We are living at an incredible moment in history, where all of the existing sectors of society are redefining themselves. It started with the private sector. Businesses let loose the radical notion: if you have a new idea and you make it work, we’ll make you rich and respected. Then we will copy you.
This revolutionary idea that “everyone can make change” is now taking root in the social sector. Social media is an invaluable instrument for making changemakers.
In 1980, Ashoka was founded on the principle that the most powerful force in the world is a BIG IDEA in the right hands. For over thirty years, Ashoka has carefully selected and helped launch 3,000 of the world’s most effective social entrepreneurs in 70 countries. Over half of Ashoka Fellows have changed national policy within five years of their selection and launch.
Fabio Rosa is one such exemplary Ashoka fellow. His “Project Light” program brought electricity to over 400 rural families in Palmares, Brazil. Let’s just say that it reaped results beyond his expectations, cutting rural electrification costs by 70-90%. The project not only helped stop the drain of residents to cities, but also reversed it. A study two years after the project’s implementation found that one in every three beneficiaries was someone who returned from the city to resume living in his former rural area in large part due to the newly affordable electric service.
Fabio – like his social entrepreneur peers – stepped out of existing institutions, challenged the status quo, and built his vision for a better future. However, he first needed the space to demonstrate and refine his ideas, to recruit a team, and to determine how to scale his methods. A very modest stipend from Ashoka allowed him to work full-time to do just that. And this is how Ashoka changes the world with extremely modest resources. Ashoka has become a community of collaboration to strengthen the entrepreneur’s confidence and effectiveness.
With time, we have realized that there is an even more powerful role Fabio and other Ashoka Fellows play. These social entrepreneurs catalyze new local changemakers into being. Every time a social entrepreneur comes up with a new idea, it upsets the way things are done. It challenges the assumption that you can’t change things. The entrepreneur is sowing a seed so that anyone in any community can take this idea and run with it. The entrepreneur is a role model, plowing the earth, breaking up the existing system, and giving people seeds.
Now, enter social media.
Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and the rest of the social media gang is the strong wind that carries those seeds to the far corners of the earth. By harnessing social media, the ideas of social entrepreneurs can disseminate rapidly. With more and more citizen participation, the rate of change increases. Ideas quickly travel from Brazil to Bangladesh. Problems can be identified, teams assembled, and efforts coordinated faster than ever.
There is a multiplier effect of individuals becoming changemakers, stepping up as local role models, and joining forces with major social entrepreneurs. The end result is Everyone a Changemaker™.
The first step to an Everyone a Changemaker™ world is to believe that you can make lasting change and acting on your belief. Twitter is for the birds, unless you do something. Identify a small problem in your community and give yourself permission to overcome it. Act on your empathy for others. Once you enact change, once you internalize that you are a changemaker, you grow in confidence to tackle bigger problems. Each new problem is an opportunity for you to express love and respect in action at the highest possible level. Our world will transform as a result of your efforts.
Therefore, the most important contribution any of us can make is to increase the proportion of humans who know that they can cause change. Use social media to do it! There is nothing that brings humans greater happiness in life or that is more important to society.
About the Author: Jaime Gusching is a current Ashoka employee and a former Fulbright Fellow. Jaime is interested in social entrepreneurship, empathy education, women and girls empowerment, and changemaking.
Yes! This article hits on so many of the things that are pointing us toward our future.
We know that small islands of what’s working in a sea of chaos can jump a system to higher order. So the important social purpose for each of us is to help connect those islands of what is really working in our world. We can do this through social media.
And there is a change maker in each of us! We all come with gifts to offer the world.
Happy to have you onboard, Carrie.
Unleashing each and every person’s changemaker potential is what we are all about.
At Ashoka, we are starting with the youth, the most adaptable demographic. By partnering with “changemaker” schools, we are currently reframing early education.
We believe a child must fully develop their capacity to empathize to be a contributing member of world defined by change. Empathy is essential for collaboration with a diverse team, conflict resolution, and effectively leadership. So we want to make the skill of applied empathy as fundamental as reading or math in early education.
We need 60 schools of all types, across America—charter, public, private–to demonstrate that this is a success in order to tip the sector. And we have a short 2-year time frame to do it.
That’s where social media can “connect the islands for us”. Social media is helping us find vested stakeholders at schools across the country.
People like yourself, people who “get it”.
I couldn’t agree with you more! As a former teacher w/ background in elementary education and educational psychology, I have a fierce passion for reframing early education and childhood as a vital stage for children to develop creative thinking, imagination & compassion, empathy. My book, A Child’s Way, touches on this- our tendency to rush children to the next stage rather than allowing them to unfold at a natural pace. When empathic relationships are at the heart of learning, children will flourish!
I look forward to hearing about the project and let me know if I can contribute in any way!
Great stuff, Jaime! And such a universal message.
Think about the taxi driver who thinks of his work as more of a calling than just a job – whether it’s permanent or temporary. He has 20 or so minutes at a time to choose whether or not to be a ‘changemaker cab driver.’ That driver has a choice to make. He can either talk on the phone while he drives or blast music or drive chaotically…or he can provide whatever respite desired to the population he serves – driving safely, perhaps engaging in comfortable conversation or sitting quietly – doing whatever needed to impact positive change in the lives of others…
Look forward to reading more from you!