SOCIAL INNOVATION MAPPING MAY 2016

Social Entrepreneurial
Pathways to a Culture of

wellbeing
Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

Hunny Alrohaif, Flickr

Foreword
Ashoka Changemakers, with the support of the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, has developed a
Social Innovation Mapping report on pathways to a
culture of wellbeing. We have explored how leading
social entrepreneurs (Ashoka Fellows) are creating
systemic change that positively impacts the wellbeing
of individuals and communities around the world.
We have also identified opportunities for further
innovation and amplification of impact in this space.
The insights in this report are rooted in the
perspectives of 15 Ashoka Fellows working in several
countries outside the United States, with additional
insights from experts working in the field of social
change.
We invite you to re-envision the
possibilities for change through the
eyes of social entrepreneurs.

Aaron Noble, Flickr

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

About the Changemakers Learning Lab

Ashoka is the worlds largest network of social

entrepreneurs with over 3,200 leading social innovators
in 84 countries. Changemakers is an Ashoka program
that rapidly accelerates the impact around critical social
issues by building and nurturing networks of leading
changemakers and empowering these networks to
ignite sweeping change in their fields.
Changemakers builds on Ashokas three-decade history
to advance an "everyone a changemaker world where
people gain the skills and resources they need to
collaborate on solving complex social problems.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

The Changamakers Learning Lab conducts research to

identify hotspots of innovation and the most effective
levers to catalyze change. By analyzing solutions that
have proven success, the research is used to craft
network strategies, evaluate new solutions, and guide
innovation.

changemakers.com

Ashoka Changemakers

What's the most important thing for you? How can

you contribute with getting well? Now everybody
understands that to have good care and good
wellbeing, you can't play a passive part.
Lone Koldby

Charles Barilleaux, Flickr

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Table of Contents
Executive Summary

Introduction

10

Meet the Social Entrepreneurs

14

Roadblocks on the path to a

culture of wellbeing

16

Four Barriers to target for change

A. Siloed Approach: Wellbeing is Not
Adequately Defined and Measured

Looking Ahead

48

Appendix A:
Our Methodology

52

Appendix B:
Case study on scaling a culture of
wellbeing: Jeroo Billimoria

56

Appendix C:
Meet The Social Entrepreneurs

60

B. No Care for Caregivers: Wellbeing Roles

are Often Undervalued

Ana Lcia Villela

Instituto Alana

C. Institutions Dont Empower Individuals to

Pursue Their Own Wellbeing

Bedriye Hulya
b-Fit

D. Threats to Digital Security are Threats to

Wellbeing

Eva Marszewski
Peacebuilders
International

Developing a framework for a

culture of wellbeing
Five Design Principles
to tackle systematic change
1.

The Multiplier Effect: Create Opportunities

for Individuals to Play Meaningful Roles in
Their Communities

2. Practice Self-Awareness and Empathy

Skills to Nurture Wellbeing

26

James Wuye
Interfaith Mediation
Center of the MuslimChristian Dialogue
Forum
Jean Claude Rodrigez
Puddle
Suresh Kumar
Institute of Palliative
Medicine

Jeroo Billimoria
Child & Youth Finance
International
Krystian Fikert
MyMind
Laurindo Garcia
B-Change Foundation
Lone Koldby
Aktivitetsdosetten
Mohammad
Al-Ubaydli
Patients Know Best
Paige Elenson
Africa Yoga Project
Sascha Haselmayer
Citymart

3. Unlock Wellbeing Through Actively Building

Communities of Trust

Shauneen Lambe
Just for Kids Law

4. Equip People with Tools to Actively Pursue

Wellbeing and Successfully Adopt Positive
Behaviors

Stephanie Hankey
Tactical Technology
Collective

5. From Top-Down to Co-Creation: Shift

Relationships Between Providers and
Clients

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

Executive Summary

Social Innovation
Mapping
Three key components for
understanding how social
entrepreneurs solve complex
challenges:

BARRIERS
Barriers are core components
of a complex problem that,
if altered, could unlock true
systems change.

DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Design Principles are
strategies for designing
solutions that unlock systemswide change.

SOLUTIONS
Solutions by social
entrepreneurs form the
heart of the Social Innovation
Mapping analysis, and have
been identified by the Ashoka
Fellowship process to be
pragmatic, effective, and
visionary.

Ashoka and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation partnered to

develop a Social Innovation Mapping to explore how leading social
entrepreneurs are driving a culture of wellbeing that positively
impacts individuals and communities around the world.
The leading social entrepreneurs interviewed for this report
approach wellbeing holistically, as a dynamic balance of physical,
mental, emotional, and spiritual development in relation to self,
community, and society. Their work moves beyond the foundation
of the fulfillment of basic needs (such as safety, food, and shelter)
toward building a culture of wellbeing. In this report, we do not
advocate for a single definition of wellbeing, but instead show how
wellbeings many facets are linked by the themes of feeling valued
and being able to act for oneself, ones community, and others.
In a culture of wellbeing, individuals, communities, and institutions
in society work together to create an environment where everyone
is empowered and equipped to define and fulfill their own needs for
wellbeing.
The report presents Barriers and Design principles that are rooted in
the perspectives of 15 Ashoka Fellows working in several countries
outside the United States. Barriers are core components of a
complex problem that, if altered, could unlock true systems change.
Design Principles are strategies for designing solutions that unlock
systems-wide change.

Barriers on the path to a culture of

wellbeing include:
A. S
 iloed Approach: Wellbeing is not adequately
defined and measured
While many institutions track and target the negative outcomes
associated with a lack of wellbeing, the positive spectrum of
wellbeing is often ignored. Multifaceted and holistic, positive
wellbeing is difficult to measure when it has not be adequately
defined and when it tends to be conceptualized within silos. For
example, public health systems commonly view wellbeing in
terms of the prevalence of illness, and criminal justice systems
focus their efforts on measuring crime and recidivism rates. But
wellbeing comprises far more than a single indicator, and reducing
it to negative outcomes orients individuals, communities, and
society toward prioritizing treatment or punishment rather than the

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

active pursuit of wellbeing and the creation of healthy

environments that nurture wellbeing.

B. N
 o Care for Caregivers: Wellbeing roles
are often undervalued
Caregiving is often undervalued across societies,
resulting in a pervasive lack of recognition and support
for wellbeing roles all of kinds. People who facilitate
wellbeing, both inside and outside of formal employment,
commonly experience burnout and exhaustion. There
is a real need for support systems that provide care
for caregivers themselves, in addition to shifting sociocultural mindsets so that caregiving is recognized as
equally as valuable as other societal roles. Examples of
support for wellbeing roles include shared communities
of care, a supportive organizational environment, and
equipping caregivers with the resources to engage in
self-care.

C. Institutions dont empower individuals to

pursue their own wellbeing
Several of the social entrepreneurs interviewed for
this report are responding to a lack of client-centered
products and services. Many institutions have
approached the design of wellbeing services from the
perspective of what they believe will benefit clients
rather than empathetically listening to beneficiaries and
designing services around their actual, lived experiences.
For example, Ashoka Fellow Krystian Fikert observed
that traditional mental healthcare delivery systems
can be extremely difficult for patients to navigate. They
typically involve a triage process, complex referral
protocols, and long waits for appointments that can
deter people from seeking help. To make mental health
services more accessible and effective, Fikert designed
his solution, MyMind, to provide both in-person and webbased counseling, with appointments available in just
one to three days.

D. Threats to digital security are threats to

wellbeing
We live in an unprecedented time of digital connectivity
and access to information. Along with the benefits
of the internet and big data systems, societies must

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

now contend with threats to digital security. The

consequences of identity theft, privacy breaches, cyber
bullying and stalking, and the proliferation of fake online
identities negatively impact wellbeing in significant
ways. Furthermore, threats to digital security have
serious implications for wellbeing solutions that leverage
online technology. Several Ashoka Fellows interviewed
for this report have cited the need to ensure effective
mechanisms for protecting client privacy and securing
user data.

Design Principles used by social

entrepreneurs to create a culture
of wellbeing include:
1. T
 he Multiplier Effect: Create Opportunities
for Individuals to Play Meaningful Roles in
Their Communities
Wellbeing is improved when people feel a sense of
purpose and belonging within their communities. People
who are subject to discrimination and social exclusion
face significant challenges when it comes to this facet of
wellbeing. Playing a meaningful role in society is a deeply
human need, and social entrepreneurs are responding
to this need by equipping people with the skills and
opportunities to create positive change within their
communities.
By enabling people to become leaders and problem
solvers, social entrepreneurs are not only supporting
individuals ability to cultivate their own wellbeing, but
also shifting mindsets around socially excluded groups
and unlocking the multiplier effectthe reverberation
of positive impact that permeates throughout society
when all actors become changemakers.

2. Practice Self-Awareness and Empathy

Skills to Nurture Wellbeing
Social entrepreneurs often embed personal
development techniques within their impact models,
because skills like self-awareness and empathy can
equip people to actively pursue wellbeing. While
structural problems like violence, racism, and poverty
cannot be overcome with inner development alone,
social and emotional skills can enable people to make
conscious decisions, overcome psychological barriers,
recover from trauma, and take action. Cultivating skills
like empathy and compassion also has a multiplier effect,

Ashoka Changemakers

as people become more supportive of one another and

work together to advance collective wellbeing.

3. U
 nlock Wellbeing Through Actively
Building Communities of Trust

and actively listen to client voices, and so that client

experiences deeply inform their activities.
Within co-creation relationships, people have the
agency and ability to design and select for themselves
the services they want and need to promote their own
wellbeing. They are empowered to provide feedback
to and become actively involved in the institutions
that impact their lives. At the same time, institutions
are able to evolve according to the lived experiences
of their clients. Specific techniques used by social
entrepreneurs include:

Safe and nurturing communities serve as important

safety nets to support individual and collective
wellbeing. Cultivating trust is a key strategy used by
social entrepreneurs to foster strong relationships
between people who may have been previously divided
or disparate. Communities characterized by trust
can unlock positive collective action, such as working
together to resolve conflict or designing a project that
benefits everyones wellbeing. Within communities of
trust, people are more likely to act with the purpose
of improving the wellbeing of one another, rather than
themselves alone.

Elevating lived experience as expertise;

4. Equip People with Tools to Actively Pursue

Wellbeing and Successfully Adopt Positive
Behaviors

Ideas for building a culture of

wellbeing for the future

Social entrepreneurs have recognized that behavior

changessuch as engaging in exercisehappen when
people are equipped with the right tools and pathways
to succeed. Practice methods for supporting wellbeingseeking behaviors include:

Reorienting individuals, communities, and society at

large around the holistic framework of a culture of
wellbeing will require shifting mindsets and behavior
patterns on a wide scale. Weve identified the following
opportunities to accelerate progress toward this vision:

Making space within institutions for clients to engage

as co-creators;
Offering client-centered products and services; and
Putting clients in control of their own information.

Providing tools grounded in human experience;

1.
Breaking up the pursuit of wellbeing into simple,
concrete actions;
Introducing specific behavior changes that can be
tracked and celebrated over time; and
Allowing people the ability to move at the pace they
need.

5. F
 rom Top-Down to Co-Creation: Shift
Relationships Between Providers and
Clients

Build alignment around a framework for wellbeing

by creating cross-sector indicators for measuring
and promoting a culture of wellbeing.

2. Target investments to promote innovations and

collaborations at the framework level of a culture of
wellbeing.
3. Catalyze a positive language shift around wellbeing
and create community incentives for participating in
the culture of wellbeing framework.

Social entrepreneurs are catalyzing wide-scale

shifts in the way wellbeing products and services are
designed and delivered. They are building co-creation
relationships between service providers and clients,
so that service providers are equipped to respect

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Introduction
Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

Georgie Pauwels, Flickr

National Park Service, Courtesy of Steven Friedman, Flickr

How to Read
the Report

Social Innovation Mapping is a process by which Ashoka identifies

common patterns in the methods used by leading social entrepreneurs to
create widespread change. These patterns can point to powerful ways to
reframe problems, as well as strategies to address them.
See Appendix A on page 52 for more background about the methodology of this report.

Patterns are divided into Barriers and Design Principles:

10

BARRIERS

DESIGN PRINCIPLES

Barriers are core components of a

complex problem that, if altered, could
unlock true systems change. They are
not descriptions of entrenched societal
problems and their underlying causes.
Though underlying causes profoundly
shape and define the landscape that
social entrepreneurs work in, this report
focuses on barriers that are specific,
moveable, and actionable parts of a
problem that social entrepreneurs have
chosen to tackle. Solutions may (and often
do) tackle multiple barriers.

Design Principles are strategies for

designing solutions that unlock systemswide change. The strategies in this
report were distilled from the work of
leading social entrepreneurs. Rather than
describing a single tool or organizational
strategy, Design Principles apply broadly,
address multiple barriers, and can
inform the work of a diverse spectrum of
stakeholders.

Ashoka Changemakers

Design Principles often focus on forging

new opportunities for changemaking or
incentivizing action. By engaging new
players and stakeholders and shifting
mindsets, Design Principles spark
transformation and create the conditions
to tip entire systems.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Fellows approaches to wellbeing

Ashoka Fellows are social entrepreneurs who introduce and commit
themselves to realizing important systems-changing ideas. They
bring fresh perspectives and analyses to social problems, along
with insights on how to fix them. With creativity and entrepreneurial
skills, Ashoka Fellows pursue an idea until it becomes widely
adopted and changes an entire pattern in society. In order to do this,
they work together with other citizens, enabling them to become
changemakers themselves, who, if activated, could be powerful
agents for strengthening the ecosystem for change.
Ashokas network contains over 3,200 social entrepreneurs in
84 countries, and the wellbeing of individuals and communities
is an integral part of any social entrepreneurs vision. In the last
five years, we have seen a shift in how some social entrepreneurs
are approaching wellbeing. In the past, they have tended to focus
on specific sectors, creating solutions for systemic problems
in healthcare, education, financial services, employment, legal
systems, and other social services. Now, we are beginning to see
impact models that are designed to engage actors across sectors in
order to create a more holistic culture of wellbeing.

Wellbeing comprises
multiple elements,
including:
The fulfillment of basic needs;
A sense of value and purpose;
Belonging to a community;
The ability to make positive change
for oneself and others;
Being part of a society that
validates and respects ones
identity and lived experiences; and
Inclusion into an equitable
economic system that creates
opportunities for all.

What is wellbeing?
For social entrepreneurs working in this holistic framework,
wellbeing is a dynamic balance of physical, mental, emotional, and
spiritual development in relation to self, community, and society.
The common themes across all of these components of wellbeing
are feeling valued and being able to act for oneself, ones
community, and others.
While all people may not agree upon a single definition of wellbeing,
societal buy-in to the value of wellbeing for all is crucial to fostering a
culture of wellbeing. With a shared vision, individuals, communities,
and institutions can work together to equip all people with the skills,
tools, and supportive environments that are necessary for their
personal and collective wellbeing.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

11

Mario Antonio Pena Zapatera, Flickr

What is a culture of wellbeing?

While social entrepreneurs around the world are
working to ensure universal access to basic needs like
food, water, shelter, and safety, a culture of wellbeing
moves beyond this foundation. In a culture of wellbeing,
individuals, communities, and institutions in society
work together to create an environment where everyone
is empowered and equipped to define and fulfill their
own needs for wellbeing. To achieve this vision, social
entrepreneurs and other actors are creating pathways
for change at three different levels:
1.

Individual - Equipping individuals to cultivate selfawareness, empathy, resilience, and a sense of

purpose and value in their lives.

2. Community - Creating opportunities for all

individuals to play meaningful roles within a
community and to develop a sense of belonging.
Cultivating relationships in which empathy and
compassion are at the core.

Social entrepreneurs find that creating a culture of

wellbeing requires a multifaceted collaboration across
individuals, communities, and society. No single
approach or strategyfrom highly individualized
personal journeys to top-down policy changesallows
wellbeing to permeate all levels of society. Rather, a
culture of wellbeing is established when actors at all
levels of societyfrom individuals to communities, and
from organizations to systemsall:
Believe in the importance of wellbeing for all;
Understand their roles in creating and promoting
collective wellbeing; and
Are equipped to work in concert with each other
toward wellbeing for all.

3. Society - Creating frameworks that enable all

individuals to have power within the institutions and
systems that impact their lives (e.g. the criminal
justice system, the healthcare system, or city
governments). Placing individuals lived experiences
and interests at the center of institutions,
governmental policies, and social services.

12

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

New skills, tools, systems

New systems that value lived

experiences and co-creation

Society

New roles
Trust-based relationships

Community
Self-awareness
Empathy
Changemaking tools

Individual

Basic Needs
Progress on Wellbeing

Structural problems and their

implications for wellbeing
It is important to note that this report is not purposed to
comprehensively describe or assess all of the underlying challenges
and strategies that exist for cultivating a culture of wellbeing. For
example, we do not specifically address structural problems,
including political environments or systems of oppression that affect
people along lines such as race, gender, class, disability, and sexual
orientation. Ashoka Fellows frequently do aim to tackle structural
problems and to shift socio-cultural mindsets, which can have a
significant impact on wellbeing. However, this report focuses on
a specific set of innovation patterns that may be broadly applied
toward nurturing a culture of wellbeing.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

13

Meet the Social Entrepreneurs

Ana Lcia Villela

Bedriye Hulya

Eva Marszewski

James Wuye

Jean Claude Rodriguez

Jeroo Billimoria

Krystian Fikert

Laurindo Garcia

Instituto Alana

Puddle

14

b-Fit

Child & Youth Finance

International

Peacebuilders International

MyMind

Ashoka Changemakers

Interfaith Mediation Center Of

The Muslim-Christian Dialogue
Forum

B-Change Foundation

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Lone Koldby

Mohammad Al-Ubaydli

Paige Elenson

Shauneen Lambe

Stephanie Hankey

Suresh Kumar

Aktivitetsdosetten

Just For Kids Law

Patients Know Best

Tactical Technology Collective

Africa Yoga Project

Sascha Haselmayer
Citymart

Institute Of Palliative Medicine

The insights presented in this report are synthesized

from interviews with 15 Ashoka Fellows.
Their in-depth profiles can be found starting on page 60.
A description of our methodology and selection process can be
found on page 52.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

15

Roadblocks on the
path to a culture of
wellbeing
Four Barriers to target for change

16

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

The public sector has a strong focus on medical

models, so it's a very reactive way of tackling crisis,
but not really for improving wellbeing. And there's not
much focus on prevention and early intervention.
Krystian Fikert

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

17

Barrier A
Siloed Approach:
Wellbeing is Not Adequately Defined and Measured
The components of wellbeing, and the
strategies for how to cultivate it, tend to be
siloed, ill-defined, and unmeasured. Negative
outcomes that reflect a lack of wellbeing
are commonly tracked by systems and
institutions. For example, the criminal justice
system commonly measures recidivism
rates, and the medical system measures
rates of death and illness. However, the
positive components of wellbeing, such as
feeling valued or playing a meaningful role
in a community, tend to span multiple silos
and are more difficult to define and measure.
Positive wellbeing is thus seldom measured
and tracked.
This focus on negative outcomes results
in a lack of strategic and programmatic
direction for services, profoundly affecting
the way service providers and institutions
fund and initiate services and programs that
impact wellbeing. Societies typically support
programs meant to treat negative outcomes,
but have unclear or non-existent pathways
for actively cultivating wellbeing. On an
institutional level, this means that programs
focused on early intervention or crisis
prevention are often under-supported.
For example, health organizations tend to
focus their programming and resources
on sickness treatment, rather than on
promoting a lifetime of healthy behaviors
and prevention strategies. Similarly,

18

Ashoka Changemakers

criminal justice institutions tend to focus

their strategies on punishment, rather than
the active creation of environments that
promote wellbeing for all. This pervasive
orientation toward a lack of wellbeing means
that individuals might understand that it is
important to avoid harmful activities, but
they are less likely to understand how to
actively pursue a healthier life because there
is no clear vision of what wellbeing looks like.
Within this environment, wellbeing-focused
service providers can find it difficult to
drive a clear mandate to prioritize and fund
wellbeing initiatives. For example, Ashoka
Fellow Sascha Haselmayer has observed
that difficulties with measuring wellbeing
and the perception that social issues
are soft issues mean that initiatives that
impact wellbeing often come in last when
it comes to funding and attention from city
governments. Haselmayers organization,
Citymart, works to address this by equipping
city governments with methods for
gathering citizen input and fostering citizen
engagement.
By taking steps toward defining and
measuring wellbeing, social service
providers could be better equipped to fund
and implement programs that actively
contribute to wellbeing, rather than
programs that narrowly focus on treating
negative outcomes.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Fellows Whose Organizational Model

Addresses This Barrier

Shauneen Lambe

Krystian Fikert

Paige Elenson

Eva Marszewski

Jeroo Billimoria

Lone Koldby

Laurindo Garcia

Mohammad
Al-Ubaydli

Ana Lcia Villela

Stephanie Hankey

Suresh Kumar

Sascha Haselmayer

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

19

Barrier B
No Care for Caregivers:
Wellbeing Roles are Often Undervalued

Women can be
simultaneously
devalued as
caregivers and as
individuals, and thus
doubly limited by
socio-cultural norms
from pursuing their
own wellbeing.

Caregivers often feel there is a lack of

societal recognition and support for
their roles as facilitators of wellbeing
for individuals and communities. They
commonly experience burnout and feel
overwhelmed by the intense effort required
to work for the wellbeing of others, and
this can have negative rippling effects on
wellbeing across society. Ashokas decades
of experience supporting people all over
the world who work for social change has
shown that when caregivers and other
types of social change actors do not have
a supportive environment in which to care
for themselves, then effectively caring for
others can be very difficult, if not impossible.
Ashoka Fellow Stephanie Hankey has seen
the impact of this Barrier firsthand through
her organization, Tactical Technology
Collective, which works to support activists
around the world in protecting their digital
security. We need to encourage people to
not completely overwhelm themselves,
Hankey said. What we saw with lots of
activists from very intense situations was
burning out, quitting, leaving, and of course
worse, people getting very ill.
If we want more people in society
caring for others, there is a real need for
enabling caregivers of all types to receive
recognition and support for their own
wellbeing. Support might come in the

20

Ashoka Changemakers

form of a shared community, a supportive

organizational environment, being equipped
with the resources to engage in self-care,
or transforming social systems so that
caregiving rolesincluding those that dont
involve formal employmentare equally
recognized for their value as other societal
roles. Shifting socio-cultural mindsets that
devalue caregiving is a key challenge that
social entrepreneurs are tackling through
equipping players across society with
changemaking (and therefore caregiving)
skills, including self-awareness and empathy.
Women, who are frequently expected to
fulfill undervalued caregiving roles, face
additional challenges if they want to carve
out other meaningful roles for themselves.
Ashoka Fellow Bedriye Hulya works to equip
women to pursue their own wellbeing
whether it be through physical fitness
or through becoming an entrepreneur.
Hulyas organization, b-Fit, is a womenonly gym franchise in Turkey that provides
women with a safe space for exercise and
a community of support. Through b-Fit,
women also have the opportunity to become
franchise owners and start their own
wellness enterprises.
Hulya explained the obstacles faced by
women that b-Fit seeks to address: [In
Turkey], being an entrepreneur is not the
identity that's expected from a woman. That

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

identity is being a good housewife and being

a good mother. And if there is a problem,
like not being able to cook or not being able
to help the kid with the homework, then
she is punished by words: the words of the
husband, the kid, her parents, her neighbors,
her friends. So everyone is harsh on the
woman. And also we're harsh on ourselves.

Hulyas statement exemplifies the way that

women can be simultaneously devalued
as caregivers and as individuals, and thus
doubly limited by socio-cultural norms
from pursuing their own wellbeing. Shifting
mindsets so that caregivers, and all
individuals, are valued and able to determine
their own societal roles is a critical step
toward growing a culture of wellbeing.

Fellows Whose Organizational Model

Addresses This Barrier

Shauneen Lambe

Eva Marszewski

Jeroo Billimoria

Bedriye Hulya

Laurindo Garcia

James Wuye

Krystian Fikert

Paige Elenson

Ana Lcia Villela

Lone Koldby

Suresh Kumar

Developing and nurturing self-esteem and personal value

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

Defining individual roles and collective value

21

Barrier C
Institutions Don't Empower Individuals to Pursue Their
Own Wellbeing

Institutions are
often not poised
to listen closely,
take seriously, and
respond to the needs
and concerns of
clients and patients.

22

Medical, legal, banking, housing, justice, and

other systems that provide services that
impact wellbeing tend to have a top-down
and transactional approach, in which one
party unilaterally imparts services onto
another party. Services that are delivered
in this manner tend to be designed and
implemented by people and institutions
considered to be experts, but who are not
necessarily informed by lived experience.
Within this structure, institutions are often
not poised to listen closely, take seriously,
and respond to the needs and concerns of
clients and patients.
As a result of a top-down service delivery
system, two interrelated issues can emerge:
clients are not usually included in the
process of designing pathways to pursue
their own wellbeing, and the services that
are provided to them do not necessarily
meet their needs. People ultimately lack
the power to pursue their own wellbeing
because these institutions do not make the
space for them to be able to participate in
their own care. Additionally, services can fall
short of truly cultivating wellbeing for all by
failing to meet the constraints and desires
of real experience. They are often not
accessible and affordable to all, and often
they do not meet the needs of key groups of
people. For example, youth can fall through
the cracks between services targeted to
young children and services targeted to
adults.

Ashoka Changemakers

Ashoka Fellow Lone Koldby saw how nursing

home residents in Norway were often given
activities without being consulted on what
they wanted to do. I saw that though we had
many different things going on in the nursing
homes, we never really paid any attention
to finding out what the residents would like
to do, Koldby explained. This experience
inspired her to start Aktivtedosetten,
which provides individualized activity tool
kits to nursing home residents based on
their personal interests. Once residents
are equipped to drive their own wellbeing
through the tool kits, they begin to have
more positive interactions with their family
members and caregivers, and they are even
able to significantly reduce their intake of
medicines, such as antidepressants and
pain relievers, which can have a numbing
effect.
Similarly, Ashoka Fellow Krystian Fikert
observed that traditional mental healthcare
delivery systems tend not to be clientcentered and can be extremely difficult for
patients to navigate. Typically, if a person
wants to see a mental health professional,
they are met with a complicated triage
process, long waiting periods, screenings,
and many more laborious steps that can
prevent people from seeking help.
The whole process is not a human process,
Fikert said. And for most clients, its just
too much. Seeking to address this problem,
Fikerts organization, MyMind, puts

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

human experience at the center of mental

healthcare and works to ensure services are
affordable and accessible. MyMind provides
both in-person and web-based counseling
with appointments available in just one to
three days. MyMind also offers a variety
of online resources that enable people to
direct their own care, on their own terms, by
asking questions and seeking referrals to
services.
Solutions by Koldby and Fikert demonstrate
that when services and are guided by lived
experiences and when people have the
power to pursue wellbeing on their own
terms, services become far more effective
and accessible to all.

sima dimitric, Flickr

Fellows Whose Organizational Model

Addresses This Barrier

Shauneen Lambe

Krystian Fikert

Paige Elenson

Eva Marszewski

Jeroo Billimoria

Sascha Haselmayer

Mohammad
Al-Ubaydli

Suresh Kumar

Ana Lcia Villela

Lone Koldby

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

23

Barrier D
Threats to Digital Security are Threats to Wellbeing

Any wellbeing
solutions that
employ technology
must seriously
consider how to
find the balance
between creating
open and trusting
relationships online
and protecting the
privacy of users.

24

As we begin to live more of our lives online

and through screens, we can start to
see patterns in how technology impacts
wellbeing. Despite the many benefits of
digital technology and big data for fields
such as medicine and communication, these
technologies can have negative impacts
on personal and collective wellbeing,
particularly when it comes to threats to
the privacy of personal information. The
proliferation of fake online identities, a lack
of security and privacy for large amounts of
data collected online, and increasing rates
of online harassment are all examples of
privacy threats that are unique to digital
technology and that have the potential to
diminish wellbeing.
Ashoka Fellow Stephanie Hankey, founder
of Tactical Technology Collective, has
found that threats to digital security can
be particularly harmful to people who can
be identified as part of a stigmatized group,
such as activists working on politically
turbulent issues or people who belong to
a discriminated-against group. Hankey
has observed that living in a data-driven
society can negatively impact people's
political autonomy. Hankey notes, On
one hand, digital information from mental
health organizations on whether someone
is suicidal is really important. On the other
hand, having someone on a list of people
with mental health problems is also a major
issue, and it may impact their ability in the
future to do things like take a new job or
move into a new community.

Ashoka Changemakers

Hankey works to address the privacy threats

of technology by offering trainings, research,
and other resources on digital security and
privacy protection. These resources equip
human rights activists, journalists, and other
groups that are particularly at risk with the
knowledge and strategies to protect their
digital information from being exploited.
Tactical Technology Collective also convenes
people who are working on the front lines
of this issue. The organization has created
numerous communities that support
activists and journalists, such as women
who are active in political engagement.
As the boundary between our online
identities and our actual identities becomes
increasingly blurred, any wellbeing solutions
that employ technology must seriously
consider how to find the balance between
creating open and trusting relationships
online and protecting the privacy of users.
For example, Ashoka Fellows Mohammad
Al-Ubaydli, Laurindo Garcia, Jean Claude
Rodriguez, and Krystian Fikert all use
technology to deliver their wellbeing
solutions, and consequently, they have all
had to develop different mechanisms for
protecting client privacy, securing user
data, and ensuring that online profiles are
trustworthy.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Photo by NEC Corporation of America with Creative Commons license, Flickr

Fellows Whose Organizational Model

Addresses This Barrier

Jean Claude
Rodriguez

Krystian Fikert

Mohammad
Al-Ubaydli

Stephanie Hankey

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Sascha Haselmayer

Ashoka Changemakers

Laurindo Garcia

25

Developing a
framework for a
culture of wellbeing
Five Design Principles used by social
entrepreneurs to tackle systemic problems

26

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

In every community, people are solving the problems

they find. The opportunity to solve a problem is to
find the problem solvers and help them solve more
problems. It's really more about everyone having a
changemaker attitude.
Sascha Haselmayer

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

Christian Bourdeau, Flickr

27

Design Principle 1
The Multiplier Effect:
Create Opportunities for Individuals to Play Meaningful
Roles in their Communities

There is a
multiplier effect
when individuals
are engaged in
changemaking and
feel valued.

A core component of individual wellbeing

is finding purpose in life and feeling valued
within society. Social entrepreneurs are
helping people nurture this aspect of
wellbeing by creating opportunities for
individuals to play meaningful roles in their
communities and equipping them with
the skills they need to become positive
changemakers.
By taking on valued roles in society,
changemakers can transform the way
theyre viewed and treated within their
communities, which in turn can increase
their wellbeing. Additionally, engaging in
changemaking can help people to pursue
personal growth and feel an increased sense
of self-worth. The creation of changemaking
roles is particularly important for people
who are often excluded from society. There
is a multiplier effect when individuals are
engaged in changemaking and feel valued.
While they improve their own wellbeing, they
are simultaneously working to improve the
wellbeing of others.
One example of this Design Principle in
action is the work of Just for Kids Law, an
organization founded by Ashoka Fellow
Shauneen Lambe. Just for Kids Law helps
young people in the U.K. criminal justice
system transition from crisis to stability to
independence. Ultimately, they are equipped
to cultivate wellbeing for themselves and
their communities.
A cornerstone of Just for Kids Laws impact
model is providing opportunities for youth
to advocate for themselves and others.
Its Youth Ambassadors Program gives

28

Ashoka Changemakers

youth the opportunity to work directly

with Parliament members to influence the
juvenile justice system and other policies
that impact young people. It is also a
platform for youth to organize community
service projects and make significant
positive impacts on their community. For
example, in 2015 a group of youth launched
a campaign called Let Us Learn that helped
to change a U.K. law and lift a ban on student
loans for youth immigrants.
By giving young people the opportunity to
play meaningful roles as changemakers,
initiatives like the Youth Advocates Program
enable them to feel valued and connected
to their communities. The program
catalyzes systemic change and the creation
of a culture of wellbeing by upending the
traditional negative roles within the youth
justice system. Youth become lawmakers
rather than offenders, and Parliamentary
members become empathetic listeners
rather than punishers. Members of
Parliament and youth work together to
ensure that wellbeing increases for all.
Lambe remarked on how revolutionary it
can be for youth to be granted that kind of
power: No one had said to the youth, You
can come and be a trainer of lawyers. They
had been failed. They had been thrown out
of school for being rude. They'd been locked
up in the police station for shouting at
people. The solution was to find things that
were positive for the youth and that would
help them recognize their value.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Social entrepreneurs
create opportunities
for individuals to play
meaningful roles in
society

Social entrepreneurs
equip individuals with
changemaking skills

Individuals are treated

as and feel like valued
members of society

Individual and
collective wellbeing
improve

Creating changemaking roles for individuals to play in society, and equipping them
for those roles, ignites a chain reaction that results in increased wellbeing for both
individuals and their communities.

Fellows Whose Organizational Model

Uses This Design Principle

Shauneen Lambe

Paige Elenson

James Wuye

Suresh Kumar

Lone Koldby

Eva Marszewski

Jeroo Billimoria

Bedriye Hulya

Stephanie Hankey

Krystian Fikert

Sascha Haselmayer

Ana Lcia Villela

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

29

Design Principle 2
Practice Self-Awareness and Empathy Skills to Nurture
Wellbeing
Social entrepreneurs find that supporting
individuals to develop self-awareness and
empathy skills can amplify their potential to
pursue wellbeing by better preparing them
to make conscious decisions, overcome
psychological barriers, and take positive
action on behalf of themselves and others.
Self-awareness enables people to
understand how thoughts, emotions, and
actions affect their and others personal
wellbeing and, as a result, it can strengthen
their ability to find and pursue a path
toward wellbeing. Empathy helps to create
communities of care in which each person
is aware of the needs and perspectives of
those around them and is able to take action
and contribute to their wellbeing.
Social entrepreneurs have different ways of
equipping people with self-awareness and
empathy skills. Their impact models focus
on creating experiences for everyone to
go beyond understanding the importance

social entrepreneurs help individuals

nurture their own wellbeing, strengthen
their ability to remain resilient in the face of
difficulties, and cultivate a compassionate
attitude toward others.
For example, Paige Elenson incorporates
mindfulness practice as a core element
of her organization, Africa Yoga Project
(AYP), which trains underemployed young
adults in Africadeemed unemployable
in the current job marketto become
professional yoga teachers and jumpstart
the wellbeing industry in their communities.
She is careful to describe her organizational
model not as an employment program
that incorporates mindfulness on the side.
Rather, the mindfulness practices that are
integrated into the program are just as vital
to the wellbeing of program participants as
having reliable and fulfilling employment.
Elenson has noticed that once young women
complete AYPs yoga teacher training
and personal development courses, they

Wellbeing is a journey for all of us. I don't always have wellbeing, but I do have tools so that
I am able to be self-aware enough to recognize the things that are good for me and the things
that aren't. It's [about] giving people tools to recognize, to be their best self.
Shauneen Lambe, Just for Kids Law

of these skills to actually practicing them.

Through a variety of inner development
toolssuch as practicing self-reflection
and mindfulness, healing past trauma, and
embodying compassion and forgiveness

30

Ashoka Changemakers

come away with much more than a new job.

Additionally, they are able to advocate for
themselves and their bodies, and are able to
speak up for themselves and make decisions
that are based on real life rather than on

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Throughout a variety of inner development tools, social entrepreneurs help individuals nurture
their own wellbeing, strengthen their ability to remain resilient in the face of difficulties, and
cultivate a compassionate attitude toward others.

what they've been told before. They become

more aware, and when you're more aware
of what you're doing and you're conscious of
the impact that you have, then you're able to
make better decisions.
Ashoka Fellow Suresh Kumar also deploys
this design principle in his work by placing
compassionwhich Ashoka recognizes as
empathy and love in actionat the center of
care for terminally and chronically ill people
in Kerala, India. Kumar is transforming
end-of-life care through creating volunteerled local networks of well-trained and
compassion-driven palliative care providers.
Palliative care, or comfort care," is a
process of improving the quality of life
of patients who have a serious illness or
who are dying by addressing their pain,
discomfort, and physical and mental stress.
Kumar has found that the volunteers who
help their dying neighbors grapple with their
end-of-life reflections tend to be inspired
to have powerful self-reflections of their
own, which in turn induces them to pursue
more meaningful lives. Hes found that after
volunteers help others through the dying
process, they often become less rigid and
begin to engage in life in a more purposeful
way because they realize that they were
carrying around certain things which are
actually of no relevance at all. For the
volunteers, compassionate work generates

a meaningful shift in perspective that

motivates them to align their choices with
what they feel truly matters in life.
Kumar has observed that cultivating
empathy through compassionate work
among palliative care volunteers has
created rippling effects across society.If
you're compassionate, you cannot be
compassionate just towards dying people,"
Kumar said. "You are also compassionate to
your neighbor, to humanity, and to nature.
Because of this multiplier effect, this Design
Principle has implications both on personal
wellbeing as well as on collective wellbeing
across communities.
It is important to recognize that while inner
development work of this kind can have a
positive impact on wellbeing, it cannot be
taken out of the context of structural and
environmental factors. For example, a child
living in traumatic circumstances might be
able to learn emotional skills to improve their
resiliency, but complete wellbeing for that
child cannot be achieved until the traumatic
environment itself is addressed. Social
entrepreneurs usually work to make positive
changes in the systems and environments
that are impacting children in addition to
their work to promote self-awareness and
empathy skills.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

31

Social entrepreneurs provide individuals

with opportunities to build and practice
self-awareness and empathy skills

Individuals:
develop resiliency
cultivate mindfulness
heal from trauma
undergo other forms of inner development

Positive effects ripple across

society as individuals feel better
about themselves as well as
improve their ability to care
for others

Individuals engage in healthier

behaviors, because they are
better equipped to make more
conscious decisions

Social entrepreneurs provide individuals with opportunities to build and practice

self-awareness and empathy skills in order to help them seek and improve their own
wellbeing, as well as the wellbeing of others
This Design Principle does not imply that individuals can overcome all hardship as
long as they have the right attitude. Wellbeing is made possible when this Design
Principle is combined with interventions to address structural or environmental factors
(e.g., experiencing violence, trauma, or a lack of basic needs) which can prevent the
achievement of full wellbeing.

32

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

David Mutua, Flickr

Fellows Whose Organizational Model

Uses This Design Principle

Suresh Kumar

Paige Elenson

Eva Marszewski

Shauneen Lambe

James Wuye

Bedriye Hulya

Lone Koldby

Krystian Fikert

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

Laurindo Garcia

Ana Lcia Villela

33

Design Principle 3
Unlock Wellbeing Through Actively Building
Communities of Trust

Community trust can

unlock the power of
collaborative action
and the potential for
people to increase
their wellbeing
collectively and as
individuals.

34

Communities of trust are an essential

component of wellbeing because they can
provide individuals with a safety net of
people who they can count on to act in their
best interest. Additionally, community trust
can unlock the power of collaborative action
and the potential for people to increase their
wellbeing, collectively and as individuals.
Thus, social entrepreneurs have developed
tactics for actively building trust among
community members in order to promote
wellbeing.
For example, Ashoka Fellow Eva
Marszewski uses trust-building to
cultivate safe and nurturing communities,
even in environments where violence is
common. Her organization, Peacebuilders
International, helped members of a public
housing complex in Toronto develop a sense
of community trust after a resident was
murdered in a hallway. Because people
in the complex had few connections and
tended to mistrust one another, residents
struggled to feel safe in their homes and
supported by those around them after the
traumatic event. In response, Marszewski
led a crisis intervention by holding a weekly
story circle in the main common area
of the complex. The story circle enabled
people to define channels where they could
start to communicate with one another,
and people were able to see that there
were fellow residents who shared similar
concerns. Since its inception in 2006,
the Peacebuilders program has helped

Ashoka Changemakers

divert over 400 youth from the criminal

justice system through its work to promote
community trust.
Similarly, Ashoka Fellows Pastor James
Wuye and Imam Mohammed Ashafa employ
the power of trust-building to open the
possibility of community wellbeing, even in
areas suffering from frequent violence. They
co-founded the Interfaith Mediation Center
of the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum
to overcome the violent tensions between
Christians and Muslims in Nigeria. One of
their methods is to create communities of
youth engaged in peacebuilding through
interfaith training camps. By joining youth
from opposites sides of the religious rift
in a common effort of peacebuilding, the
program equips youth to emerge as leaders
with inclusive spirits that see the humanity
in the other and that take the initiative to
support one anothers wellbeing.
Like Marszewski and Pastor Wuye and
Imam Ashafa, Ashoka Fellow Jean Claude
Rodriguez has found that uniting people
around a specific collective action can create
a wellbeing-inducing community of trust. For
example, Rodriguez equipped immigrants
in Spain to form support networks
that increase their ability to integrate
successfully into their new environments.
When Rodriguez first attempted to engage
people who didnt know each other to
form support networks around the vague
purpose of helping each other, the result

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

popofatticus, Flickr

was lackluster participation. However,

when he created a focus around access to
flexible credit, participants had a strong
reason to come together. By working
together to operate small savings and loans
cooperatives, people built relationships of
trust and support. A safety net blossomed,
and individual and collective wellbeing
flourished.
Technology can be an effective tool for
leveraging communities of trust, especially
when the community members experience
prejudice or discrimination. Ashoka Fellow
Laurindo Garcia and his organization,
B-Change, create anonymous online forums
where LGBTQ people in Southeast Asia
can connect with one another and access

information. B-Change also offers forums

where the parents of LGBTQ youth can find
a safe space to connect and learn about the
issues from one another, before having a
conversation with their kids. In these forums,
parents have a safe space where they can
talk with their peers, Garcia said. They
dont have to be afraid to make politically
incorrect mistakes in terminology. They can
ask questions that might otherwise affect
their child without fear of being branded as
stupid or a bigot.
In contexts such as this one, technology can
be used to blend anonymity with information
and communication in ways that help people
form a wellness-inducing community of
trust.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

35

Community lending
Storytelling circles
Online forums
Collaborative
Activities

Training camps

Trust Grows
Safety net
Stakeholder leaders
Community
of trust

Peacebuilding
Collective power
Collective Action

Positive effects ripple across

society as individuals feel better
about themselves as well as
improve their ability to care
for others

Social entrepreneurs can employ collaborative activities to

build communities of trust where supportive networks and
collective action can help improve wellbeing for all.

36

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Fellows Whose Organizational Model

Uses This Design Principle

Stephanie Hankey

Jean Claude
Rodriguez

Eva Marszewski

Laurindo Garcia

Bedriye Hulya

Jeroo Billimoria

James Wuye

Shauneen Lambe

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

Suresh Kumar

37

Design Principle 4
Equip People with Tools to Actively Pursue Wellbeing and
Successfully Adopt Positive Behaviors

Equipping people
with concrete, bitesized steps toward
wellbeing increases
the odds that these
behavior changes
will be successfully
adopted.

Social entrepreneurs are nurturing

the growth of a culture of wellbeing by
equipping individuals to actively pursue
healthy, happiness-inducing activities and
behavior changes. Service providers often
focus all of their efforts on responding
to negative outcomes, such as criminal
activity or mental health crises, rather
than on intentionally equipping people to
pursue positive actions, such as exercising
or connecting with others. For example,
hospitals channel most of their resources
toward treating illness, but within a culture
of wellbeing, actively promoting and tracking
healthy behaviors would be an additional (if
not more effective) focus.
What does equipping people to pursue
wellbeing look like? We discuss the way
social entrepreneurs are cultivating
wellbeing skills like self-awareness and
empathy in Design Principle 2. Along with
cultivating such skills, social entrepreneurs
are designing their programs with practical
methods that empower people to pursue
and succeed at positive behavior change.
These include:
Providing tools grounded in human
experience;
Breaking up the pursuit of wellbeing into
simple, concrete actions;
Introducing specific behavior changes that
can be tracked and celebrated over time;
and
Allowing people the ability to move at the
pace they need.

38

Ashoka Changemakers

For example, Ashoka Fellow Krystian Fikerts

organization, MyMind, provides webbased tools that lead users through simple
steps to improve their mental health and
that help them access mental healthcare
services. MyMind is human-centered in that
it recognizes that people have a variety of
needs and comfort levels when it comes to
engaging with mental health. It provides a
menu of options that give users easy entry
points toward pursuing mental wellbeing,
including just-in-time communications
through email and online chat, diagnostic
quizzes, and easy ways to schedule an
appointment with a therapist. By giving
users the power to seek mental healthcare
services on their own terms and on their
own timelines, MyMind equips people to
pursue their own path toward wellbeing, and
thus reaches more people more effectively.
MyMind makes highly effective use of online
technologies to reduce overhead costs at
scale and open the possibility of virtual
access, thereby ensuring that more people
can access their high-quality services at
costs that are far below market rates for
mental healthcare services.
MyMind also deploys this Design Principle is
through its #LittleThings campaign, which
was launched in partnership with the Irish
Health Service Executive. #LittleThings
introduced nine concrete activities that
people can do in their daily lives to increase
their own wellbeing, such as getting
proper sleep, eating healthily, exercising,
connecting with friends, and talking about
personal problems. Equipping people with
concrete, bite-sized steps toward wellbeing
increases the odds that these behavior
changes will be successfully adopted.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

The Wellbeing Scale

Traditional service
providers tend to
target clients who
are here

-10

-9

End goal that

traditional service
providers tend to
have for their clients

-8

-7

-6

-5

-4

-3

-2

A lack of wellbeing

-1

End goal for

everyone within
a culture of
wellbeing

Neutral state

10

Wellbeing

Fikert describes wellbeing as a scale from negative 10 (lack of wellbeing) to positive

10 (full wellbeing). This scale represents a shift in the way wellbeing is usually talked
about, because traditional service providers tend to make a lack of illness, rather than
the presence of wellbeing, their goal. They work to bring clients back to -3 or -2, but
nothing more than that." This Design Principle, on the other hand, encourages service
providers and individuals to strive for the positive side of the wellbeing spectrum.
MyMind does this by equipping clients to decide what changes theyre going to make
in their life to continue on a journey toward wellbeing.

Another way that social entrepreneurs equip

individuals to actively pursue wellbeing is
by creating pathways that address root
problems. In a culture of wellbeing, people,
communities, and institutions proactively
identify the root problem behind a lack of
wellbeing and then alleviate those triggers
ideally early on, before the situation
develops into a crisis.
For example, Africa Yoga Project (AYP),
founded by Ashoka Fellow Paige Elenson,
targets dual root problems underlying the
lack of wellbeing experienced by youth in
Africa: unemployment and a weak wellbeing
economy. Elenson works to equip youth
with meaningful employment opportunities
through a learn-and-earn model that
teaches young adults to become yoga
teachers and enables program participants

to earn an income while they complete their

training. While participants undergo training,
which includes both yoga teacher training
and personal development classes, they
also grow the market for wellbeing services
through community outreach and education.
By creating job opportunities that allow
young adults to do more than just become
a tax-paying member of society and to
actively contribute to a wellbeing economy,
AYPs model thus targets root problems
while also enabling participants to play a
meaningful roles as wellbeing advocates in
their communities (See Design Principle 1).
Participants are engaged in work they find
meaningful and that causes them to feel
good about themselves because they are
contributing to something bigger.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

39

Traditional Social Service Providers

Social Entrepreneurs for Wellbeing

Funding

Funding

Programming

Programming

Measures of Success

Measures of Success

React to problems
with short-term
solutions

Prevention and
early intervention

(e.g. punish law breakers and

treat diseases)

Address root
problems

Equip
individuals for
positive behavior
change

Directing funding, programming, and measures of

success away from negative outcomes and toward an
active pursuit of early interventions, root problems, and
positive behavior changes can open new possibilities for
creating a culture of wellbeing.

40

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Arcadiu, Flickr

Fellows Whose Organizational Model

Uses This Design Principle

Jeroo Billimoria

Paige Elenson

Krystian Fikert

Stephanie Hankey

Shauneen Lambe

Bedriye Hulya

Laurindo Garcia

James Wuye

Eva Marszewski

Lone Koldby

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

41

Design Principle 5
From Top-Down to Co-Creation: Shift Relationships
Between Providers and Clients

In a dynamic of
co-creation, service
providers respect
and actively listen
to client voices, and
client experiences
deeply inform
the way services
are designed and
delivered.

The relationship between social services

providers and clients is typically top-down,
in which providers dictate what clients
need and how they will fulfill those needs.
However, top-down relationships mean that
actual lived, human experiences are often
not placed at the center of wellbeing services
(See Barrier C for more information).

Offering client-centered products and

services; and

Shifting this relationship to one of cocreation or even client leadership is a key

strategy for unlocking wellbeing for all. In a
dynamic of co-creation, service providers
respect and actively listen to client voices,
and client experiences deeply inform the
way services are designed and delivered. On
an individual level, this means that people
have the agency and ability to design and
select for themselves the services they want
and need to promote their own wellbeing.

Clients personally experience a specific

problem, and thus have practical insights
that can be key to solving that problem. In
top-down relationships, service providers
are assumed to have all the knowledge
and expertise. However, in co-creation
relationships, the clients lived experience
is also considered expertise, and service
providers collaborate with clients to shape
the best possible experience for them. For
lived experience to truly take on the role
of expertise, a service provider must not
merely listen to the concerns of clients,
but there must be a proactive exchange
of expertise on the part of both service
providers and clients.

Within the larger framework of a culture

of wellbeing, co-creation relationships
empower individuals to provide feedback
to and become actively involved in the
institutions that impact their lives, while
institutions become equipped to evolve
according to the lived experiences of their
clients.
Social entrepreneurs use several methods
to build co-creation relationships between
service providers and clients, including:
Elevating lived experience as expertise;
Making space within institutions for clients
to engage as co-creators;

42

Ashoka Changemakers

Putting clients in control over their own

information.

Elevating personal experience as

expertise

Ashoka Fellow Lone Koldby puts this

method to work at her organization,
Aktivitetsdosetten, which works to humanize
long-term care for the elderly in Norway. She
described the typical top-down approach of
nursing homes in this way: Previously, if you
got ill, the thinking was that you would have
someone to get you well, and a system would
automatically think for you. You wouldn't be
involved.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

However, Aktivitetsdosetten is changing

the way caregivers approach clients and
ask questions. First, caregivers would just
say, This is what we will do for you, because
this is what you need,Koldby explained.
And then they would ask, What would
you like us to do? Now, they ask, What's
the most important thing for you, and how
can you contribute to getting well? Thus,
the organization is creating a mindset shift
that elevates lived experience as expertise.
Furthermore, the active role that patients
can play in their own care lays a foundation
for building a co-creation relationship
between providers and clients.

Making space within institutions

for clients to engage as cocreators
In order to shift away from the traditional
transactional structure of service delivery,
institutions must make the space needed
for clients and providers to engage in cocreation processes. Providers that wish to
promote wellbeing for all must be prepared
to adapt to these changes. Specific methods
for catalyzing providers to make the space
for co-creation include:
Holding institutions accountable and
advocating for institutional change;
Creating ways for people in power to
experience and practice empathy;
Using storytelling as a methodology for
changing public opinion;
Promoting transparent decision making
processes within institutions;
Placing people from oppressed groups
into positions of power; and
Shifting the control over wellbeing
services from providers to clients.

Citymart, founded by Ashoka Fellow Sascha

Haselmayer, makes space for co-creation
by helping cities include citizens within their
problem solving methodologies (i.e. how
cities identify, categorize, address, and track
progress on problems). Citymart works
with city governments to make changes to
their legal, administrative, financial, and
leadership tools. The organization also helps
local governments think more critically
about the projects theyre undertaking,
consider the desired impact or beneficiary
during decision making, and build solutions
with citizens desires in mind.
Haselmayer described the ultimate vision
for Citymart as one in which people in
every community are solving the problems
they find. Government becomes more
of a distributed task, so that it's the job of
everyone to be like government, and the job
of government to be like a citizen. Everyone
has a changemaker attitudeno one should
walk away from a problem. Haselmayers
vision expresses what a true transformation
toward co-creation relationships between
providers and clients could look like.

In co-creation
relationships,
the clients lived
experience is also
considered expertise

Offering client-centered products

and services
Once providers begin to value lived
experience as expertise and make
institutional space for co-creation, then it
can become possible to offer products and
services that reflect the true desires and
constraints of their users. It is a well-known
best practice that providers should offer
client-centered products and services, yet
social entrepreneurs see institutions failing
to do this worldwide. Social entrepreneurs
offer some specific strategies for providing
client-driven products and services,
including:
Providing holistic support through a single
point of entry;

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

43

Elevate lived experience as expertise

Make space within institutions for clients

to engage as co-creators

Offer client-centered
services
Give patients
control over their
information

When clients are

equipped to access
and control their
own information,
they become better
informed and more
able to direct their
own care and engage
in a co-creation
process with their
providers.

44

Meeting people where theyre at

(offering products and services that reflect
the current state of the client rather than
the current state that the provider desires
for the client);
Engaging individuals interests;
Providing an advocate or a mentor; and
Making treatment accessible and
affordable to all.
Ashoka Fellow Jeroo Billimoria employs
a client-centered approach in her work to
promote the financial inclusion of children.
Billimoria leads a multi-sector network
dedicated to creating regulatory reform to
make financial systems more accessible to
children. She has worked with banks and
governments to lower the age requirement
for opening a bank accounts to 10 years
old. Her organization, Children and Youth
Finance International, engages government
bodies, banks, and other institutions in over
100 countries to create an ecosystem in
which financial inclusion of children is valued
and a priority for everyone.

Ashoka Changemakers

Social entrepreneurs can help to create a

culture of wellbeing by shifting institutional
environments and provider mindsets so
that patients and clients have the power to
pursue wellbeing on their own terms.

Putting clients in control over their

own information
One important component of client-centered
services is the ability of clients to access and
control their information, particularly when
it comes to medical records. When clients
are equipped to access and control their own
information, they become better informed
and better able to direct their own care
and engage in a co-creation process with
their providers. Then, the next step toward
building an infrastructure of co-creation
is for institutions and service providers to
integrate client-controlled data into their
core operations.
Ashoka Fellow Mohammad Al-Ubaydli
is implementing this step through his
organization, Patients Know Best, which is
working to make patient-controlled medical
records the norm within medical institutions.
Patients Know Best is an online platform
that patients can use to keep track of all
of their medical records in a way that both
protects their privacy and grants them full
and easy access to and control over their
data.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

U.S. Department of Agriculture, Flickr

Fellows Whose Organizational Model

Uses This Design Principle

Shauneen Lambe

Krystian Fikert

Paige Elenson

Mohammad
Al-Ubaydli

Suresh Kumar

Sascha Haselmayer

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

Lone Koldby

45

I would measure wellbeing amongst many other

things as to whether all the available resources in my
community are used to solve my problems.
Sascha Haselmayer

4646

Damien @ Flickr, Flickr

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Social Innovation Matrix:

Mapping of Social Entrepreneurs Solutions, Barriers
Targeted, and Design Principles Applied

Design Principles

Barriers
A. Siloed Approach:
Wellbeing is Not
Adequately Defined
and Measured

B. No Care for
Caregivers:
Wellbeing Roles are
Often Undervalued

C. Institutions Dont
Empower Individuals
to Pursue Their Own
Wellbeing

D. Threats to
Digital Security
are Threats to
Wellbeing

1. The Multiplier
Effect: Create
Opportunities
for Individuals to
Play Meaningful
Roles in Their
Communities

Shauneen Lambe,
Just for Kids Law

Bedriye Hulya, b-fit

Paige Elenson,
Africa Yoga Project

Stephanie Hankey,
Tactical Technology
Collective

2. Practice SelfAwareness and

Empathy Skills to
Nurture Wellbeing

Opportunity for
innovation: methods
of measuring selfawareness and
empathy

Suresh Kumar,
Institute of Palliative
Medicine

Ana Lcia Villela,

Instituto Alana

Opportunity
for innovation:
incorporating
self-awareness
and empathy into
approaches to
digital security

3. Unlock
Wellbeing Through
Actively Building
Communities of
Trust

Pastor James Wuye,

Interfaith Meditation
Center of the MuslimChristian Dialogue

Opportunity
for innovation:
communities of trust
for caregivers

Laurindo Garcia,
B-Change

Jean Claude
Rodriguez, Puddle

4. Equip People
with Tools to
Actively Pursue
Wellbeing and
Successfully
Adopt Positive
Behaviors

Eva Marszewski,
Peace Builders

Opportunity for
innovation: equipping
caregivers with the
tools they need to
pursue their own
wellbeing

Lone Koldby,
Aktivititdosetten

Opportunity for
innovation: equip
people to use
technology in
ways that actively
promote their
wellbeing

5. From TopDown to CoCreation: Shift

Relationships
Between Providers
and Clients

Krystian Fikert,
MyMind

Opportunity for
innovation: cocreating programs of
support for caregivers

Jeroo Billimoria,
Child & Youth Finance
International

Mohammad
Al-Ubaydli,
Patients Know Best

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

47

Looking Ahead

In the last decades, we have seen significant

improvements in wellbeing globally through
large investments in healthcare, education, and
economic development. However, challenges to
wellbeing continue to emerge.

Through systems-changing solutions, social entrepreneurs

target the root causes of problems rather than merely addressing
symptoms. Societies need systems change at scale, which
depends upon shifting mindsets and behavioral patterns. This
Social Innovation Mapping has shown us that we need to work
through a framework which integrates the siloed systems that
impact wellbeing and focuses on mainstreaming these five Design
Principles:
Create Opportunities for Individuals to Discover Meaningful Roles
in Their Communities
Practice Self-Awareness and Empathy Skills to Nurture Wellbeing
Unlock Wellbeing Through Actively Building Communities of Trust

Wicked problems those global challenges

that are so complicated and continuously
changing that the solutions are neither clear
nor stable and can only be tackled through
complex, systemic change, with all hands on
deck.
Risa Lavizzo-Mourey
Robert Wood Johnson President and CEO
(World Economic Forum, 2015)

Equip People with Tools to Actively Pursue Wellbeing and

Successfully Adopt Healthy Behaviors
Shift Relationships Between Providers and Clients from Top-Down
to Co-Creation

48

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Peter Halling Hilborg, Flickr

There are three major opportunities to support the development of this

framework for a culture of wellbeing:

Build alignment around a framework for wellbeing by creating

cross-sector indicators for measuring and promoting a culture
of wellbeing
Wellbeing spans multiple sectors and, as we
discussed in Barrier A, has traditionally been
inadequately defined and measured. Developing
indicators to measure the diverse systems
impacting wellbeing in an integrated way could
help to accelerate progress toward a culture of
wellbeing. These indicators should measure the
positive components of a culture of wellbeing,
including:
Whether individuals have access to and are
equipped to play meaningful roles in their communities;

Whether individuals are equipped for an active

pursuit of wellbeing; and
How healthcare providers and clients are working together to improve collective wellbeing.
Developing indicators to measure these
components of a culture of wellbeing could also
help to build and disseminate a shared vision
for wellbeing across sectors and could enable
individuals, communities, and institutions to track
their progress toward personal and collective
wellbeing.

Whether individuals, and children in particular,

are being equipped to develop self-regulation,
confidence, resiliency, empathy, and changemaking skills;

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

49

Target investments to promote innovations and collaborations

at the framework level of a culture of wellbeing
Most of the current wellbeing investments from social, corporate, and public sectors go toward solutions
that either provide direct services to beneficiaries or aim to address problems in siloed systems. As
a result of these investments, improvements have been achieved in access, quality, and efficiency of
products and services that improve health and wellbeing. However, siloed investments do not effectively
create a culture of wellbeing that integrates many systems. As a result, widespread behavioral change
and a shift toward proactively seeking wellbeing for all has yet to occur. For this reason, it is critical to
support systems-changing ideas and partnerships that are accelerating mindset shifts in society.

How to accelerate mindset shifts?

One high-potential area where accelerating mindset shifts could strengthen the framework of a culture
of wellbeing is caregiving. Traditional approaches toward caregiving are siloed and transaction-based.
For example, people receive services for assisted living, to cope with disability or illness, or to manage
their home lives and spaces.
However, there is a growing shift in the understanding of caregiving, one that is moving toward
recognizing that caregivers, both informal and formal, play many roles when it comes to enhancing
wellbeing, and that a diverse spectrum of people have the potential to be equipped with caregiving skills
for the betterment of collective and individual wellbeing. There is also an increase in understanding that
caregivers have an immense, untapped value and expertise that would enable wellbeing institutions to
improve their work.
This positive shift could be accelerated by targeted investment to support activities such as:
1.

Equipping people with the skills and tools to engage in caregiving;

2. Creating mechanisms to recognize, value, and support caregivers;

3. Integrating informal networks of caregivers into the formal systems of health, education, legal, and
finance;
4. Developing mechanisms for caregivers to collaborate with health systems to create new products
and services;
5. Shifting the conversation around expertise and experts; and
6. Helping society value and trust in informal networks of caregivers as the experts in a new wellbeing
economy, with a different set of norms rooted in a culture of wellbeing.

50

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Catalyze a positive language shift around wellbeing and create

community incentives to participate in the culture of wellbeing
framework
Creating a culture of wellbeing implies a shift from
a negative approach, which is focused on problems
(e.g. crisis, disease, violence), to a positive one,
in which all people are valued and equipped to
create wellbeing for themselves and others. Using
positive language could help shape the adoption
of a framework for understanding wellbeing as a
holistic, multifaceted, and inclusive system.
Initiatives that combine catalytic language
through storytelling, media campaigns, and
stakeholder engagementwith developing
pathways to participate in a culture of wellbeing
have the powerful potential to shift mindsets, and
therefore actions, on a large scale.
For example, Ashoka Fellow Ana Lcia Villela,
founder of Instituto Alana in Brazil, works to

improve childrens wellbeing through changing

mindsets about the detrimental effects that
consumerist culture can have on childhood
development. By leveraging storytelling through
film and communication campaigns, Instituto
Alana has successfully advocated for commercialfree childhoods and raised awareness about the
connection between advertising and childhood
obesity, as well as other psychological effects.
Through its campaigns, Instituto Alana also equips
parents, educators, and institutions to understand
how to honor childrens needs and support
what children truly need to grow up with a positive
start in life. It is catalyzing a positive, shared
language around childrens wellbeing and creating
awareness across society of the role each person
can play in nurturing healthy childhoods.

A Vision for a Culture of Wellbeing

A crosscutting theme that has emerged from our
work with Ashoka Fellows and presented in this
Social Innovation Mapping is the importance of
recognizing the valuable role that each person
can play in creating a culture of wellbeing. Social
entrepreneurs employ a variety of powerful
methods to achieve this vision, including creating
opportunities for individuals to play meaningful roles
in their communities and equipping them with the
tools to pursue wellbeing. If there were society-wide
buy-in to the value of each persons role in creating a

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

culture of wellbeing, then this transformative mindset

shift could have the power to ignite peoples full
potential to act as changemakers for themselves and
others. This reorientation toward actively engaging all
people in creating wellbeing could have the power to
amplify societys ability to solve complex challenges
as they emerge. Moreover, such a shift could lay the
foundation for developing positive environments that
circumvent problems and nurture ideas that promote
wellbeing for all.

Ashoka Changemakers

51

Appendix A

Our Methodology
Social Innovation Mapping

52

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

What does the rest of the world know and how can it
evolve and improve as more solutions are added?
Sushmita Ghosh, Ashoka

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

Liv Unni Sdem, Flickr

53

Appendix A
About Social Innovation Mapping
Methodology and a Case for Bold Optimism
As a network of leading social
entrepreneurs, Ashoka has intimately
explored how an entrepreneurial mindset
can unlock solutions to the worlds most
pressing problems. Across more than 75
countries and dozens of sectors, dauntless
social entrepreneurs in Ashokas Fellowship
network are transforming complex
challenges and previously unsolvable
problems into opportunities. They create
sustainable solutions for the communities
they are rooted within and find creative ways
to ensure their impact spreads regionally,
and even globally, to become new and
widespread norms.
Based upon interviews and case studies
of both industry experts and Ashoka
Fellows, Social Innovation Mapping
illustrates common patterns in how social
entrepreneurs are creating positive social
change. It centers around two types of
patterns: Barriers, or the components of
a complex problem entrepreneurs have
chosen to focus on tackling, and Design
Principles, or the innovative approaches
that define the work of entrepreneurs,
based upon their decades of iteration on the
ground.
This report tells the stories of effective
solutions in order to make the case for bold
optimism and to inspire a vision of a better
future. These pages should be seen as an
invitation to re-envision what is possible
through the eyes of entrepreneurs.

54

Ashoka Changemakers

Pattern Recognition Process

Ashokas Social Innovation Mapping process
begins by determining a single framing
question. The question both describes the
shift we hope to see around a given issue
in the future, as well as the goal of the
organizations and entrepreneurs whose
work we include in the mapping.
Next, we sift through Ashokas Fellow
database of more than 3,000 solutions
from social entrepreneurs to select those
most applicable to the field. The Fellows
have already undergone a rigorous process
before their election to the Fellowship, which
includes a thorough examination of their
ideas and performance.
Next, we pare down the pool of solutions
to those that are the most relevant and
innovative to the framing question, focusing
on selecting 15-30 solutions for case studies
and interviews. Finally, we cluster them and
look for patterns in how the innovators both
define the problem they face and what they
do to solve it. These patterns can point to
powerful ways to reframe a problem, as well
as new ways of addressing it. Ultimately,
this analysis reveals the a-ha moment of
recognition in which a social entrepreneur
accurately pairs a powerful idea with a
compelling need. (See Figure 3.)
Once the analysis is mapped in a grid,
the distribution of the solutions becomes
apparent, showing which strategies are
most commonly (and most powerfully) used.
Additionally, the grid can point to holes or
areas where there may be unmet potential
for a solution or innovation.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

How the social entrepreneurs were chosen

for analysis in this report
This Social Innovation Mapping report is guided by the following framing question:
How are social entrepreneurs successfully creating and nurturing both a culture of health and wellbeing
within their communities and the skills needed and conditions desired to enable this to happen?
sectors relevant wellbeing in society whether tackling
elder care and mental health to youth engagement
and financial resilience. Thus, the social entrepreneurs
featured within the report have their headquarters in 14
countries, working across multiple sectors.

Using this framing question as a focal point for finding

cross-cutting insights, 87 relevant Ashoka Fellows
and candidates were identified. This cohort was
then narrowed down to 15, chosen for representing
different regions of the world outside of the U.S., and
for representing a full range of the institutions and

Pattern-Recognition Methodology
The following diagram describes Ashokas analysis process used for Social Innovation Mapping.

Frame the question

Research solutions

Cull the solutions

The strengths of Social Innovation Mapping

Mapping outlines a social entrepreneurs view of the
world by focusing on common patterns across solutions.
Social entrepreneurs design solutions that address the
thorniest aspect of effecting change: human interactions
in a system. Analyzing their solutions can predict and
show ways to circumvent behavioral barriers to change
and unlock lasting, systemic transformation.
Mapping allows successful solutions to be examined
in context with one another. The mapping shows how
ideas relate to one another, as well as highlights the core
elements of a problem. The result is the emergence
of clear patterns and questions to investigate: Which
aspects of a problem are as yet unaddressed? Are
some strategies underutilized or overutilized? Is there

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Pattern recognition

Build the framework

an aspect of a problem that has yet to be named? Are

there holes in the system that await the design of a new
solution?
Mapping provides the blueprint for a theory of change at
a systems level. The patterns and insights revealed by
Social Innovation Mapping can lead to the development
of a strategy that integrates a mix of solutions, which
can lead to an overall increase in energy and resources
applied to the problem. While any theory of change is
subjective, this contextual mapping allows for a holistic
approach to problem solving.
Mapping creates criteria for predicting success. The
Design Principles and Barriers provide a road map for
evaluating new projects and for guiding the innovation of
new ideas.

Ashoka Changemakers

55

Appendix B

Case Study on
Scaling a Culture
of Wellbeing
Jeroo Billimoria

56

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Once we crossed helping the hundred-millionth child

through Child Helplines, I started sayinghow can
we move from rescue, rehabilitation, or counseling to
actually making sure that a child doesn't have to call
at all?
Jeroo Billimoria

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

Todd Anderson, Flickr

57

Appendix B
Case Study on Scaling a Culture of Wellbeing:
Jeroo Billimoria

Jeroo Billimoria
Child & Youth
Finance
International
Organization

Ashoka Fellow Jeroo Billimoria

demonstrates how some of the Design
Principles for creating a culture of wellbeing
can be scaled across society. For over two
decades, Billimoria has dedicated herself
to creating and promoting wellbeing for
children across the world. Her systemschanging ideas and strategies have evolved
from supporting homeless children to
empowering all children with the tools and
skills they need to become agents of change
for themselves and for others. In the last few
years, she has amplified the scope of her
work to address one of the root problems of
childrens lack of wellbeing: their financial
exclusion.

Promoting the wellbeing of

children: The power of networks
In 1993, Billimoria started Child Helpline as
a 24-hour hotline for street children in need
of shelter, or medical or legal assistance.
In partnership with government and child
services institutions, Child Helplines
expanded from India to over 140 countries,
demonstrating the power of working
through a network of institutions committed
to improving the wellbeing of homeless
children.

Addressing systemic challenges:

From child support to
empowerment
Once Child Helplines crossed the
benchmark of the hundred-millionth child
helped through the helplines, Billimoria

58

Ashoka Changemakers

started asking herself, How can we move

from rescue, rehabilitation, or counseling
to actually making sure that a child doesn't
have to call up at all? Billimorias hypothesis
was that if children were financially capable
and had access to the financial system, then
their whole family and community would
shift upwards along with them.
Knowing that children can be very
entrepreneurial, but that they often dont
have the skills, confidence, and especially
the resources to start their own enterprises,
she decided to create another organization,
Aflatoun, to teach children about money
and their own economic power. Aflatoun
developed a curriculum for teachers to
help children learn about their economic
rights and responsibilities and develop their
financial management skills.
Through a network of social organizations
and government bodies, Aflatoun reaches
four million children and youth per year in
more than 110 countries, and it has changed
the way schools, social organizations, and
financial and governmental institutions see
and engage with children.

Changing the ecosystem:

Every child is included in the
financial system
Realizing that children were still excluded
from the financial system, Billimoria created
Child & Youth Finance International (CYFI)
to lead a multi-sectoral network dedicated
to enhancing the financial capabilities of
children and creating regulatory reform

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

to promote their financial inclusion. CYFI engages government bodies, banks, and other
institutions to make these changes happen and create an ecosystem in which financial
inclusion of children is valued and a priority for everyone.
Approaching wellbeing holistically, Billimoria has been able to drive childrens financial
inclusion as a powerful lever for systemic change. She has placed the real, lived experiences
of children at the center of her model, and has thus been able to identify needs and barriers
that the traditional financial and social services systems ignored. By equipping children and
community stakeholders like schools with the tools to adopt positive behaviors, Billimoria
is unlocking wide-scale change. Some of Billimorias key methods for scaling up systemschanging ideas include:
Engage partners with a clear vision and theory of change, and work through them to
implement programs and influence important stakeholders;
Develop cross-sector indicators as well as mechanisms for measuring them at the local
and global levels; and
Use these indicators to influence national and global policymakers and push for regulatory
reforms.
Billimorias work to promote the wellbeing of children by working across sectors to achieve a
collective vision can inspire and inform our journey to create a culture of wellbeing on a grand
scale.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

59

Appendix C

Meet the Social

Entrepreneurs

60

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

There is nothing more powerful than a systemschanging idea in the hands of a leading social
entrepreneur.
Bill Drayton, Founder of Ashoka

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

followtheseinstructions, Flickr

61

Transforming mindsets to honor childhood

Ana Lcia Villela

We couldnt
have had a fifth
of our impact in
changing public
policy and societys
mindset if it was
not for our work on
storytelling.

Instituto Alana
Organization
Brazil
Country

WHAT IF children could grow up with a different

approach to consumerism?

alana.org.br
Website

Approach
Instituto Alana created the Children and Consumerism Project
to spark a debate about the effects of advertising on childhood
development and to challenge the legal frameworks that allow the
advertizing industry to thrive on targeting young audiences. In order
to ensure that children can enjoy commercial-free childhoods, Ana
has created channels of communication in order to give the public
access to news and information about this topic and equip them
with the tools they need to take action once marketing abuses
are identified. She works with influential decision-makers (i.e.
in government and big advertising companies) to change their
approaches. As a result, Instituto Alana has successfully entrenched
this issue in Brazils social and political agenda and has secured
important legal victories that have increased regulatory norms for
ads targeting children.

Person
Having lost her parents as a child, Ana Lcia has personal experience
with the effect that environmentsboth material and emotional
have on children. Her organization, Instituto Alana, was born from
envisioning the optimal environments for stimulating a childs
full and healthy development. Through Instituto Alanas work
with children in low-income communities of So Paulo, Ana Lcia
has identified childhood consumerism as a root cause of many
problems, including obesity, materialism, and risky behaviors. She
is convinced that this issue can only be addressed through changing
societal mindsets. As a result, media work and storytelling are
essential components of Instituto Alanas strategies.

62

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Reinventing exercise clubs creates a wellness

industry led by and for women

Bedriye Hulya
Before b-Fit, 85%
of the exercise clubs
belonged only to
men in Turkey. We
are the largest chain
of exercise clubs
now, and it belongs
all to women.

b-Fit
Organization
Turkey
Country

WHAT IF all women were equipped to launch and

lead ventures that aim to promote the health and
wellbeing of women?

b-fit.com.tr
Website

Approach
b-Fit is the largest and most widespread health and recreation
center chain in Turkey, significantly transforming a sector that was
largely dominated by men. With more than 200 centers and 250,000
clients, b-Fit is co-owned, franchised, managed, and used by
women only, and combines a gym with a community center to form
alternative spaces for women of all ages and backgrounds to develop
a range of essential life skills. In addition, b-Fit enables hundreds of
women to enter professional work and gain economic citizenship.

Person
Bedriye is a firm believer that self-awareness and empowerment
start with the body. After founding several enterprises, she took a
career break to study psychology in the U.S. and came across the
concept of women-only gyms, which spurred her inspiration for
launching b-Fit in Turkey. Realizing that there were no women-only
gyms that were truly diffusing the idea of womens empowerment in
their core approach, she created her own unique by and for women
approach for b-Fit.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

63

Community circles stop downward spirals

of youth conflict

Eva Marszewski
For every young
person that comes
into our program,
apart from trying
to figure out to
what extent they
have responsibility
for the things they
were involved in, it's
really a journey of
self-discovery to see
where should they
be focusing their
lives.

Peacebuilders
International
Organization
Canada
Country

WHAT IF conflicts could be quickly resolved

by communities before any youth ever became
entangled in the justice system?

peacebuilders.ca
Website

Approach
Eva shifts the decision-making power in the youth justice system
away from the courts and into the hands of individuals and
communities, helping people change their behavior through
collective decision-making, conflict resolution, and other
peacebuilding tools. She partners with elementary schools, high
schools, universities, correctional officers, police centers, and the
Canadian court system to teach the value of peace and conflict
resolution, giving community members and organizations tools and
greater influence in determining the course of action to address
youth in conflict.

Person
For three decades, Eva observed many dysfunctional aspects of the
justice system through her work as a civil litigator, labor arbitrator,
and mediator of civil disputes. In the '90s, Eva was invited to become
part of an aboriginal peacemaking circle, where she saw the power
of a diverse group of social agents coming together to address the
conflicting nature of a young male who had set fire to a community
members home. The community used facilitated dialogue and
traditional practices to decide the appropriate means of action
without resorting to a criminal justice resolution and court sentence.
This was a formative experience that led her to adapt the traditional
practice and later embed it in various social structures in Canada.

64

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

From enemies to peace ambassadors: transforming

community violence into cooperation

James Wuye
We say we should
go beyond tolerance.
We are preaching
that people accept
their differences
and work with their
differences. This is
the methodology
that we have used
over the years that is
quite effective.

WHAT IF radicalization and violence was prevented

by informed, targeted, and interfaith outreach?

Interfaith
Mediation Center
of the MuslimChristian Dialogue
Forum
Organization
(co-founded with
Ashoka Fellow Imam
Ashafa)

Approach
Pastor Wuye and Imam Ashafa believe the only way religious
violence can be reduced or stopped is by having leaders of each
faith promote religious teachings of peace and non-violence. Their
organization deals with the psychology of religious violence and
addresses its causes and effects by training young people, men,
and women of both faiths to bring different religious communities
together in dialogue. Wuye and Ashafa work with and influence
schools, houses of worship, and community centers to prevent
violence and intervene when conflicts erupt. They have a weekly
television show with more than two million viewers and their focus
on education and media outreach strategies have afforded them
widespread support and legitimacy for their efforts to promote
peaceful coexistence.

Nigeria
Country
imc-nigeria.org
Website

Person
Pastor Wuye and Imam Ashafa began their relationship as enemies.
Pastor Wuye was involved in militant Christian activities in the 1980s
and '90s and recounts that his hatred for the Muslims had no
limits. He lost his right arm during a battle against Imam Ashafas
militant group. Ashafa also sufferred from loss. Two cousins and
Ashafas spiritual mentor died while fighting Pastor Wuyes Christian
group. For years, both Wuye and Ashafa vowed to avenge the deaths
and injuries of their loved ones by killing each other. However, in
1995, through intermediaries and months of soul-searching, both
leaders decided to lay down their arms and work together to end
the destructive violence plaguing their country, which led to the
formation of the Interfaith Mediation Center of Muslim-Christian
Dialogue Forum.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

65

Strengthen safety nets through enabling

trust-based financing

Jean Claude
Rodriguez
If a community can
mobilize all of its
capital, there will be
enough to supply for
everyones needs.

Puddle
Organization

WHAT IF decisions that impact financial inclusion

were placed in the hands of local, trust-based
communities?

Spain &
United States
Country
puddle.com
Website

Approach
Recognizing that this model could vastly increase its reach through
online technology, Jean Claude partnered with Kiva to create Puddle
to give everyone the opportunity to own a small virtual bank with
their friendsno fees and no applications. Users decide on interest
rates, who can be members, and who can borrow money. Profits
made from the interest rates paid by borrowers are distributed
among group members. Launched in 2012, Puddles model is being
implemented in the United States and has 20,000 members.

Person
After college in Spain, Jean Claude started a program to market the
handicrafts of indigenous women in Guatemala. In Latin America,
he discovered the bancomunales model, created by Salomn
Raydn, and was drawn to it because it used community banks to
provide opportunities for people to gather together and share, in
addition to mere financing. Upon returning to Spain, Jean Claude
organized the Association for Self-Financed Communities (ACAF) to
support immigrants in creating self-managed financial communities.
Employing a simple, self-sustaining system of savings and loans,
the members of these communities are able to access financial
products and services that help them get ahead financially. These
communities also play an important role in providing a relational
network for immigrants and are critical for making contacts, finding
jobs, and providing a financial fallback in case of emergency or
unforeseen circumstances.

66

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Spark child wellbeing through creating

child-friendly banking

Jeroo Billimoria
We need to change
the entire ecosystem
of financial forces
and institutions
affecting children.

WHAT IF every child started their pathway to

wellbeing and empowerment with a bank account?
Approach
In 2012, Jeroo founded Child & Youth Finance International (CYFI),
a global network of states, financial entities, and educational
institutions dedicated to increasing the financial capabilities and
financial inclusion of children and youth through collaboration
and resource sharing. This involves giving all children and youth
the knowledge to make wise financial decisions, the opportunity
to accumulate savings, and the skills to find employment, start
a business and ultimately break the cycle of poverty. In order to
make this happen, Jeroo is working to change the existing financial
systems and regulations to include and promote child friendly
banking.

Child & Youth

Finance
International
Organization
Global
Country
childfinanceinternational.org
Website

Person
Jeroo founded Childline in 1993, a 24-hour hotline for street
children in India in need of assistance. Ten years later, this model
was expanded to Child Helpline International (CHI), an international
network of emergency telephone service providers for children in
146 countries. By compiling information on the types of emergencies
the children experienced, CHI is able to identify and communicate
trends to governmental and non-governmental organizations,
allowing emergency assistance to be tailored to fit the specific
demands of each community. After years of analyzing data from
CHI, it became clear to Jeroo that many of the distress calls could
be traced to poverty. To address this concern, Billimoria created
Aflatoun, a non-profit organization focused on teaching children
their economic rights and responsibilities as well as promoting basic
financial management skills and habits. Today Aflatoun has reached
1.3 million children in 94 countries.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

67

Quick, effective, stigma-free:

Clients co-lead mental health services

Krystian Fikert
We're helping
clients rebuild their
coping skills. They
are deciding what
changes they're
going to put in their
lives and where
they will situate
themselves on the
wellbeing scale.

WHAT IF mental health services were provided

through quick access to multidisciplinary, online
mental health practitioners, and life coaches?
Approach

MyMind
Organization
Ireland
Country
mymind.org
Website

Through MyMind, Krystian has created a model for client-led mental

health services, driven by a revenue-generating combination of
paid and pro bono therapists and practitioners to make mental
healthcare available and affordable without stigma. He has removed
the slow referral process and offers visits in a matter of days with
different levels of feesfree for the unemployed and unable to pay,
and fees for paying clients still well below market. He uses web
counseling and question answering as a portal to bring people in
who may be unaccustomed to therapy, and offers a multidisciplinary
team, from psychotherapists to life coaches, which limits the alltoo-common dependency on drug-based solutions in the sector.
MyMind helps clients to rebuild their coping skills, and then places
the clients in charge of deciding what changes they will put in place
in order to move upwards in the wellbeing scale. MyMind has more
than 80 psychologists offering 1,500 appointments every month in
15 languages.

Person
Krystian Fikert studied psychology and volunteered with social
workers who worked closely with patients struggling with addiction.
After graduating, Krystian decided to move to Ireland from Poland
to pursue a dream of working with Google. While working with
Googles search quality team, he started to use 20 percent of
his time to create his own project: an online menu of free mental
health offerings, using Google apps and technological tools. He also
offered free mental health consultations to the Polish community
on Saturdays, working out of a back room of a Dominican Priory.
Quickly, he became overwhelmed by demand, and eventually he
secured a grant to open MyMinds first office.

68

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Replacing marginalization with online

support communities
WHAT IF the health and wellbeing of Southeast
Asian LGBTQ and HIV-positive youth could be
improved through mass deployment of web
communities?
Approach

Online will never

replace the need
for face-to-face,
offline connection
because of the fact
that we need human
contact. We need the
things that elicit all
of those hormone
responses that make
us feel connected to
someone.

Laurindos B-Change Group is improving the health and wellness

of Southeast Asian LGBTQ and HIV-positive youth through mass
deployment of web communities that guide users through the
milestones of a life transition. B-Changes peer support communities
drive action and leadership through knowledge, storytelling, and
discussions. B-Change Foundation, based in Manila, works across
sectors to connect youth to the right resources for health and
action. B-Change Technology, based in Singapore, distributes
online tools to community organizations across the world looking
to strengthen their work. B-Change Insights, based in New York,
synthesizes user data into knowledge products that inform the
work of larger institutions looking to better reach the LGBTQ and
HIV-positive population. In sum, Laurindo is creating long-term
platforms, technologies, and insights that enable enable everyone
from a young person to a community leader or even the leader of
a multinational corporationto play a stronger role in improving
health outcomes of LGBTQ youth and other young people.

Laurindo Garcia
B-Change
Foundation
Organization
Philippines
Country
b-change.org
Website

Person
Laurindo started one of the Australias first online magazines and
online radio stations for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation
network. He was also the driving force behind the LGBTQ Asia news
portal called Fridae.com. A turning point in Laurindos life came
when he was unexpectedly diagnosed with HIV in 2004. In 2009, he
was barred from entering Singapore on the basis of his HIV-positive
status. This travel sanction meant separation from his long-term
partner and severe limitations to his personal freedom. Laurindo
chose to challenge the system and the law which discriminated
against HIV-positive foreigners. He eventually won the appeal
and set a precedent for others with similar cases. Because of this
experience, he chose to devote his life to developing and empowering
the sQ community, especially young people, through his experience
in communication, technology, and entrepreneurship.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

69

Strengthening the caring economy by equipping

support networks
WHAT IF every person caring for a senior
citizen was equipped with easy tools to provide
individualized care and reduce overmedication?
Approach

I think now
everybody
understands that to
have good care and
good wellbeing, you
can't be a passive
part.

70

Aktivitetsdosetten mobilizes care staff, family members, volunteers,

and residents of eldercare institutions to incorporate a diverse
and creative array of new activities and social interactions into
the previously rigid routines and cultures of eldercare institutions.
By training a growing cadre of nurses across Norway as activity
doctors, she builds a more empathetic workforce, motivated by the
powerful ways that new activities and social interactions can reduce
a reliance on pharmaceuticals to address elderly residents' needs.
In Aktivitetsdosettens model, the elderly have also assumed more
active roles in working with the activity doctors and other staff to
design individualized activities that are more closely aligned with
their own interests and life experiences. Aktivitetsdosetten has
trained more than 200 activity doctors from various parts of Norway
to implement the program in nine Norwegian nursing homes, and
has attracted the attention of several key policymakers in the health
field.

Lone Koldby
Aktivitetsdosetten
Organization
Norway
Country
aktivitetsdosetten.
com/english
Website

Person
As a physiotherapist, Lone started working in nursing homes in
2000, where she discovered that many people were overmedicated
and that their rights as sentient individuals were being routinely
violated. Those concerns were soon heightened when her mother
was diagnosed with dementia while living in a nursing home.
Reaffirmed by her mothers experience, Lone recognized the power
of activity as a key indicator of a persons wellbeing and an effective
tool for their empowerment. In pursuit of that conviction, Lone
designed, built, and managed a school for seniors in Norway to
offer the elderly classes in a wide range of subjects. In 2011, she
then founded Aktivitetsdosetten to revitalize activity and social
interaction, and to reposition the individual as the focal point of care
in eldercare institutions.

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Reduce costs and increase quality

healthcare through patient-owned data
WHAT IF every patient could have seamlessly
coordinated care and guide their own paths to
wellbeing by having full access to medical records?
Approach

It's the patient

who owns the data.
That approach
breeds trust, and
that trust is what
allows massive data
transfers. When
you put tools in the
patient's hands, then
they'll find ways of
using all these tools
in their interests.

Patients Know Best provides patients with access to and control

over their individual medical records by providing clinicians and
healthcare organizations with a platform to securely communicate
and collaborate with patients and to deliver coordinated care. It is
the worlds first patient-centered medical records system and is
still the only one integrated into the U.K.s National Health Service
(NHS) secure network for use by any patient with any clinician in the
U.K. or overseas. Mohammads goal is to make patients more active
participants at the center of their care, rather than simply passive
recipients, which will over the long-term increase the quality and
reduce the costs of the healthcare system.

Mohammad
Al-Ubaydli
Patients
Know Best
Organization
United Kingdom
Country
patientsknowbest.
com
Website

Person
Mohammad struggled throughout his youth with a rare genetic
immune deficiency that doctors had difficulty diagnosing. Because
his symptoms were so unusual and his family moved from country
to country so frequently, his mother decided to start keeping
a meticulous record of his condition. It was this record which
eventually enabled doctors to diagnose his condition at the age of
15. As a result of his illness, Mohammad lost some of his hearing
and spent long periods of time from school, which made him
study independently and use computers at home to help him with
his schoolwork. Later, as a medical student, he was often sought
after by professors for his programming skills. At medical school,
Mohammad spotted many inefficiencies of the healthcare system
and was disillusioned by the reluctance among some medical
professionals to use technology to make their work more effective.
He was surprised that none of the big publishers provided handheld
computer versions of their medical textbooks, saying there was
no demand for them. Mohammad set out to prove them wrong
by publishing a book himself. He then set up a website (called
MedicalApproaches.org) which allowed him to distributes his book
free of charge and received thousands of downloads from around
the world. Shortly afterwards medical publishers started to make
their textbooks available on handheld devices.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

71

Transforming mindsets to honor childhood

WHAT IF tools for personal wellbeing were not only
easily accessible to low-income communities, but a
means of community and economic empowerment?
Approach

Our program
empowers leaders.
We use a learn-andearn model: while
people are in the
training program
they actually have
a job to teach
yoga to their own
communities and
share what they're
learning.

72

Through Africa Yoga Project(AYP), Paige trains young,

disadvantaged Kenyans to become professional yoga teachers by
actively developing the market for their skills, including identifying
and creating new market opportunities. At the same time, the model
cultivates a culture of inclusion and community service, and makes
the health and wellness benefits of yoga accessible to low- and
middle-income communities. Teachers gain private employment
teaching yoga, meditation, massage, or other wellness practices,
and can add two years of entrepreneurship training lessons to
develop products and services, such as studios, childrens yoga,
apparel and accessories for wellness, and more. Since 2008, AYP
has reached 250,000 people a year with free and low-cost wellbeing
services; trained over 100 yoga teachers; built vibrant, wellnessvaluing communities in Kenya; created over 600 new part-time
jobs and wellness programs in prisons, police training centers and
juvenile halls.

Paige Elenson
Africa Yoga Project
Organization
Kenya
Country
africayogaproject.
org
Website

Person
After being deeply impacted by yoga, Paige Elenson became a
full-time yoga instructor and teacher. In 2007, she went to Kenya to
teach yoga to the young acrobats in Nairobi and what was supposed
to be a one-time training grew into repeated trainings, and she
founded Amani Circus, an arts and culture program for the internally
displaced people camps around Kenya. She worked to spread the
benefits of yoga to young people in the slum of Kibera who barely
had enough to eat and, at the same time, she was earning thousands
of dollars conducting short yoga classes at the United Nations in
Kenya. She realized she could train the young people to give the
classes at the UN and earn the money for themselves. So she cofounded the AYP to create a yoga training program and targeted
unemployed youth living in Kibera.

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Transform cities welfare through city-wide

learning labs

Sascha
Haselmayer
In every community,
people are solving
the problems
they find. The
opportunity to solve
your problem is to
find and help the
problem solver solve
more problems. It's
really more about
everyone having
a changemaker
attitude."

Citymart
Organization
Global
Country

WHAT IF every city could rapidly find and choose

the best ways to solve local problems by activating
changemakers?

citymart.com
Website

Approach
Citymart is a platform that helps over 50 global cities to transform
their communities by strengthening their innovation capacity and
sharing inspiring solutions and methods. It allows professionals
and citizens to tap into relevant solutions in the international
market to make more informed decisions, build transparent and
service-oriented public spending, provide public access to data, and
increased government accountability.

Person
Sascha grew up traveling extensively and had a particular fascination
with cities. He studied architecture and quickly realized that
architecture in its traditional form was ill-equipped to make lasting
change. He had a particular early focus on extreme urban conflict
situations and designed a prototype for reforming community
shantytowns in Caracas, Venezuela, that was featured at the World
Habitat Conference. As a result of this work, Sascha co-founded a
company, Interlace-Invent, which offered a consultancy service to
cities looking for innovation, focusing on the shared interest of public
and private leaders around growth and socioeconomic development.
He developed strategies for innovation districts in Barcelona,
Shanghai, Konstanz, and Bangkok, and realized that cities lack the
tools and skills to implement ideas. To address this challenge, he
created Living Labs Global in 2008 and its spin-off Citymart in 2011.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

73

Achieving youth welfare through

empathetic legal training

Shauneen Lambe
Instead of a whole
load of adults sitting
around and making
decisions for the
children, they are
active participants
in their health.

Just for Kids Law

Organization
United Kingdom
Country

WHAT IF the youth justice system could better

address and prevent root causes of crime by being
taught by youth?

justforkidslaw.org
Website

Approach
Just for Kids Law acts as a bridge between the criminal justice
system and the social support available for young people, and it also
transforms the youth justice system by training legal practitioners
in best practice models for punishment mitigation and personal
support. By training lawyers to reveal the reasons that might have
led a young person to offend, Lambe is introducing empathy to the
courtroom and allowing the root causes of a young persons criminal
behavior to be addressed. Lambe offers a successful, multi-level
solution that will fundamentally change how children experience the
youth justice system.

Person
Lambe is a barrister in the U.K. and an attorney in the U.S.A. When
she was working in the U.S. in the '90s, she created Louisiana Crisis
Assistance Center to combat systemic racial discrimination. The
center provided intensive investigation and litigation to support the
public defenders who were unprepared to serve the many youths
who faced the death penalty. In 2006, Lambe founded Just for Kids
Law. Through Just for Kids Law, she is reframing the way in which
the criminal justice system interacts with children in the U.K. by
training legal practitioners, advocating for legislative reform, and
bringing legal expertise to tackle the root causes of youth offending.

74

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Redesigning information technology to support

changemakers at risk

Stephanie
Hankey
If you're living in a
data society, then
what impact does
that have on people's
political autonomy?
Information on
whether somebody
is going to commit
suicide is really
important. On the
other hand, having
them on a list as
somebody with
a mental health
problem may impact
their ability in the
future."

WHAT IF journalists and activists had the right

information and tools to make the decisions that
would positively impact their personal security and
wellbeing, as well as that of the communities they
work with?

Tactical
Technology
Collective
Organization
Germany
Country
tacticaltech.org
Website

Approach
Stephanie enables people working for social change to rethink
their use of information technology and data in order to raise the
effectiveness of their work. Tactical Technology Collective programs
are built around a human-centered approach rather than technology.
The organization puts the users, their aims, and their context first,
and then helps them design or apply appropriate tools. Users have
goals that range from data security to using data effectively to
reframe public debates. Stephanie translates trends in information
technology into practical tools and solutions that answer the specific
needs of changemakers and stimulates the way they learn and
adapt. She uses interdisciplinary camps, curricula development,
and resources such as films and toolkits to support a whole field
of professionals worldwide, facilitating the space for constant
innovation within information technology for social change.

Person
After working as a creative director and producer for a number of
London-based multimedia companies, Stephanie decided to study
information and interaction design and to play a role for advancing
how digital technologies could support social impact. She worked
with the Open Society Institute to establish their Technology
Support for Civil Society program. After spending five years
seeing firsthand the technology challenges faced by civil society
organizations around the world, and finding out that support for this
field did not exist, she founded Tactical Tech.

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

75

Compassionate communities at the

center of palliative care

Suresh Kumar
We invited people to
involve in palliative
care and we incite
the spiritual
compassion. If you're
compassionate,
you cannot be
compassionate
just towards dying
people, you are
compassionate to
your neighboryou
are compassionate
to the humanity.

Institute of
Palliative Medicine
Organization

WHAT IF communities were responsible for making

palliative care more affordable and accessible for
all?
Approach

India
Country
instituteofpalliativemedicine.org
Website

The Institute of Palliative Medicine (IPM) is the only institute

focused on community-led care in Asia. Through the Neighborhood
Network for Palliative Care (NNPC), IPM operates a network of
200 neighborhood-level units in 14 districts of Kerala (South India),
bringing together 10,000 volunteers trained in palliative care, 60 fulltime doctors, 150 staff nurses and 200 auxiliary nurses to serve over
2,500 patients a week. Each neighborhood-level care unit raises
funds and employs doctors and nurses as needed to support their
work locally. The volunteers provide home care, which removes the
financial burden on the healthcare system and the patients family.

Person
When Suresh worked as an anesthesiologist, he experienced the
frustration of doctors who wanted to do something to control pain
and reduce the suffering of terminally ill patients. Because such
care wasnt possible within the existing healthcare framework in
India, he co-founded the Pain and Palliative Care Society, which
initially focused on biomedical support for terminally ill patients. It
eventually grew to encompass 24 palliative care medical centers.
Through this work, Suresh realized that the social issues associated
with terminal illness were a more significant obstacle to quality
care than the illnesses themselves. He became convinced that any
comprehensive palliative care initiative had to be community-driven,
and subsequently, he established the Institute of Palliative Medicine
in 2003.

76

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Fellows Index

Ana Lcia Villela

Jean Claude Rodriguez

Lone Koldby

Shauneen Lambe

Alana

Puddle

Aktivitetdosetten

Just for Kids Law

Location: Brazil

Location: United States

(based on a model used in
Guatemala and Spain)

Location: Norway

Location: United Kingdom

Pages: 4, 5, 15, 19, 21, 22,

23, 29, 41, 42, 45, 47, 70

Pages: 5, 15, 19, 28, 30,

47, 74

Mohammad Al-Ubaydli

Stephanie Hankey

Patients Know Best

Tactical Technology
Collective

Pages: 47, 51, 62

Bedriye Hulya
b-Fit
Location: Turkey
Pages: 5, 14, 20, 21, 29, 37,
41, 47, 63

Eva Marszewski
Peace Builders
Location: Canada
Pages: 5, 14, 19, 21, 23, 33,
34, 37, 41, 47, 64

James Wuye
Interfaith Meditation
Center of the MuslimChristian Dialogue
Location: Nigeria
Pages: 5, 14, 21, 29, 33, 34,
37, 41, 47, 65

Pages: 14, 24, 34, 66

Jeroo Billimoria
Child & Youth Finance
International
Location: India, the
Netherlands, and over 120
countries worldwide
Pages: 5, 14, 19, 21, 23,
29, 37, 41, 44, 47, 56, 57,
58, 67

Krystian Fikert

Location: United Kingdom

Pages: 15, 19, 23, 25, 45,
71

Location: based in
Germany, working
worldwide

Paige Elenson

Pages: 5, 15, 19, 20, 24, 25,

29, 37, 41, 47, 75

Africa Yoga Project

Location: Based in Kenya,
with impact spreading
throughout East Africa
Pages: 5, 15, 19, 21, 23, 29,
30, 33, 39, 41, 45, 47, 72

MyMind
Ireland
Pages: 5, 6, 14, 17, 19, 21,
22, 23, 24, 25, 29, 38, 41,
45, 47, 68

Sascha Haselmayer

Suresh Kumar
Institute of Palliative
Medicine
Location: India
Pages: 5, 15, 19, 21, 23, 29,
31, 33, 45, 47, 76

Citymart
Location: over 50 cities
worldwide

Laurindo Garcia

Pages: 5, 15, 18, 19, 23, 25,

27, 29, 33, 43, 45, 46, 73

B-Change
Location: Asia
Pages: 5, 14, 19, 21, 24, 25,
35, 37, 41, 47, 69

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

77

78

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

The part can never

be well unless the
whole is well.
Plato

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing

Ashoka Changemakers

79

Acknowledgements
Authored by Maria Clara Pinheiro and Megan Strickland. Edited by Kristie Wang. Produced
by Reem Rahman and Tucker Wannamaker. Contributions by Ashoka colleagues Janet
Visick, Diana Wells, Anamaria Schindler, Danielle Goldstone, Valeria Budinich, Ross Hall,
Sachin Malhan, Jocelyn Fong, Supriya Sankaran, Claire Fallender, Emma Lindgren, Christina
Lidn, Helga Tonder, Laura Haverkamp, Julia Koskella, Margot Mackay, Marina Mansilla,
Rebecca Kilbane, Aya Sabry, Claudia DeSimone, Nadine Freeman, Norma Perez, Flavio
Bassi, Michelle Fildelhoc, Terri Jayme, Simon Stumpf, Eveline, Sinee Chakthranont, Sudeep
Poudel, Hanae Baruchel, John Converse Townsend.
Many thanks to the interviewees for their generous contributions to this report.

Ashoka is grateful to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation for its

support that made this social innovation mapping possible.

Contact:
[email protected]
changemakers.com/wellbeing

Support
provided by

Ashoka Global Headquarters | Changemakers

1700 North Moore Street, Suite 2000 (20th Floor)
Arlington, VA 22209, USA
2016 Ashoka Changemakers | All Rights Reserved

80

Ashoka Changemakers

Social Entrepreneurial Pathways to a Culture of Wellbeing