Role Models for Change

Dakota Hall is an accomplished organizer and Executive Director of the Alliance for Youth Action and Alliance for Youth Organizing, the largest youth grassroots organizing network in the United States. He is a Black and Indigenous organizer from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and has extensive experience in community organizing. Dakota founded Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT) in Wisconsin, a Black and...

Erin Vilardi is the Founder and Director of VoteRunLead, a national organization leveraging technology and training to accelerate the number of women in civic and political leadership. She first launched VRL as Vice President of Program and Communications at The White House Project, establishing the largest national political training program readying women for public office and civic life, traini...

Mary-Pat Hector was born in Atlanta and graduated from Spelman College and Georgia State University. She began community organizing at the age of 12. At the age of 18, she was one of the youngest community leaders to advise President Barack Obama on criminal justice reform in the Oval Office. By the age of 19, she became the youngest woman to run for public office in the state of Georgia, losing b...

Jill Habig, the founder and CEO of Public Rights Project, discusses the organization's mission to support local government officials in protecting voter rights and democracy. Habig highlights the increasing efforts by corporate interests and anti-democracy groups to weaken the power of election officials and manipulate election rules. These efforts include contesting common-sense voter policies su...

Omar Parbhoo, a member of the behavioral science nonprofit ideas42, discusses his commitment to democracy and the challenges it faces in the United States in a YouTube video section titled "Using Behavioral Science To Support Voters." Parbhoo focuses on understanding and overcoming behavioral barriers that prevent people from fully participating in civic engagement. He expresses his desire for a m...

Eddie Ndopu, a social entrepreneur and advocate for disability rights, discusses his personal journey and the misconceptions he encounters as a person with a degenerative condition called spinal muscular atrophy. He emphasizes the importance of validating the humanity of all individuals, regardless of their background or abilities. Ndopu encourages others facing similar challenges to embrace vulne...

Lizzie Kiama, a social entrepreneur from Kenya, works with women and girls with disabilities to advance their sexual reproductive rights. She focuses on changing perceptions around their sexuality and addressing the stigma and discrimination they face. One of the main problems she highlights is the lack of data on disability in the healthcare system, which leads to a lack of financial investment i...

Human rights lawyer Karen Tse is Founder and CEO of International Bridges to Justice, an organization that provides prisoners in 48 countries with access to justice and prevents torture as a tool for confession. Every day in countries throughout the world, hundreds of thousands of citizens are arbitrarily detained, tortured, and denied access to counsel. International Bridges to Justice defends th...

According the UNHCR, there are 25.4 million people currently registered as refugees, and over half of them are under the age of 18. These numbers will continue to grow as global conflicts, economic volatility, and climate change force many more to flee their homelands. What can be done to ensure that refugee youth have access to quality mental healthcare, education, and opportunities? How can we b...

Sherrie Westin is President of Global Impact and Philanthropy for Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit educational organization behind Sesame Street. She leads the Workshop’s efforts to serve vulnerable children through mass media and targeted initiatives in the United States and around the world. Westin spearheaded a partnership to create the largest early childhood intervention in the history of human...

Essam Daod co-founded Humanity Crew in 2015 to provide first response mental health and psycho-social support for refugees and people in crisis. Journalist Ray Suarez sat down with Daod to hear more about his unique “inverted pyramid” approach to mental health support, and how communities have the capacity to heal themselves.

Emily Bancroft is President of VillageReach, an organization that works to transform health care delivery to reach everyone. VillageReach won the Skoll Award in 2006. Its initiative in Malawi, Chipatala cha pa Foni, a toll-free hotline that provides health and nutrition information to people in remote communities, is an international model for closing rural healthcare gaps. VillageReach recently t...

Sohini Bhattacharya is the CEO and President of Breakthrough, a global human rights organization working to drive culture change to build a world where all people live in dignity, equality, and respect. Among its many initiatives, Breakthrough reaches nearly half a million adolescents in India through school and community programs, ensuring girls face less discrimination, complete school, and dela...

Ai-jen Poo is a leading labor activist and the founder of National Domestic Workers Alliance. The Alliance works to bring dignity and fairness to the growing numbers of workers who provide care and clean our homes, the majority of whom are immigrants and women of color. Ray Suarez sat down with Ai-jen at the 2019 Skoll World Forum to talk about the future of work in the age of automation and a new...

In May 2015, a group of ambitious philanthropic collaborators, including the Skoll Foundation, pledged to make a measurable dent in Africa’s hunger crisis through a catalytic $100 million investment to dramatically scale the work of One Acre Fund. A Skoll Awardee in 2010, One Acre Fund boosts the productivity of smallholder farmers with financing and training they need to grow themselves out of po...

During West Africa’s devastating Ebola epidemic in 2014, the Liberian Ministry of Health and Last Mile Health—an organization that delivers primary health care to some of the most remote corners of the country – collaborated with other partners to create a unified national policy to extend health services to remote Liberians. Together, they established Liberia’s Community Health Assistant Program,...

Welcome to Role Models for Change, a series of insightful conversations with social entrepreneurs and other innovators on the front lines of some of the world’s most pressing problems. Today we’re talking with Safeena Husain, Founder and CEO of Educate Girls. Growing up in Delhi, India, Safeena found refuge and opportunity in education. She went on to study in the UK before building a career in co...