EVERYONE A CHANGEMAKER
FELLOW BOOK SOUTH ASIA
Ashoka identifies and supports the world’s leading social entrepreneurs, learns from the patterns in their innovations and mobilizes a global community to embrace these new frameworks and build an “everyone a changemaker� world.
ASHOKA HAS IDENTIFIED THE NEW FRAMEWORK NEEDED FOR LIVING AND WORKING TOGETHER IN THIS RADICALLY DIFFERENT WORLD DRAWN FROM INSIGHTS WORKING WITH OUR GLOBAL NETWORK OF ASHOKA FELLOWS,
EVERYONE A CHANGEMAKER
THE WORLD’S LEADING SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS.
THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF THE FRAMEWORK
EMPATHY is crucial in a world where rules can’t keep pace with the speed and complexity of change. Empathybased ethics is fast becoming the cornerstone for our everyday dealings.
NEW LEADERSHIP requires that every player on the team be an initiator. Each person must see the big picture and advance solutions that contribute to positive social outcomes.
CHANGEMAKING
TEAMWORK
is the capacity to freely and effectively innovate for the good of all.
relies on everyone having the capacity to work in fluid, open team of teams to see and seize the everchanging opportunities in this new strategic landscape.
ASHOKA FELLOWS BATCH 2017 SOUTH ASIA
ASHOKA - EVERYONE A CHANGEMAKER Ashoka’s story of building the world’s largest network of leading social entrepreneurs is as much about the transformative change they’ve brought about in the course of three decades, as it is about the people who have led and participated in the change. In 1963, inspired by Mahatma Gandhi’s ideas of social change, a young Bill Drayton, still at Harvard, travelled to India. Here he met and joined Vinobha Bhave’s Land Gift Movement which brought about economic reform in India
“Social entrepreneurs are not content just to give a fish or teach how to fish. They will not rest until they have revolutionized the fishing industry.” Bill Drayton, Founder & CEO Ashoka
with its idea of land being gifted and redistributed among people. Drayton saw, first-hand, how Bhave persuaded villages and individuals to ‘gift’ their land that led to the redistribution of more than 70,00,000 acres in favour of untouchables and landless, some of the most marginalised communities in India. Observing the ability of one leader to turn a powerful idea into reality shaped a model of social change that Drayton would later call ‘social entrepreneurship’. Over the years, he developed on this idea and Ashoka was born in 1980, bringing Drayton’s idea to fruition. In hundreds of movements such as Bhave’s Land Gift movement, it is a leader who has exemplified the qualities of empathy, teamwork, leadership and changemaking that has led others to espouse the same and become changemakers in their own right. And today is no different. As we grapple with a world where our problems are fast outpacing solutions and the rate of change is accelerating beyond measure, people will guide the transformation to a better tomorrow. Ashoka continues to put its faith in the power of people to find solutions. In the following pages, you will meet some of these individuals who we are humbled to call Ashoka Fellows. Looking beyond quick fixes, these are individuals who are revolutionising problem-solving by involving communities to lead the change rather than be passive beneficiaries. It is this idea of everyone as a changemaker, that Ashoka believes in and promotes.
ASHOKA FELLOWS BATCH OF 2017 SOUTH ASIA
ANINDITA MAJUMDAR EQUIDIVERSITY
EQUI DIVER SITY FOUNDATION Promoting Equity in Diversity
P R O M OT I N G G E N D E R E Q UA L I T Y I N G OV E R N A N C E THROUGH POLITICAL, SOCIAL AND F I N A N C I A L E M P OW E R M E N T Anindita is challenging the inherent patriarchy in the governance system, particularly at the Panchayat level – to activate women’s participation in decision-making and make local governance truly representative of the interests of its voters. Her organisation, Equidiversity, focusses on West Bengal and works with a variety of stakeholders in the community like local self help groups (SHGs), political parties and voters – both men and women.
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
While the Constitution provides for 33% reservation for women at the Gram Panchayat level, the same doesn’t exist at the Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha level yet. Where women do occupy office, they are often reduced to proxies for their male counterparts or are ineffective because they remain unaware of their opportunities to effect change. Their leadership style is more accommodating of issues that concern the male members of the community rather than society as a whole such as child malnutrition, domestic violence etc. A survey conducted by the International Centre for Research on Women (along with UN Women) reported that 70% of the Gram Panchayat members of one district said that no women-related discussions were raised in most meetings.
On one hand, Anindita is creating a supply of strong women leaders who can enter the Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRI) and on the other, she is creating a demand for women leaders by showing political parties the benefit of investing in women leadership, and increasing their party’s chances of winning. Through her advocacy and mentorship programmes, she not only builds the capacity of women to lead, but also builds a large support base for these women leaders through activated self-help groups, male Panchayat members, members of political parties and the community at large.
THE PERSON
THE CHALLENGE
In order to spread this method of genderequitable governance, Anindita and her team advocate with the administrative officers (government employees) and political party leaders so that their model can be included within their operational plans for PRI elected representatives.
Growing up, Anindita tackled gender stereotypes, rebelling against them to finally conclude that she’d explore her self and strength as a woman. She initially worked as a caseworker and offered legal aid for inmates in correctional homes and later joined Ashoka Fellow Anuradha Kapoor’s organisation, Swayam. After 12 years of work, she felt that while legal aid fixed the symptoms, it didn’t solve the issues. She concluded that all the work around the gender space would mean little unless the core issue itself was addressed i.e. women’s stake in decision-making for society. That set her on the course towards creating a gender equitable society through making governance gender-inclusive and gender-sensitive.
In 15 Gram Panchayat offices that Aninidita has been working with, 52% of the total women elected representatives took initiatives to organise Gram Sansad Sabhas that don’t take place at all in the common scenario.
Activating women participants in the Panchayat system has resulted in 30% increase in budgets being utilised for development projects and double the usual funds being channelised towards addressing women’s issues.
To prepare the political machinery to receive these women leaders, Anindita works with male elected representatives and male opinion-leaders, having them accept and even actively seek out women leadership and representation.
BASIT JAMAL B R OT H E R H O O D O F H U M A N I T Y T R U ST
C R E AT I N G A P L AT F O R M F O R M U S L I M YO U T H T H R O U G H A N E W, I N C LU S I V E F R A M E WO R K O F INTERPRETING THE QURAN Basit Jamal is facilitating young Muslim youth to understand the concept of conflict resolution in a language they accept – religion. He is actively using the power of religion to be a solution rather than a roadblock to conflicts. He works with students from schools, colleges, madarsas and worshippers in mosques. He also promotes interfaith dialogue as a means to better understand each other.
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
As the largest minority in the country (14%), Indian Muslims have had a tumultuous relationship with the Indian mainstream. Often at the receiving end of blanket social and cultural prejudices, they find themselves discriminated against for political and economic opportunities, adding to a growing sense of alienation within the community. Without direct access to the holy text Quran, many Muslim youth, including budding Ulemas (Islamic teachers), are only exposed to a radical version of Islam. Thus, creating a generation of extremists who sympathise with terror attacks, denounce the Indian state and follow radical leaders who coax them into violence. To address this largescale radicalisation in the Muslim community, progressive Muslim voices have tried to stem the tide. However these lone voices are rejected and isolated by the so-called ‘authorities’ as unIslamic. Efforts by the government do not address the root of extremism within the community.
Basit is creating a network of empowered Muslim youth and clerics to challenge and change the current radical narrative around Islam. He is creating a platform for de-radicalisation focussed on Indian Muslim youth to mainstream an inclusive and peaceful understanding of the religion. Basit is gradually taking the power of interpretation of the Quran from extremist/radical handlers of the text, and encouraging common believers to access the Quran themselves. Through a series of talks and storytelling workshops, he has created a space for such conversations within conservative Muslim circles and is demonstrating how reflection and critical thinking is integral to understanding Islam. Basit crafts his message to appeal to all factions of Islam who uphold the Quran as the ultimate truth.
THE PERSON
THE CHALLENGE
Basit primarily works with three target groups: students and young people, budding scholars and clerics, and a trained core group of religious changemakers. He collaborates with madrassas, Islamic schools and Islamic thought centres for his work.
With a father whose belief system shifted from Communism to Sufism, Islam came into Basit’s life when he started exploring the connection between science and religion. Introduced to an unquestioning version of Islam, Jamal relied heavily on the interpretations of extremist clerics and Muslim leaders to explain Islam. Due to his natural inclination for research and reflection, he began questioning the extremist point of view, realising how the same religious text could have multiple interpretations. He wanted to bring his learnings to Muslim communities and present an alternative, more accepting view of Islam to the youth. He took-off on a journey of self-exploration and discovery that helped him find and share Islam through the Quran, as a faith of peace and inclusion.
Basit has selected a dozen young leaders to train them in his counternarrative of Islam called God’s Cause. Basit is leveraging their inherent public speaking skills and popularity in their communities to unlock their potential as new-age Muslim leaders.
Basit collaborates with non-religious, secular NGOs to tap into their youth base, and introduces sessions on the Quran alongside other skill-building and personality-development courses offered by the NGO.
He plans to create a nonsectarian, Muslim institute of thought leadership through which he can more formally connect with Muslim youth, clerics and leaders.
PROF. BEENA CHINTALAPURI U N N AT I REASON
RESET
REFORM
REMAIN RESPONSIBLE
RETURN NOT TO PRISON
REDUCING RECIDIVISM IN INDIAN PRISONS W I T H CO G N I T I V E P SYC H O LO GY
Beena is redefining the roles of these prisoners to become a team of experts that bring principles of cognitive psychology into the prison sector.
Beena setup Unnati to capacitate the Indian prison system to sustainably reduce recidivism and crime rates by involving prisoners and other members of the system. Having institutionalised Unnati in all major prisons (over 11) of one state, Telangana, she has brought down their recidivism rates from 80% to 1% and is now receiving formal invitations to institutionalise her intervention from prison departments of other states.
THE CHALLENGE
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
There are over 1400 prisons in all of India with close to 5 lakh prisoners. Recidivism rates in Indian prisons have been increasing with the rates for some individual states last seen at over 74% of the prison population. These prisoners have been consistently facing inhumane conditions at the hands of an overpopulated prison system, averaging over 1100 recorded complaints from the National Human Rights Commission and States Human Rights Commission, in a single year. Over 70% of the prison population comes from other backward caste (OBC) and scheduled caste and scheduled tribe (SC/ST) sects and over 75% are educated below the 10th grade or are completely illiterate. The prison system has arguably been able to (in few cases) look beyond the stigma associated with being a criminal and has recognised that societal conditions and external triggers are largely the cause for crime. However, it has only attempted to manipulate large external situations like impoverished life conditions, for example, by providing financial support.
Beena analyses crime from her expert lens of cognitive psychology, defining the committing of crime as a mere erroneous response to external triggers or stimuli. This is different from the common narrative of seeing crime as an act associated with an individual’s morality or persona. She understands that errors can be eliminated from the response if the respondent has the tools to check and control his/her responses to errors. Forming the basis of her work, this analysis distinguishes it from the historically attempted reformative or rehabilitative interventions trying to change or heal prisoners and criminals.
THE PERSON
Beena has developed Unnati in a way that fits within the legal framework under the State Prison Department by aligning her goal with theirs and making the Director General of Prisons an ally. This also enables the department to fund Unnati.
She analysed the error and behaviour patterns of a team working on Satellite and GPS systems at the Indian Space research Organisation (ISRO) and capacitated the team with the practices she developed for them. This led to plummeting of error rates saving them crores of rupees.
Upon developing a set of practices that prisoners can adopt to be able check and control their responses, Beena is using the prison system’s custodial setup to institutionalise the teaching of these practices. She identifies, through extensive psychological profiling, prisoners that fit her criteria of having the prowess to spearhead Unnati in each jail and has them undergo training to teach other prisoners these practices.
Beena is a pioneer and expert in the fields of cognitive psychology, personality types studied in the historical and cultural Indian context and applied behavior modification. She has taken these principles to multiple public and private sector fields that are unassociated or only marginally associated with psychology. Her work has a three-pronged approach. First, she sets up a demonstration team and capacitates them to display exemplary results. Second, she builds networks across universities and sectors. The third and currently the most relevant prong is her key to scaling Unnati. She is connecting her Unnati faculty from one state’s prison sector, to strategic networks across the spectrum of other relevant fields.
DR. DEBORAH McCAULEY V E T E R I N A RY I N I T I AT I V E F O R E N DA N G E R E D W I L D L I F E
A D D R E SS I N G A B L I N DS P OT I N CO N S E RVAT I O N T H R O U G H A H E A LT H C A R E SYST E M F O R E N DA N G E R E D S P E C I E S I N T H E H I M A L AYAS Apart from poaching and habitat encroachment, fragile endangered populations are also threatened to extinction because of diseases and toxins that go unchecked. Deborah founded the Veterinary Initiative for Endangered Wildlife (VIEW), in Nepal, the first and only conservation organisation that is solely focussed on the urgent need to address health threats as a comprehensive strategy for protecting endangered wildlife.
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
On a global scale, diseases have a strong impact on our critically endangered wildlife. It is fuelled by habitat encroachment by humans and exacerbated by climate change. Nepal being close to the foothills of the Himalayas is even more susceptible. While knowing that 60% of all human diseases are shared with animals, we have no real knowledge of the degree that wildlife has an effect on human health beyond the notion that some, like ebola, polio, influenza and tuberculosis etc. were all were contracted from animals. Apart from a threat to human beings, these diseases are critical to animal populations too with many instances, worldwide, of diseases wiping off substantial populations of endangered wildlife. If we do not address the health issues that animals face, we will end up with largely empty corridors despite substantial funds and efforts spent on current conservation systems.
It is the mission of VIEW and Deborah to be unilaterally focussed on addressing the urgent health threats to endangered wildlife populations by providing infrastructure for wildlife policies and conducting research with conservation partners in Nepal, one of the worldns too with many instanc. VIEW and its partners have trained 175 local wildlife professionals on wildlife capture, immobilisation and health through lectures and hands-on training. A further 600 nature guides and park rangers were recently trained as well. This training gives skills to veterinarians, students, wildlife technicians, park rangers, and more; it also helps the participants understand the importance of wildlife health in conservation. The training complements the infrastructure, which in turn enables the research and action with the purpose of giving the local partners skills and tools necessary to successfully manage the health of their own wildlife. VIEW has built a Wildlife Health hub in Chitwan National park.
THE PERSON
THE CHALLENGE
Deborah grew up sheltering animals with her mother who was her inspiration. She studied philosophy in college where she engaged with social causes and later pursued veterinarian studies at the prestigious Royal Veterinary College in London, becoming a renowned wildlife veterinarian. After a tiger capture in 2010, Deborah spoke to many local professionals who told her about tigers that had died of misunderstood ailments. Discussing this with Whitney Tilt, former Director of Fish Wildlife Services and founder of Save the Tigers Fund, she realised that she had identified a key gap in conservation and found the ultimate solution. From then on, she knew she had to quit her old post in Montana, and set off to Chitwan.
Deborah trained a rural veterinarian student, Dr Amir Sadaula in 2012 to develop a local wildlife health programme. Implementing the ‘Train the trainer’ model, today, Amir has worked with 25 wildlife professionals across Nepal. He will soon begin upskilling veterinarians dispatched across the country’s protected areas.
The NTNC (National Trust for Nature Conservation), the premier wildlife conservation NGO in Nepal, and VIEW, are in the final stages of developing a comprehensive wildlife health database system that will provide critical information for veterinarians and policy makers on the risks of disease to their endangered species.
In 2014, a VIEW study showed that 27% of dogs sampled in villages in the buffer zone of Chitwan National Park (NP) had been exposed to the Canine Distemper virus (CDV), a potential threat to wild tigers and other carnivores. Prior to this research, it was thought that canine distemper did not exist in Nepal.
GANGADHAR PATIL 101 REPORTERS
CO N N E C T I N G G R ASS R O OT J O U R N A L I STS TO M A I N ST R E A M M E D I A Gangadhar’s organisation, 101 Reporters, is triggering a network effect in media, by building a technology platform that connects rural reporters to national and international news publishers. By upskilling and providing a nurturing ecosystem to freelance grassroots reporters, he is promoting a section of journalists that has so far been ignored. This fosters independent reporting and advocates the coverage of issues from small towns and rural India.
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
Indian national media – online and offline – continues to be plagued by two key challenges. First, it has consistently failed to cover stories from smaller towns or rural areas, as most believe that their readership is not interested in them. A study published in the Economic and Political Weekly (September 2011) states that only 2% of the national coverage is of rural issues. This has led to a concentration of resources and networks within and between cities alone. Second, a reliance on advertising revenues and large investments has compromised the independence of media and issues they choose to cover. As a result of all these factors, most grassroots journalists and reporters are unable to effectively contribute due to the lack of a supportive and nurturing eco-system.
Gangadhar founded 101 Reporters which is the first of its kind platform that connects reporters from small towns and rural India directly to national and international publishers. On the supply side, he has built a dense network of grassroots/freelance reporters who share stories ignored by mainstream media. He harnesses their specialised skills as journalists who pursue stories with decentralised presence and provides opportunities through capacity building and training to work with investigative tools like the Right to Information Act (RTI). On the demand side, he has built partnerships with leading national and international publishers.
THE PERSON
THE CHALLENGE
Reporters get to pursue stories that are not restrained by corporate or ideological interests. Simultaneously, publishers get credible stories at lower costs without having to invest in their own network of reporters. To encourage reporters to pursue stories without the fear, 101 Reporters underwrites the cost of all stories. This has led to considerable income enhancement for the reporters and an environment conducive to sustaining their careers.
Growing up in small towns across India with an interest in social justice, Gangadhar wanted to work in the government or the armed forces. However, an encounter with an RTI activist made him realise an individual’s power to bring about change. He started to use the RTI for various citizen-led drives. He also stood for local elections, but could not win due to a lack of funds. His quest took him to journalism with a stint in a local news channel. He studied journalism and worked with large media houses like the Indian Express and DNA. The exposure also acquainted him with independent journalism and the challenges of reporting from small towns and villages. Feeling the need to address these issues for the community of freelance grassroots journalists, he developed the idea of 101 Reporters, launching it in 2015.
Gangadhar has a database of over 40,000 grassroot reporters (built through an application under the RTI) and has started working closely with 500 reporters across several small towns and villages.
To ensure credibility of the stories, 101 Reporters only accepts stories with a byline. Gangadhar and his team also continuously sensitise the reporters on the responsibility of reporting.
101 Reporters has already partnered with progressive national and international digital media companies such as Scroll, IndiaSpend, Qz, Newslaundry, Arre. co.in, India Together, and Nikkei (business stories) among others that are seeking stories from rural areas in India.
GAURANG RAVAL SAU H A R D
T R A N S F O R M I N G YO U T H TO B E CO M E AC T I V E C I T I Z E N S A N D PA R T I C I PA N TS I N D E M O C R AT I C P R O C E SS E S Gaurang is building a national movement through his organisation, Sauhard (Empathy), led by youth, to transform young people into active citizens and build a nation they want to live in, where they can achieve their aspirations. Through spaces to discuss their roles and responsibilities in a democracy and in India’s development, Gaurang is getting the youth involved in solving social and political issues.
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
In India’s last national elections in 2014, there was an over 60% voter turnout, the highest ever. However, only 2.7% of the voters were 18-20 year olds. The same year, India also elected its oldest Parliament, with only 12 out of 552 members below the age of 30 years. This shows that there is very limited youth participation in India’s democratic processes. Youth feel disenfranchised from the socio-political space because of the lack of opportunities in school or at home for them to be critical thinkers, with independent thoughts and opinions. This problem will only aggravate, since by 2020, India will have the world’s largest youth population, with 1 million Indians turning 18 every month.
Gaurang runs a fellowship for college students where he takes them through a transformative journey of, first, self-discovery of their own beliefs and aspirations, then contributing to solving social problems to create a society that will enable them to achieve their aspirations, and finally participating in political democratic processes to build the India they aspire to live in. The fellowship ends with the fellows doing an action project, working with a partner from a very different background than theirs. With this, Gaurang has led many large-scale campaigns to facilitate political awareness, create conversations and promote critical thinking on various democratic processes. Gaurang partnered with the Election Commission in Gujarat for a campaign to increase voter registration and turnout among youth. Along with the Election Commission and local municipal officers, Gaurang is creating a smooth and easy voter registration process to make it easy for first time voters to get registered. Gaurang has partnered with India’s national network of youth organisations to scale his processes in Gujarat in every state to activate citizenship among the youth.
THE PERSON
THE CHALLENGE
Hailing from a family of freedom fighters, Gaurang grew up with strong values for social change. Experiences in his neighbourhood conditioned him to see Muslims as ‘others’. In 2002, he witnessed the carnage against Muslims during widespread riots in Gujarat. Joining relief efforts, he began questioning his own stereotypes about Muslims, Dalits and those unlike him. He worked with multiple organisations where he realised that a generation of youth in Gujarat has been actively affected by the conflict. He felt that he needed to use this experience to get them to explore their beliefs, transform them and activate them as citizens. And thus, he started Sauhard in 2011 to grow his work with young people, and build their questioning and critical thinking skills.
As a part of the “Unmanifesto” campaign in 2014, 40 fellows from Sauhard conducted youth parliaments, consultations and focus groups with 17,500 young people from all over India regarding public policies.
In 2017, Gaurang partnered with the Election Commission in Gujarat on the ‘Mere Mat Se Mera Mat’ campaign (My Vote According to My Opinion), which got 6.5 million first time voters to register in Gujarat.
Sauhard, through its fellowship, has taken more than 1000 young people through transformation journeys creating an active network across the country.
JITHIN NEDUMALA MAKE A DIFFERENCE
MAD has the strongest, most committed and long-term volunteers in the country which has been certified by Great Place to Work, with MAD as the only non-profit in its list of awardee organisations.
T R A N S F O R M I N G O U TCO M E S F O R C H I L D R E N I N S H E LT E R S
Jithin mobilises over 4,000 volunteers every year, that contribute 5,50,000 volunteers hours, working on various aspects of the process and support for his organisation, MAD.
Through Make a Difference (MAD), his organisation, Jithin is mobilising a movement led by youth who volunteer in shelter homes and enable the children there to become emotionally healthy by overcoming their sense of abandonment. These young leaders support the children in their education, building transition readiness in them and providing them crisis support and mentoring even after they have left the shelter home.
THE CHALLENGE
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
Out of 440 million children in India, 176 million are in urgent need of care. Shelter homes for abandoned children are extremely poor on resources, with a staff to child ratio of 1:60. Education facilities are limited and biased; as a result less than 8% children graduate high school. As they turn 18, they leave these homes and end up in unskilled jobs with subsistence incomes, unable to escape the circle of poverty. Regular intervention programmes address issues like skilling but not whether these children are real-world ready. The World Bank’s 2015 report, Addressing Inequality in South Asia, claims that the chances of escaping poverty in India have reduced by 20% in the last 10 years, because as the economy grows it’s only low paying, non-secure unskilled jobs that are increasing, which maintains intergenerational poverty.
Jithin focusses on building the self-esteem of children in shelter homes, making them feel valued so that they can overcome their feelings of abandonment and thus be better equipped to face the world. MAD provides 2-4 intensively trained volunteer caregivers, teachers and mentors for groups of 4-6 children who spend at least 4 hours a week each with children where they build a bond with the child, create a safe space and provide academic and developmental support. They also take them for exposure activities to acquaint them with the world outside. Psychiatrists and experts in child psychology design MAD’s modules, yet giving volunteers, who deliver them to children, the freedom to design their own activities under these modules. MAD continues to support those who have left shelter homes to build emotional resilience through an ‘After-Care’ programme. Jithin is also building a coalition of child support organisations, shifting their impact measurement from just measuring how many children are passing through the system with basic subsistence skills, to measuring the number of children who escape the cycle of poverty.
THE PERSON
Of the 4000 children supported by MAD across 63 shelters in 23 cities, 90% successfully finish high school and pursue higher education as compared to around 8% otherwise.
Growing up, Jithin struggled struggled to fit in with affluent peers. He started an event management company while still in school. Not interested in academics, he sought stimulation in travel, until he lost one of his close friends in an accident on a trip he had organised. As he underwent a rough investigation, he grappled with his identity and purpose. At the age of 19, he walked into an orphanage to spend time with the children and was affected by their stories of abandonment by their parents. At 21, he started Make a Difference (MAD) in 2006, mobilising his friends and then a large volunteer community. Jithin continues to explore what would really cause these children to transition and escape the cycle of poverty.
NEELKANTH MISHRA
C E N T E R F O R AQ UAT I C L I V E L I H O O D - JA L J E E V I KA His work was successful in extending Madhya Pradesh’s leasing policy from 1 to 7 years, allowing farmers to access credit more easily, and invest in longer term and higher yield initiatives.
He is partnering with existing large agriculture organisations like Pradan, Revitalising Rainfed Agriculture (RRA) network, the Tata Trust; research institutes like the ICAR; and government agriculture departments like Maharashtra State Rural Livelihood Mission, to build the fisheries vertical within these organisations.
E M P OW E R I N G M A R G I N A L FA R M E R S T H R O U G H I N L A N D F I S H E R I E S A N D AQ UAT I C R E S O U R C E S Neelkanth is linking fragmented components, farmer groups, government schemes, fisheries research institutes and the market to unleash the full potential of the fish and water plant farming industry through Jaljeevika, his organisation. He believes shared resources will enable farmer groups to become economic forces that will spur growth in their communities.
THE CHALLENGE
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
74% of the 273 million farmers in India are small or landless farmers, whose only recourse for livelihood is as agricultural labourers, making them vulnerable to exploitation by landowners. Inland fisheries present a huge opportunity for such farmers. However, because of the fragmented nature of the industry, it produces 10 folds below its measured potential. The sector faces issues like limited access to water resources, no standard code of conduct or leasing policy for such lands, restricted accessibility to markets and dependence on middlemen. Plus, the lack of expertise in fish farming and absence of farmer collectives further magnifies the problem. Though government schemes and programmes have mandated agriculture research institutes like the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) to extend input resources, knowledge and training to these fishermen communities; they are not linked to these communities, leaving critical resources underutilised.
By helping farmer groups and cooperatives see the economic opportunity in harnessing water bodies, Neelkanth places shared resources owned by collectives at the centre of his model. He begins by acquainting the farmer groups with their rights to the local water resources and how to access them following government requirements, and hiring a local resource person who maintains the records. He links them to existing government schemes that provide funds, seeds and fishing nets. He is using existing agriculture and fisheries institutes for training on best practices and creating linkages to markets for sale and value-addition. In this process, Neelkanth empowers farmer groups to advocate for further support and regulation from the government in the fisheries sector.
THE PERSON
Neelkanth’s direct interventions have affected the lives of over 12,000 men and women farmers in MP, Orissa, Jharkhand, Bihar, Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh, organised as Self-Help Groups and farmers cooperatives.
At the state and national level, Neelkanth is integrating inland fisheries into existing fisheries CSOs, funding agencies, and government ministries and extension agencies to support the growth of the sector. Neelkanth has successfully integrated inland fisheries in livelihood programmes of 6 states and is currently scaling his model in Andhra Pradesh with the Tata Trust.
Neelkanth was born and raised in the industrial town of Jamshedpur, Jharkhand. After a short stint in journalism, he worked for the Right to Food movement in 2001 and witnessed, first-hand, tribal farmers failing to access their rights due to a lack of awareness. In 2006, he led Oxfam’s livelihood programme in Madhya Pradesh for four years, where he saw farmers being exploited by local contractors and middlemen. Advocating for rights of fishing communities over shared resources, he built local knowledge networks and linked farmers to research institutes. In four years, his impact had reached 4,000 fishermen. Finally, in 2013, he founded Jaljeevika, shifting strategy and building capacity at the ecosystem level and using market forces for the development of these communities.
DR. MANOJ KUMAR M E N TA L H E A LT H AC T I O N T R U ST
C R E AT I N G I N N OVAT I O N S I N M E N TA L H E A LT H SYST E M S TO I N C R E AS E ACC E SS I B I L I T Y Dr Manoj Kumar has created a free, comprehensive, community-based, volunteer-led and cost-effective mental healthcare system, in Kerala, to cater to the most economically backward groups of society through Mental Health Action Trust (MHAT). By leveraging existing institutions and other independent civil society organisations, he is tying other medical care with mental health treatment, thus negating stigma towards treatment and building sustainable systems for recovery and rehabilitation.
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
In spite of the National Mental Health Policy since 2014 and the District Mental Health Care Programme (DMHP) operating since 1996, the on ground reality in terms of access, quality and affordability of mental health services in India has been dismal. The logistical and geographical barriers create a staggering treatment gap that exists with patients having to travel long distances to access psychiatric treatment. Most patients are treated in overcrowded outpatient settings, bereft of privacy and quality care – with access to rehabilitation and recovery being alien to most. For the most economically backward citizens in India, the only viable options for treatment come from the private sector – further burdening the already impoverished families through highly expensive treatment options.
With a focus on optimising resources in mental healthcare delivery and being cost-effective, Manoj at MHAT is using unique interventions such as task sharing and innovative technologies through tele-psychiatry to create a decentralised and community-driven system of care to the poorest of people across India. Through his model, he is able to shift all rehabilitation and recovery roles to trained non-professional medical health workers and community-based volunteers who belong to diverse sections of the society. For this, he has partnered with community palliative care and primary health care centres and other civil society organisations that are widely spread across the state of Kerala. MHAT sets standards and protocols to follow with the communities themselves creating an action plan, thus also reducing the stigma associated with the illnesses and treatment, and increasing opportunities for reintegration and employment. Through this, he has also reduced cost by up to 70% per patient per year.
THE PERSON
THE CHALLENGE
Manoj grew up with values of justice and empathy with his father in the judiciary. At medical school, he questioned the corrupt, broken systems where commercial considerations were often given importance over ethics – especially in psychiatry. He firmly believed that the traditional ways of treating the mentally ill needed to be changed and he enrolled at the Christian Medical College, Vellore. Manoj realised that mental health treatment was costly, inefficient, inhumane and inaccessible – especially for the economically poor. When his mother passed away from cancer, he realised that she was not taken care of psychosocially even though she received the best possible medical care. These experiences and an uncompromising belief in social justice, led Manoj towards building MHAT.
Over 55 such groups exist across 5 different districts in Kerela with more than 3500 patients under their ambit. The dropout rate through the process in most centres is below 5% – far better than traditional alternatives.
Task sharing, an innovative way of looking at mental health treatment has been created by MHAT. Limited resourced settings are transformed into optimised and efficient systems of care where mental health professionals take on additional roles of trainers and advocates to promote community-based care.
Manoj has extensively documented the process it takes to start a community centre and for this method of intervention to be replicated. Various centres across Kerala and Delhi have used the model and many significant organisations such as NIMHANS have expressed interest. MHAT has also started an independent training course and centre with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences to upskill volunteers.
MONISH ANAND DATAS I G N S T E C H N O LO G I E S
R E F O R M I N G T H E C R E D I T SYST E M I N T R A D I T I O N A L B A N K I N G F O R T H E U N D E R S E RV E D Monish has built a new system, Shubh Loans, to capture the creditworthiness of individuals from underserved and unserved markets and is using this system to rebuild the trust deficit that exists between these alienated citizens and the banking sector.
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
India is currently one of the largest markets for consumer finance across the world, with a value over $1.2 trillion. Even with such incredible growth, over 70% of the population remains underbanked and completely disconnected from the financial system, despite a willingness and capability to take on a loan. The current measure of one’s creditworthiness is through traditional and archaic ways of scoring financial data that permanently discounts those without any financial identity. This lack of acceptance, identity and opportunity often means that many individuals have to take alternative, high risk and exploitative routes to get access to credit, such as through loan sharks or unregulated lending institutions.
Monish and his company, Datasigns Technologies, has built a new credit rating system which leverages India’s new Social Security Identification Number, Aadhar – which stores data such as bank statements, criminal records and utilities bill payment history – as well as the smartphone revolution to show that non-traditional data points such as social media posts, subscriptions, travel patterns and SMS history, are a much better indicator of a person’s ability to pay back a loan. By underwriting loans, opening up positive margin for banks and taking a proportion of their risk, Monish is incentivising banks to now lend to this excluded group. Monish is also building and reinforcing positive financial behaviour of customers through the Shubh Loans Mobile application by hand holding them from a negative to positive credit score. He is using gamification and incentive driven tools to help customers understand and shift their behavior; for example, reminding them not to withdraw large sums of cash from their accounts after getting a salary, which is seen as negative behaviour.
THE PERSON
THE CHALLENGE
Monish comes from a small family on the outskirts of Uttarakhand where he always aspired to work for a big corporate at a young age. Soon after school, he started work as a customer sales assistant, moving on to a clerical role with the Bank of America in Bangalore, where he got his first insight into the consumer-lending sector. Having spent 15 years in the sector, he saw that banks were not looking for ways to approve loans but how they could disapprove them, even though consumers were willing and capable of getting access to formal credit. He started his own BPO venture and underwent the frustrations of being on other side of credit, with limited access and stringent processes to follow. Monish founded Datasigns Technologies in 2016 through which he is able to use technology to serve citizens traditionally deemed credit-unworthy.
Seven of the largest private banks in India (e.g. Tata Capital, IDFC Bank) have liaised with Monish and offer lines of credit to this underserved market with an excess of $2 million already being loaned out to over 20,000 customers. The default rate on loans currently stands at 0 and the bounce rate is 8-9% lower than most commercial banks.
Monish’s alternate credit score is between 0-100, a range which is much better understood than the complicated Credit Information Bureau (India) Limited (CIBIL) parameters of 0-900.
Accessing information with user consent through Aadhaar and the smartphone, Shubh Loans is, over time, able to use data science to show correlations between various data points and a person’s ability to pay back a loan.
SACHIN JAIN V I KAS SA M VA D SA M I T I
I N F LU E N C I N G S O C I A L A N D P O L I C Y C H A N G E T H R O U G H I N - D E P T H M E D I A R E P O R TAG E Sachin is creating a cadre of informed and empathetic changemaker journalists and re-purposing their role as critical agents who can influence large-scale social change. His organisation, Vikas Samvad Samiti (VSS), acts as a facilitator by creating trust-based partnerships between journalists and on-ground civil society organisations (CSOs) and powering an advocacy platform that has the potential for long-term change.
VSS facilitates the publishing of 700 stories every year in the mainstream media and has helped publish more than 8,000 stories cumulatively till 2017.
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
Large-scale social problems prevalent in rural areas occupy a miniscule share in mainstream media coverage. Even within this, stories are covered from a uni-dimensional reporting perspective instead of investigating the systemic gaps that led to the development of the problem. Given the media’s lack of interest, bandwidth crunch and pressure to publish faster, journalists have very few resources and even lesser time for writing in-depth reports on complex social problems that can create awareness and empathy in the reading public, decision-makers and the media itself, towards those affected. Mutual distrust between the citizen sector organisations and the mainstream media, who each think the other is corrupt, prevents awareness creation, policy change, legal amendments, and slows down the process of change.
VSS is building a deeper understanding of social issues in CSOs via trainings and knowledge material, as also building their capacity to raise these issues with the media via workshops on how to collect evidence, do media-friendly reporting, arrange press conferences etc. It is building a holistic perspective on social issues in journalists through fellowships, by initiating dialogues at media conclaves and forums, facilitating field-visits between journalists and CSOs, as well as supporting them to make their stories comprehensive by providing mediafriendly credible and updated information on policy analysis, infrastructure analysis, grassrootslevel data, etc. via their resource centre. VSS’s focus areas have been food security, child health and malnutrition, displacement and migration, agriculture and climate change.
THE PERSON
VSS has developed a network of 340 active journatists, to date, spread across leading national, state and district-level mainstream media in 10 states of the country. It has worked with more than 136 grassroots CSOs and network organisations spread across 6 states.
VSS along with CSOs put a strong emphasis on the issue of malnutrition in Madhya Pradesh from 2004-2008, which led to the government taking notice and the decrease of malnutrition in the state by 18% by 2015. His network also brought out the issue of unjust loans on farmers, resulting in a waiver of unpaid development loans of 1900 tribal through a sustained rights campaign.
THE CHALLENGE
Curious, yet not interested in academics, Sachin grew up reading books extensively, inspired by authors who questioned existing norms. Going on to study journalism, he lived in a naxal-affected area in Madhya Pradesh and saw how the local problems were going unaddressed due to corruption and fear mongering. He resolved to bring this to media attention and worked with mainstream dailies. However, these issues weren’t being given due coverage. He developed a programme to train rural journalists in reporting on social issues. Despite conducting 16 training programmes for 490 journalists, rural issues were still not being covered. Undeterred, he consulted with many senior journalists and in 2004 launched VSS with a better approach.
SARBANI DAS ROY I SWA R SA N KA L PA
T R A N S F O R M I N G M E N TA L H E A LT H C A R E F O R T H E H O M E L E SS Sarbani’s organisation, named Iswar Sankalpa meaning God’s Resolution, is filling the lacuna of mental health professionals in India by discovering, training and sensitising everyday citizens from various walks of life to become active caregivers to the homeless with mental illness.
THE CHALLENGE
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
At least 60 million Indians suffer from mental disorders but only 10% have access to treatment, which is limited mostly to institutionalisation. The dysfunctional and homeless mentally ill fare the worst in terms of resources and access to treatment. Throwing light on this vast gap in current infrastructure, a WHO backed study by the National Commission on Macroeconomics and Health (NCMH) concluded that India needs 66,200 more psychiatrists and 269,750 nurses. The situation is further aggravated as institutionalisation is stigmatised by society and perpetuated through laws that dehumanise the mentally ill.
Recognising there are many empathetic Good Samaritans amongst us, Sarbani and Iswar Sankalpa are creating a citizen-led community of caregivers to fill the gap where professionals aren’t available for the mental health needs of the homeless through training and sensitisation by professionals. From the local tea-stall owner and the police constable, to influencers in low-income communities, like the municipal officers, teachers, small business owners, she has converted them to allies, who bring people with mental illness to the Primary Health Centres (PHCs). Sarbani has trained municipal medical officers and the nurses at the PHCs to do preliminary mental health diagnosis. This is followed by psychiatrists visiting regularly to guide treatment.
THE PERSON
She also connects them to shelters, employment agencies and other services, so the caregiver can use existing infrastructure to reintegrate the person with mental illness back into society.
Having lost her mother to cancer early on in life, Sarbani grew up deeply aware of the feelings of loss and abandonment that can affect a person. Drawn to the human mind, she studied the unique combination of Business and Psychology and in 1999, started her own practice. But a crucial moment came in 2006, when she noticed a homeless man living inside a garbage vat across a reputed facility for the homeless. Pained to see his condition, she approached the facility, which cited his disturbed mental health as a reason they couldn’t take him in; they were ill-equipped in handling his psychological condition. In 2007, she co-founded Iswar Sankalpa to address this gaping need for proper mental healthcare for those at the margins of society.
Sarbani has so far built caregiving relationships between 2800 people living with mental illness and unlikely caregivers who are spurred by the satisfaction they get from seeing people with mental illness recover and integrated with society.
She is scaling her model in rural areas through the National Rural Health Mission, and in urban slums through the Municipal Healthcare Services.
She is using national platforms, like policy advocacy groups and networks of mental healthcare organisations, closely working with Ashoka Fellows in the space, to influence leaders about the critical need for involving everyone in mental healthcare, and not just professionals.
SHREEN SAROOR WO M E N ’ S AC T I O N N E T WO R K ( WA N ) , M A N N A R WO M E N ’ S D E V E LO P M E N T F E D E R AT I O N ( M W D F )
B U I L D I N G T H E N E X T G E N E R AT I O N O F WO M E N L E A D E R S I N P O ST- C I V I L WA R S R I L A N KA Shreen is creating a new cadre of young women leaders, in the aftermath of the decades-long Sri Lankan civil war, to overcome the socio-cultural inequalities that have long prevented women from exercising their citizenship fully in the country. The end of the war in 2009 opened spaces for reconciliation in the country and it is imperative to for a new generation of women leaders to take their cause forward.
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
In Sri Lanka, the violent nature of the civil war from 1983-2009 resulted in an entire generation of youth growing up without knowing how a peaceful society and its systems work. Even though there were a few organisations that sprung up to initiate the women’s movement during 1990-2010, the older generation of women leaders has exhausted their energies and ideas fighting structural discriminations against them during the war period. The biggest challenge the women’s movement is now facing is the lack of a competent next generation of leaders. Warrelated serious crimes against women have been reduced to ethnicity or region and have divided the movement for justice.
At a time when the new government in Sri Lanka is undertaking constitutional reforms and establishing transitional justice mechanisms, it is imperative to include women’s voices for Sri Lanka to become a nation of equal rights for women. For this, Shreen is creating the next generation of young women leaders representing all identities – Muslim, Tamil and Sinhalese. Post 2009, Shreen started to identify, mentor and provide platforms to younger women throughout the North and East of the country and brought together a collective of 9 groups and named it the Women’s Action Network (WAN) using the links of Mannar Women’s Development Federation, which Shreen founded in her hometown in 1998. WAN not only fights individual cases against traditional women’s issues like discriminatory personal religious laws, domestic violence and war-related issues like enforced disappearance and resettlement, but also advocates for policy reforms at a national and international level.
THE PERSON
THE CHALLENGE
Born in 1969 to a Muslim family in Mannar, Shreen grew up in a peaceful neighborhood. In 1990, Shreen’s family, along with 75,000 other Muslims, was forcibly evicted by the LTTE. In the refugee camps, Shreen participated in the community organisation her father set up to assist the refugees, raised funds etc. Upon his death, she took over as the head of the family at the age of 21 and got a job as a stockbroker. Continuing her human rights work, she joined the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) in 2002. She met many women leaders, learnt about the women’s movement and realised the need for young women to take the lead. That’s when the idea of WAN was born and she started formally working for it from 2009 onwards.
Shreen’s work over the 2000s in rebuilding trust between the Muslim and the Tamil communities by creating spaces for conversations, mutual grievance sharing, economic development etc. laid the foundation for WAN to become a united network of youth activists in the country, that takes up women’s issues not isolated to an ethnicity, but as fundamental women’s rights.
WAN exists as a loose yet powerful network of organisations with a very strong identity that has been enforced through its work over the years. It helps and protects individual organisations in high profile cases where their association with WAN represents the backing of a much larger movement.
Shreen established the largest micro-credit programme for women in the north through Mannar Women’s Development Federation in 1999 and has been accompanying young women rights activists to take part in the international review process like International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Human Rights Commission (HRC).
SREEJA S I N D I A E D U C AT I O N CO L L E C T I V E
B U I L D I N G CO M M U N I T Y- L E D T R A N S F O R M AT I O N O F T H E E D U C AT I O N SYST E M Sreeja is building ownership in local communities over the education system. She helps them identify and solve problems themselves, with the help of a fellowship and grant through her organisation, the India Education Collective. She enables them to hold authorities accountable to deliver high quality of education. Sreeja is changing the methodology of assessments to measure ‘how’ children are learning, rather than ‘what’ to restore teachers’ ownership in the process.
THE CHANGEMAKER IDEA
Over 75% of schools in India are publicly funded and cater to over half of the school-going population. However, bad infrastructure and poor instruction quality result in a high dropout rate. Those who stay back, fare poorly in various learning assessments. Poorly paid teachers are not empowered with autonomy over the subjects taught in class or other school activities leading to high teacher absenteeism. The curriculum fails to bridge the gap between school and their environment.
Sreeja gets the buy-in from communities to engage with their schools by collecting data and presenting facts about their schools and communities. She does this with the help of a fellowship programme for members of local NGOs, who already have a trust base and relationships in the community to lead the process of mobilising the community. The fellow is supported through a small seed fund and training. The fellow is supported through a small seed fund and training. They follow the process starting from data collection, the problem solving workshop and then forming the Gram Shikshan Committee to build community ownership over education and child rights in their own regions of work. Sreeja’s team facilitates the conversation in a way that the administration, which includes various stakeholders from various government agencies, do not feel blamed but that the community will support them.
THE PERSON
THE CHALLENGE
Sreeja grew up in Bihar and went to college in Kerala. She felt she didn’t learn anything in class and started engaging in social work for homeless children and the aged. She also started teaching at a Missionaries of Charity school. To pay for the children’s stationery, she worked at an advertising agency and taught in coaching centres. She then pursued a Masters in Social Work working in a slum on the problem of drug abuse. She subsequently joined Maya, an organisation working with street children against child labour. She saw that even though they took children off the streets, within a few weeks they would go back. Realising the problem lay in the condition of public schools, she started working on mobilising communities to take ownership of their schools.
Sreeja has spread her community-owned process measurement model in eight states across India, in over 15,500 schools.
Data shows that schools following her model, over 3-5 years, achieve the same learning outcomes as an urban private school.
Sreeja’s experience and the data collected over the years enables her to be invited by state governments and political parties who wish to achieve better developmental milestones than their competitors in the field of education.
ASHOKA A TIMELINE THE GLOBAL MOVEMENT TOWARDS SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP HAS BEEN IDENTIFIED
NORTH AMERICA 279 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS 93 CHANGEMAKER SCHOOLS 29 CHANGEMAKER CAMPUSES 29 BUSINESS LEADERS
BY LEADING CHANGEMAKING FINANCIAL AND EUROPE 515 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS 94 CHANGEMAKER SCHOOLS 3 CHANGEMAKER CAMPUSES 182 BUSINESS LEADERS
2 ASHOKA OFFICES 103 ASHOKA STAFF
EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS ACROSS THE WORLD. ASHOKA HAS A NETWORK IN OVER 90 COUNTRIES.
ASIA & AUSTRALIA 933 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS 20 CHANGEMAKER SCHOOLS 2 CHANGEMAKER CAMPUSES 7 BUSINESS LEADERS
LATIN AMERICA & CARIBBEAN 960 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS 45 CHANGEMAKER SCHOOLS 5 CHANGEMAKER CAMPUSES 51 BUSINESS LEADERS
7 ASHOKA OFFICES 28 ASHOKA STAFF MIDDLE EAST & NORTH AFRICA 109 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS
5 ASHOKA OFFICES 30 ASHOKA STAFF
24 ASHOKA OFFICES 67 ASHOKA STAFF AFRICA 426 SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS 45 CHANGEMAKER SCHOOLS 4 ASHOKA OFFICES 11 ASHOKA STAFF
1980’s
1996
2003
2007
Ashoka identifies leading social entrepreneurs on the ground driving change in multiple sectors.
Ashoka + McKinsey partner to create Centre for Social Entrereneuship
Skoll centre for Social Entrepreneurship founded at Oxford’s Said Business School.
JP Morgan Social Finance Fund launched
1998
2004
David Bornstein writes about Bill Drayton and Ashoka in The Atlantic
Omidyar Network founded
1980 Partners from Mckinsey form Friends of Ashoka
1984
1998
MacArthur Foundation awards ‘Genius’ Grant to Bill Drayton for social entrepreneurship.
Bill Drayton, Nobel prize Awardee Muhammed Yunus (Grameen Bank), Fazle Abad (BRAC), Oded Grajew (Ethos Institute for Business Social Responsibility) and Peter Elgen (Transparency International) founded Ashoka’s Global Academy
1984 Rockefeller Brothers Fund begins to support Ashoka
2006 Stanford Business School lanches Stanford Social Innovation Review
2006 MIT Press launches innovations Journal
2013 Rockefeller Foundation launches Global Fellowship Program on Social Innovation
2017 Ford Foundation commits USD 1 billion to social enterprises and impact investing
PA R T N E R W I T H A S H O KA I N D I A
S O M E O F O U R PA R T N E R S OV E R T H E Y E A R S
B E R N A R D VA N L E E R F O U N DAT I O N
At Ashoka, we know that the everything-changing and therefore Everyone A Changemaker world is a far better place.
I K E A F O U N DAT I O N AZIM PREMJI PHILANTHROPIC
Ashoka is constantly building collaborative partnerships with leading global organisations and foundations to provide its partners an opportunity to engage with the citizen sector in order to:
Engaging collaborators, developing talents and encouraging a culture of entrepreneurship which is increasingly necessary within the private and public sector organisations. Breaking the silos between the different sectors.
TO A M P L I F Y S O C I A L I M PAC T O F CHANGEMAKERS Preparing mature social entrepreneurs with proven models to scale their impact by expanding or replicating their model, through tailored support via the Ashoka networks and expertise.
TO CO - C R E AT E W I T H S O C I A L E N T R E P R E N E U R S Accelerating co-creation between foundations, corporations or public institutions and social entrepreneurs bringing unique and complementary expertise on joint initiatives beyond the boundaries of individual organisations, building innovative business models that address societal challenges at scale.
There are as many program possibilities as there are program partners. It can range from delivering specific programs, organising events, or co-creating content. Partners typically provide financial or strategic support in exchange for recognition and engagement opportunities such as workshops with Fellows, speaking opportunities and many more.
If you believe that Ashoka’s ‘Everyone a Changemaker’vision resonates with your organisation, please reach out to us.
CONTACT US Ashoka Innovators for the Public 54, 1st Cross Road 1st Stage, Domlur Bengaluru, KA 560071 IN +918042745777 For general information, email: india@ashoka.org For media & partnership enquiries, email Artika Raj at araj@ashoka.org To learn more about Ashoka, visit: ashoka.org
BOEHRINGER INGELHEIM
18 CHANGEMAKER SCHOOLS
SW I SS R E F O U N DAT I O N
AVASARA ACADEMY, PUNE, MAHARASHTRA
I N D I R A F O U N DAT I O N
DIGANTAR VIDYALAYA, RAJASTHAN
T H E H A N S F O U N DAT I O N
HEADSTART LEARNING CENTER INTERNATIONAL, CHENNAI, TAMIL NADU
UL Passion & Energy: Ashoka India Staff!
TO D E V E LO P TA L E N T
Conducting research to map innovation opportunities, trends and barriers for the identified topics of interest to share insights and encourage dialogue across sector.
Copy Editor: Prakriti Mukherjee
Identifying fresh and new approaches to key challenges, already part of the Ashoka network and/or new to be found. By selecting a critical mass of social entrepreneurs, you can have a unique perspective on new models & innovations able to revolutionize a sector.
We identify and select a number of schools globally as Ashoka Changemaker Schools, where students are learning the essential skills of empathy, creativity, thoughtfulness, leadership, and teamwork so that they can thrive in the modern world and find solutions to our most complex problems.
TATA T R U STS
TO M A P & A N A LYS E T R E N DS A N D N E E DS
Design & Concept: Pallavi Agarwala
TO S O U R C E S O C I A L I N N OVAT I O N
I N I T I AT I V E S
AS H O KA C H A N G E M A K E R SCHOOLS
L E V I ST R AU SS F O U N DAT I O N O R AC L E
KC THACKERAY VIDYA NIKETAN, PUNE, MAHARASHTRA
T H E H I N D U B U S I N E SS L I N E
JINGLE BELLS SCHOOL, FAIZABAD, UTTAR PRADESH
PV R N E ST
MUNI INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL, DELHI MOTIDAU ANUPAM PRIMARY SCHOOL, GUJARAT PARDADA PARDADI EDUCATIONAL SOCIETY, ANOOPSHAHR, UTTAR PRADESH PRAKRIYA GREEN SCHOOL OF WISDOM, BENGALURU SRI KUMARAN CHILDREN’S HOME, BENGALURU THE BRILLIANT STARS SCHOOL, UDAIPUR, TRIPURA THE GATEWAY SCHOOL OF MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA VIDYASHRAM: THE SOUTHPOINT SCHOOL, VARANASI, UTTAR PRADESH RIVERSIDE SCHOOL, AHMEDABAD, GUJARAT RN PODAR SCHOOL, MUMBAI, MAHARASHTRA THE HERITAGE SCHOOL, GURGAON, DELHI UDAY COMMUNITY SCHOOL, JAGANPURA, SAWAI MADHOPUR TVS ACADEMY, HUSUR, TAMIL NADU
www.ashoka.org