By Anouk Lim
Visionaries exist among all of us.
Whether we recognize it or not, every day driven individuals worldwide develop a
new language, a new way of looking at our surroundings, a new way to accelerate
positive change. What this means for the Persian community and for the world as
a whole will be revolutionary, to say the least.
These people have several things in
common: they are motivated, determined, and ready to tackle major social issues
and introduce new ideas for global change. They are social entrepreneurs –
individuals with ground-breaking solutions to society’s most critical social
problems. Instead of leaving such responsibilities to the government or business
sectors, social entrepreneurs identify the root of the problem, develop
system-changing solutions, spread their ideas, and encourage entire communities
to join the movement.
It is this concept that has driven
Ashoka, a global
organization with a 25-year history and a network of more than 1,800 social
entrepreneurs in over 60 countries, and PARSA Community Foundation, a
philanthropic institution that helps Persians foster goodwill in their
communities locally, nationally and worldwide, to invite applicants of Iranian
origin to become a celebrated Ashoka fellow. The Ashoka PARSA Partnership for
Social Entrepreneurship will financially support a fellow anywhere in the world
Ashoka operates for three years based on his or her need, giving the fellow the
resources to develop and implement his or her idea
full-time.
PARSA is fueled by a passion to
focus on social entrepreneurship among the Persian community. The reasons are
three-fold: Firstly, while the Persian diaspora contributes greatly to our local
economies we are not spending enough to take care of our own community. Our
elderly are in need of Persian language services, our youth are losing sight of
Persian culture, and we are increasingly finding ourselves at a loss to preserve
our heritage in our adopted homes. Secondly, we are outspent by the Arab
diaspora population, confusing our identity in the Western world, as Persian
programs in higher education and museums are lost in the mix to Arab-funded
ones. Lastly, the Persian community’s demand for money far exceeds the supply of
money. It is pertinent then that we develop sustainable and long-lasting
solutions to address these needs and ensure wise spending and positive results.
PARSA and Ashoka support social
entrepreneurship because it is self-sustaining, delving to the root of the
problem rather than producing a superficial solution. Such a feat is often a
matter of looking outside the box, so it is little surprise that PARSA board
member and world-renowned space traveler Anousheh Ansari along with her family
are tremendous supporters of Ashoka, sponsoring entrepreneurs in
Egypt,
Turkey,
Afghanistan, and
Israel. While Ashoka cannot support
entrepreneurs working in Iran, Ashoka and its supporters are
hopeful that a fellow will someday be established there.
The power and scope of a social
entrepreneur should not be imposing to those interested in applying for a
fellowship. Most social entrepreneurs start small, from humble beginnings, yet
with something unique: a vision that will change the world, an idea that can
live long after the entrepreneur. In the words of Ashoka’s founder, Bill
Drayton, “There is nothing more powerful than a new idea in the hands of a
social entrepreneur.”
Take Ashoka fellow Fabio Rosa, for
example. Rosa first arrived in the Brazilian
state of Rio Grande Do Sol in the early 1980’s, when most of the rural
population lived without electricity because they could not afford the
installation costs. He saw that by using a single wire system instead of the
usual three wire system he could bring affordable electricity to most of the
people in the region, while reducing costs up to 90%. After over twenty years,
in one of Rosa’s many victories (which include a
successful low-cost solar home system model), the Brazilian government announced
it will use his single wire model to bring electricity to millions of
Brazilians.
In yet another telling case of the
power of social entrepreneurship, Ashoka fellow J.B. Schramm founded College
Summit in 1993, which works with high schools and low-income students with
talent to help them make the leap to college. College
Summit organizes intensive four-day
workshops to help low-income students complete their college applications,
trains students to advise their peers, and screens student participants against
host college campuses’ admissions criteria. "The young man who is the first in
his family to go to college ends poverty in his family line forever," Schramm
says.”It is irreversible progress." Today, 79% of College Summit’s participants
have enrolled in college, double the rate of students at the same income level,
and 80% of them have graduated.
Finally, consider
Ashoka Global Academy founding member Fazle Abed, founder
and chairman of the Bangladesh Rural Action Committee (BRAC). Founded in 1972,
BRAC has become the largest citizen sector organization in the world, expanding
its services beyond Bangladesh in the spirit of national
replication. By mobilizing the capacity of the poor to improve their lives
through self-organization, BRAC has helped 3.8 million women establish 100,000
village organizations and schooled over 1 million girls. It also runs a
microcredit program that has disbursed $1.8 billion in loans with a 98%
repayment rate. Says Abed, “Poor people are poor because they are powerless. You
must organize people for power. They must organize themselves so that they may
change their lives.” The enormous
scale of BRAC’s operations is proof that the power of an individual social
entrepreneur can expand beyond the reach of one’s imagination to touch the lives
of millions.
Clearly there is a need for a new
kind of entrepreneurship, but support systems are required to allow it to reach
its full potential. This support lies in the hands of future social
entrepreneurs, people who will build enduring supportive institutions. In the
words of Bill Drayton, “Our job is not to give people fish; it’s not to teach
them how to fish; it’s how to build a new and better fishing industry.” Take
that step and be the first to venture into new territory, to lead the way, and
to build the new industry: apply to become an Ashoka fellow today.
