Ashoka India

Ashoka was founded in 1980 by Bill Drayton, and has over 3,000 Ashoka fellows in 70 countries, including 350 fellows in India. Its global headquarters Read more is in Arlington, VA, USA. Ashoka identifies and supports the world's leading social entrepreneurs, inspires and equips the general public to be change-makers, and partners with various institutions in order to accelerate this movement. It aims to instill empathy and the desire to be a change-maker in children, inspires the youth to take initiatives and think about change, and promotes the collaboration of different people, corporations, social organizations, and institutions in order to work together to bring change. Ashoka Changemaker Schools is a global network of schools that aim to bridge the divide between access to education and productive learning by using different teaching methods, such as play, peer-learning, and arts. In order to do so, it works with teachers, government officers, and other stakeholders to enable them to play a larger role in the change process. Ashoka India’s Youth Venture program works to develop young change-makers, and support them in creating teams to change their world, whether it is their school or community. It partners with educational institutes, youth organisations, and state governments to find passionate youth and help them implement their dreams. Ashoka's Venture and Fellowship program selects leading social entrepreneurs as Ashoka Fellows. India acts as the hub for election of Fellows across India, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and has a network of over 550 Fellows in the region. Once selected, Ashoka provides the Fellows with stipends to support their personal financial costs for three years, in addition to providing them with support from its global network to help discover the most efficient way to drive systemic change. Its ‘Framework Change’ workshops, ‘Reframing Journeys’, and other webinars are designed to help develop and empower Fellows to spark positive social change. Ashoka India’s Health and Nutrition initiative, Nourishing Schools, has been developed in partnership with various stakeholders. This initiative is for children aged 9 to 14 years who are in their formative years as future community leaders. This initiative aims to improve their nutrition by improving the quality of midday meals, using games to teach lessons about nutrition, and helping them develop good nutritional habits, which they can then teach to their families. So far, this initiative has reached 25,536 school children between 9-14 years across 114 schools in Maharashtra, Assam, Haryana, Rajasthan, and Puducherry. Ashoka’s Start Empathy Initiative aims to instill empathy in children by collaborating with elementary schools and school networks, to design and show models of school environments where empathy is at the core of the learning and teaching strategy. The Lead Young is a campaign that identifies stories of young people who have overcome problems by implementing their dreams, leading a team, and creating a solution. Lead Young also seeks to encourage the initiatives of the more than one-thousand Ashoka Fellows whose work is putting young people in charge. Ashoka U collaborates with colleges and other higher-education institutes to create a culture of social innovation and inspire change.