Welcome Change

Ashoka Fellow Aisha Nyandoro has pioneered an approach to ending generational poverty for families. In 2018, she launched a guaranteed income program for Black mothers in Mississippi, and through its success has become a leading champion of federal guaranteed income, including the Child Tax Credit. Across all efforts, she and her team are changing the narrative about poverty and power, challenging...

Countless examples across the world show us that living in multicultural neighborhoods frequently results in people living side-by-side but in parallel communities. This deprives us of the opportunity to build shared lives, focus on the many things we have in common, and work together on the challenges we experience close to home. We can do all this while treasuring our own cultures and background...

The U.S. spends $80B annually to incarcerate more of its people than any other nation in the world — with a hidden ecosystem of corporate and other actors benefiting financially from high incarceration rates. Listen in to hear from Ashoka Fellow Bianca Tylek, founder of Worth Rises, about exposing these financial incentives and creating alternatives. Learn about her team’s unique strategy that has...

People in many parts of the world are living longer, and ideas about aging are evolving, too. Listen in to explore with Ximena Abogabir of Chile what conversations about longevity are missing, how advertisers and the media can be allies in shaping new norms around aging, and what lifelong contribution can look like – for all of us, whatever our age. An Ashoka Fellow since 1995, Ximena is a serial...

With the Olympics kicking off, we'll explore how sports can create positive change (if responsibility is built into sporting ecosystems); how major sporting events can drive new norms and lasting change; and of course, what highlights we’re all looking for at this year’s Olympics! We'll be joined by three Ashoka Fellows in the UK: -Mel Young, founder of the Homeless World Cup (the inspir...

In many places, care structures and notions of family are evolving. In the U.S., for example, less than 20% of households now fit the mold of married couples with kids. Even so, the nuclear family is still the basis for such benefits as health care, health insurance, tax breaks, and citizenship. On this episode of Welcome Change, we hear from Ashoka Fellow Diana Adams, who is expanding the legal a...

There are more than 15 million stateless people across the world. Without a recognized nationality, they are left isolated and denied basic human rights. On this episode of Welcome Change, listen in to learned from Ashoka Fellow Christiana Bukalo what led her to found Statefree in Germany - the world's first community for and by stateless individuals. We’ll heard about the power of developing...

Access to justice is a fundamental right that remains out of reach for far too many people. In Nigeria, 1 in 8 people experience legal challenges, but hiring a lawyer is a luxury few can afford. At the same time, Nigerian courts, like so many around the world are clogged up with cases taking on average between 1 and 6 years to move through the justice system, with 70 percent of inmates in Nigerian...

In artificial intelligence (AI), climate and many domains impacting our futures, change is happening so fast – requiring new skills, mindsets, and modes of learning. Join us to hear from two Ashoka Fellows – François Taddei and Stephen Friend – on the evolving work of Learning Planet Institute, codesigning with young people planetary Higher Ed and lifelong collaborative action for all. Episode rec...

Indonesia has abundant natural carbon capture areas critical for stabilizing our planet's climate -- such as tropical forests and roughly one-third of the world’s tropical peatlands. Join us to meet Gita Syahrani in Jakarta and explore how she’s weaving a collaborative governance network among the relatively few local jurisdictions (kabupaten) that oversee 80% of these important resources. Gi...

How are communities reimagining their economic futures? Join us on Nov. 1 to meet Ashoka Fellow Molly Hemstreet who co-leads The Industrial Commons, a network of worker owned textile cooperatives in North Carolina – in conversation with Brandon Dennison, an Ashoka Fellow and founder of Coalfield Development in West Virginia. They’ll be talking about centering heritage industries (textiles), seedin...

Whether due to conflict, climate change or economic opportunity, more and more people find themselves on the move across and within borders. Ukraine is a case in point, with more than 8 million of its citizens forced to leave their homes since the war broke out in 2022. Nearly one million of them landed in Poland, doubling the size of the country’s Ukrainian diaspora. For Ashoka Fellow Myroslava K...

In March 2023, UN Secretary General António Guterres was unequivocal when he spoke at the release of the UN’s 6th IPCC report: “our world needs climate action on all fronts – everything, everywhere, all at once.” But who is going to deliver this action? The answer must be: Everyone. We need a groundswell of changemakers: to shift the systems and structures they’re part of, in their work, schools,...

In journalism and many other fields, "local" is understood as somehow less than global, limited. But what if the reverse is true: What if the most sought-after expertise is closest to the story? In her new book Byline, Fellow Cristi Hegranes, founder of Global Press, looks at the future of news and opportunities to meld local and global for greater accuracy and trust. We’ll also hear fro...

The world just experienced one of the most significant global celebration of women’s sports – the 2023 World Cup. Cited as the most internationally inclusive women’s sporting event, breaking viewership and attendance records, it showed us how sport can be a platform for progress. Yet it also revealed how much more is needed to put women on an equal footing to men and address systemic problems in p...

Rev. Heber Brown III, an Ashoka Fellow in Baltimore, is activating one of the most resilient of Black institutions in the U.S. – the Black Church – to become a food producer network. His Black Church Food Security Network is now 170 congregations strong, all working to grow and distribute nutritious food to congregants and communities. Listen in to hear from Heber, in conversation with Rev. Jennif...

Some key industries can play an outsized role in ending human trafficking, says social entrepreneur Mariana Ruenes, who has been working to end modern slavery since age 17. Now, her Mexico City-based network equips businesses in such industries as travel and tourism with strategies to identify, report, and ultimately prevent human trafficking and exploitation in Latin America. Listen in on this ep...

From Syria, to Yemen, Burkina Faso, Myanmar, Mali, and the United States – conflict has migrated to online spaces. Recognizing this important shift, peace-builder and Ashoka Fellow Helena Puig Larrauri, co-founded Build Up to transform conflict in the digital age. Working with NGOs, UN agencies, community leaders and multilateral organizations, Build Up develops innovative tech solutions to confli...

With the increasing frequency of storms, wildfires, tornadoes, and other natural disasters, Fellow Saket Soni, a labor organizer instrumental in the response to Hurricane Katrina, sees a new group of workers emerging: the resilience workforce. Essential to recovery efforts, these workers, many of them migrants, are less visible, more vulnerable and temporary, requiring new labor protections to sup...

Sabotaging her job. Refusing to work. Demanding she accounts for every cent. Destroying her credit. These are just a few examples of economic abuse. It’s a form of domestic violence that affects most women in abusive relationships, the consequences of which often continue even after they exit their relationship. Ashoka Fellow Meseret Haileyesus founded the Canadian Centre for Women’s Empowerment,...

At a time when the U.S. is experiencing a childcare crisis, family childcare educators offer critical support to working parents and families. Yet these providers (who are, in essence, our children's first teachers) are under-valued and many struggle to keep their neighborhood businesses open. For a look at the national landscape and possible reforms ahead, we’ll talk with Ashoka Fellow Jessi...

Over the last five years, more than 300 journalists worldwide have been tragically killed. Ashoka Fellow and investigative reporter Laurent Richard founded Forbidden Stories, a global journalist network that collaborates to ensure “killing the journalist won’t kill the story.” Since 2018, they have published countless major investigations in 50 countries, bringing the world breaking news on the Pe...

We’ve likely all had the unfortunate experience of needing to replace our phone because it didn’t support the latest operating system or because repairing it would be nearly as costly as getting a new one. This industry practice is called planned obsolescence and it explains why electronics are now the fastest growing source of waste in the world, with serious impacts on our planet, let alone our...

After 10 years of negotiations, the UN signed a historic international agreement to protect the world's oceans and the staggering 10 percent of marine species at risk of extinction. This is welcome news for the blue planet, and it raises the question of how the treaty will get implemented once ratified. Ashoka Fellow Wietse van der Werf, founder of Sea Ranger Service, has some answers. For th...

Ashoka Fellow Ariel Koren is elevating access to expert translation as a basic right and working towards a future where people of diverse backgrounds and languages can give and receive vital information – whether managing a health crisis or applying for asylum – in a language they know well. Ariel's translator collective currently supports 110 languages. On this episode, we look at what'...