Ashoka Announces 2016 Class of Ashoka US Fellows
14 People Who Are Here to Change the World!
by Alex Vesey
Reading the news can be scary lately. There are plenty of big problems out there — structural problems, environmental problems, social problems. It’s easy to get inundated and overwhelmed — it’s even harder to imagine what the solutions might be! Fortunately, there are changemakers out there already tackling the big issues, armed with innovative solutions. Ashoka is a global organization that identifies and invests in over 3,200 leading social entrepreneurs in 90 countries — individuals with innovative and practical ideas for solving social problems. And Ashoka US’s 2016 class is tackling some of those big issues in the US — from immigration detention reform and labor rights to accessible birth control and the free and private Internet. Our newest Fellows are imagining and implementing groundbreaking solutions that will help transform the world.
Meet the Ashoka US Fellows class of 2016! >>
Angelou Ezeilo | Greening Youth Foundation: Youth Environmentalists of Color | Atlanta, GA
Angelou is cultivating a generation of youth of color to be stewards of our land and natural resources — shifting the demographics of the environmental conservation movement. Her organization — Greening Youth Foundation — is simultaneously providing pathways into meaningful careers for young people of color in the environmental justice movement. “It’s no longer just a luxury to say, ‘Yeah, we should probably engage some diverse people. The movement needs their innovation and creativity to survive,” says Angelou.
Christina Fialho | CIVIC: Alternatives To Immigrant Detention | San Francisco, CA
Christina Fialho’s CIVIC (Community Initiatives for Visiting Immigrants in Confinement) is the only detention visitation network in the country monitoring the human rights abuses faced by thousands of immigrants held by private prison companies and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). CIVIC, co-founded by Christina Mansfield, has created a community-based alternative to detention that welcomes immigrants into the social fiber of the United States, instead of incarcerating individuals in the nation’s prison system. “There are so many people from all over the United States who are coming together, refusing to be silent about our abusive, profit-driven immigration detention system,” says Christina. “I think that’s what gives me hope.”
Imran Khan | Embarc: Students Breaking Barriers | Chicago, IL
Embarc’s goal is to drive student success through social and cultural exposure, using a three-year, three-level approach that awakens students to the possibilities of their potential by dissolving the borders in the city and in their minds. Many of Imran’s youth have never left the four-mile radius of their schools, so Imran provides them with a series of immersive journeys that connect them and the larger community to the same cultural fabric.
Jeff Dykstra | Partners in Food Solutions: Efficient Food Globally | Minneapolis, MN
Jeff is forging unlikely alliances between the world’s largest and smallest food companies, freeing up human potential to build a more robust, secure global food system. By bringing global expertise to small and growing food companies in emerging markets, Partners in Food Solutions is providing greater markets for local farm products and also safer and more nutritious food within countries. “Food insecurity is not just a humanitarian problem,” says Jeff. “It’s an economic one. Lack of access to high-quality food causes human suffering and prevents the economic growth needed to end food insecurity.”
Jennifer Bailey | Faith Matters Network: Faith-Based Advocacy | Nashville, TN
Through the Faith Matters Network, Reverend Jennifer is amplifying a renewed, faith-based public voice to end structural inequality and re-shape broken systems — helping revive religious communities in the process. FMN works to uplift the stories of faith leaders on the margins (people of color, women and/or people who identify as LGBTQ), sustain their wellbeing, and infuse traditional institutions with creativity and action for justice.
Katie Orenstein | OpEd Project: Diverse Voices | New York, NY
Katie is changing the demographics of voice in America by empowering a wave of underrepresented voices to join the important public discourse of our age. Starting as an initiative to increase the number of women in key commentary forums — like the OpEd pages of major newspapers — the OpEd Project has grown into a national movement to make our public conversation more inclusive and more intelligent. “One of the enormous problems that we have in the world is that most of the ideas that we hear come from a really narrow range of people, all demographically similar,” says Katie. “The Op-Ed Project was founded to ensure the widest range of voices representing all of humanity appear in public discourse and in our democracy.”
Kohl Gill | LaborVoices: Transparent International Labor | Sunnyvale, CA
LaborVoices is facilitating more transparency in international labor markets by crowdsourcing intelligence directly from laborers via mobile phone surveys and using it to push for changes within supply chains. Through this real-time, anonymous data about work conditions, LaborVoices has built a much-needed early warning system — based on direct feedback from workers. “The most important validation that we get is directly from workers. We hear they enjoy using the system, that they’ve never been asked questions like this before, that they’ve never known that their opinions are actually valuable. That kind of encouragement is incredibly inspiring,” says Kohl.
Lennon Flowers | The Dinner Party: Millennials and Grief | Los Angeles, CA
Lennon is challenging the current cultural norm that pathologizes grief with a model that empowers deeper community and personal growth. Through their global network of “table hosts” and community dinners, TDP is transforming life after loss from a deeply isolating experience and culturally taboo topic to an extraordinary tool for connection and community-building. “Loss is a universal,” says Lennon. “It’s an experience that all of us share, and yet because we’re so good at avoiding this topic, all of us end up thinking we’re alone and that whatever it is we’re doing, we’re doing it wrong. Our work is focused around lowering the barriers to hard conversation and giving people self-permission to talk about that which matters.”
Mark Edwards | Upstream USA: Contraceptive Access | Boston, MA
The high rate of unplanned pregnancy presents enormous challenges for women, families, and society. Through Upstream USA, Mark and his colleagues are changing the culture of reproductive healthcare in the US and pioneering a new model that ensures all women receive same-day access to the full range of modern contraceptive methods. His goal is to align health center staff around making these methods available while also providing women with the best experience possible when seeking reproductive counsel. “Upstream USA believes all women should be empowered to choose the birth control method of her choice. By aligning healthcare systems to provide patient-centered contraceptive access and counseling, we believe the downstream impacts will be significant,” says Mark.
Megan Marcus | FuelEd: Social-Emotional Teacher Training | Houston, TX
Megan believes there is something very wrong with how little we as an American society are prioritizing the emotional intelligence of educators, especially considering the fact that teachers spend more time with children than even the best parents can. Through FuelEd, Megan is transforming educator preparation by integrating the development of interpersonal skills, self-awareness and emotional wellbeing into teachers’ training and professional experience. “Educators are traditionally trained to be technical instructors. We teach them content knowledge, we teach them pedagogy, but in reality they’re asked to be counselor figures, parent figures, mentor figures, and we don’t ever give them the social and emotional tools to fill the realities of that role,” says Megan.
Noran Sanford | Growing Change: Flip The Prisons | Laurinburg, NC
Noran has created a model led by young people on the edge of the criminal justice system who work to “flip” an abandoned prison and turn it into a community hubs. The “flip” becomes a hub of civic activity, and an excuse for young people and community groups to work side-by-side, immediately changing the context within which they are interacting and — over time — tackling the barriers young people and the disenfranchised communities that they come from are facing every day.
Paula Segal | 596 Acres: Community Land Access | New York, NY
596 Acres is repositioning vacant municipal land as an opportunity for community mobilization. Through 596 Acres and her pioneering model of “community land access advocacy,” Paula gives residents the tools, tactics, and experience they need to shape their environments and reclaim pieces of empty land that they pass every day. “Getting people involved with one lot in their neighborhood is a way of getting them to start to be advocates for the commons, for a shared wealth in places.”
Tiffiniy Cheng | Fight for the Future: Internet Defenders | Worcester, MA
FFTF was founded to ensure that the web continues to hold freedom of expression and creativity at its core. By activating millions of people across the globe and creating a cadre of internet defenders, Tiffiniy and FFTF are working towards an internet free of censorship, reliably private and affordable to everyone — and in doing so, creating a new political system in which everyone’s voice is powerful. “Because the internet exists, we’re able to do much more than petitions,” says Tiffiniy. “We’re actually able to be inventive and innovative…[and] change how policy is made.”
Not pictured: Casey Woods
Visit Ashoka @ Ashoka.org.
Alex Vesey is the Venture Associate for Ashoka US. She is a proud advocate for the rights of people with disabilities and a registered voter. And she’s excited by the optimism inspired by this year’s class of solution-oriented Fellows.
