Researching markets and effective supply chainsfor rural areas• Providing office, HR and branding support in Canada• Managing crowdfunding campaigns• Writing grants and researching potential donor support• Writing journalistic reports for papers and newsletters• Translating documents and transcribing Fellow
interviews
There is no shortage of ways in which dedicated volunteers
can join Ashoka’s ecosystem of changemaking. In the words
of Peggy Carr, a volunteer since 1987 who has managed
Ashoka’s virtual communications network from our global
office:“Working with Ashoka’s Fellowship team has given me
the opportunity to help Fellows in a direct and personal
way. Whether researching a request for information or
helping Fellows network with each other, the goal is always
the same­—forging strong links throughout the Ashoka
community, of which I am happy to be a small part.”
As an Ashoka volunteer, you can tap into your ownchangemaking power by using your unique talents to
help scale the impact of Ashoka Fellows, Ashoka Young
Changemakers, and others within the Ashoka network.
For more information, please visit https://www.ashoka.
org/engage/contribute where you will find answers tofrequently asked questions and a checklist for thosevolunteers traveling abroad. We are also available for any
unanswered questions or unique ideas you may have forcontributing to our work or expanding our partnerships atvolunteers@ashoka.org.

Everyone a Changemaker“What makes Ashoka unique is its willingness to step in when the risks are
greatest. They seek to help individuals before they have succeeded—when
no one else is ready to help and when a little help makes an enormous
difference.”

Unicef: Action for Children“It’s nice to hear about somebody who wants to build a hospital in a slum,
but [Ashoka] seeks instead entrepreneurs pursuing a new approach toprevent illnesses. Those who live for a vision and refuse to give up no
matter what.”

Die Zeit“Taking on the toughest global challenges – from global pandemics tosustainable economic development - is in Rotary’s DNA. Continuing
our collaboration with Ashoka Fellows - among the very best social
entrepreneurs – is a great opportunity for our members to pursue
transformative projects and seek the greatest possible positive impact in
the future.”

Rotary International General Secretary John Hewko“It is not enough to have some social entrepreneurs in the world; because
Ashoka already supports 4,000 social entrepreneurs and there are still
problems in the world. How can [Ashoka] tackle this issue? By making surethat everyone is a changemaker. “Folha de Sao Pablo

Ashoka: Everyone a Changemaker1700 North Moore Street | Suite 2000 | Arlington, VA 22209 USA
Tel: (703) 527-8300 | Fax (703) 527-8383 | www.ashoka.org

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