Young Changemakers

Ashoka UK want to ensure that a critical mass of young people in the UK are practicing, and mastering Changemaking skills: empathy, creativity, teamwork and leadership.

For the past 15 years Ashoka globally has tried to achieve this primarily through its Youth Venture programme - providing mentors, seed finance and other resources to facilitate young people in launching social enterprises. Built around cultivating these skills, and putting young people in charge of their projects, this Youth Venture programme has achieved great success globally and sprouted innovative organisations all around the world and benefited tens of thousands of young people. However, as a direct delivery model it is unable to reach the critical mass we’re aiming for.

We also know that here in the UK there are a large number of existing organisations already achieving great results in supporting young people to drive social innovation. We believe we can add huge value to these organisations by building partnerships and working alongside them to support their existing work in a range of areas.

Ashoka have developed a detailed, tried and tested methodology, curriculum and facilitator guide to support our youth social entrepreneurship work. We call this curriculum Dream it Do it. We have identified partner organisations and we plan to share this knowledge to adapt and build on their existing programmes.

By working with Ashoka, partner organisations will have their work accredited by the world’s first and leading organisation supporting social innovation. Ashoka will provide a kite mark for the young social entrepreneurship sector to ensure continuity and quality across our delivery partner network.

We hope to cultivate a global Ashoka Young Changemaker Network. This will give young people a global perspective, extra accreditation for their CV, recognition alongside world leading social entrepreneurs (Ashoka Fellows), and even a pipeline towards possible Ashoka Fellowship. This online Ashoka Young Changemaker Network will connect young people around the world so they can share best practice, successes and learning’s. It will also provide resources for young people & support organisations, connect young people to further education opportunities, Changemaker job opportunities, global conferences, access to our leading social entrepreneur network and much more.

Partnerships:

Student Hubs - www.studenthubs.org

Student Hubs works to transform student involvement in charitable activities, acting as a catalyst to empower and encourage students to become active members of their communities by promoting social action, philanthropy and volunteering. They are now the largest charity in the UK dedicated to increasing volunteering within higher education. They have Hubs across the UK and over 20,000 student members.

Ashoka UK have been supporting them since 2011 with their continued expansion, but specifically Ashoka are helping them create an accredited Student Hub Hallmark to reward and recognise young people who graduate through their programme.

Emerge Venture Lab - www.theemergelab.org

The Emerge Venture Lab accelerates social ventures at the pre-investment stages of development. It provides young social entrepreneurs with critical support in generating, testing and implementing business models, evaluating impact, building successful teams, structuring organisations and raising finance. The Lab’s venture teams attend expert-led bootcamps and gain access to an extensive network of business professionals, seed investors and peer entrepreneurs.

Ashoka UK has supported the Lab since it began in 2011 with curriculum and programme development advice and provided mentors for its programme. In 2013 it wishes to help scale up the project further and provide the alumni with access to our Young Changemaker Network.

GoYoung Project - www.goyoung.org   

GoYoung is a project launched by three students who decided to travel the world to shoot an documentary on social entrepreneurs under 30. The film will be an education tool designed to inspire, inform and educate university students about social entrepreneurship around the world.

Ashoka UK are helping GoYoung to complete the film with appropriate educational curriculum around social entrepreneurship education. We are also going to help publicise and distribute the educational resource through our youth networks.

MyBnk – www.mybnk.org

MyBnk is a charity founded by Ashoka Fellow Lily Lapenna. They deliver financial and social enterprise education directly to schools and youth organisations. Together with young people they have created fun and interactive social enterprise experiences using real money and train young people to run their own in-school online saving and lending schemes.

Ashoka UK will work with MyBnk throughout 2013 to co-create an exciting new programme incorporating our Dream it Do it methodology. We plan to launch this new project across the Gazelle network of colleges.