Social Entrepreneurs: Doing Sustainable Development - Ashoka

A
shoka: Innovators for the Public is an Arlington VA-based international development organization with a mission
to advance social entrepreneurs. Founded in 1980, Ashoka has invested in and supported over 1,200
social entrepreneurs in 43 countries. Ashoka's Environmental Innovations Initiative works to distill the insights
and best practices of the more than 300 social entrepreneurs Ashoka has elected working on environmental
issues and to feed this knowledge back to environmental practitioners globally.
Since January of 2002, 47 Ashoka Fellows from 24 countries have been engaged in an on-line discussion on
issues related to this August's World Summit on Sustainable Development. This discussion has included six
working groups on water, farms, energy, cities, people and the environment and partnerships across sectors.
This paper is intended to introduce those interested in sustainable development to social entrepreneurs and to
share some of the insights of this on-line conversation. See the Appendix for a list of contributors to this paper.
Top: Gambian Fellow
Yusupha Kujabi; Middle:
Medicinal and edible plants
at Fellow Paul Cohen’s
Tlholego ecovillage, South
Africa; Bottom: Fitzroy
Range, Patagonia, Chile
Prologue
We, children of the earth, recognize the perfection of life that is housed in biodiversity,
sustaining the tapestry of life. We are a collective mind creating new paradigms
that open doors to reconciliation with the earth and each other. We are the tools that
crystallize creativity, love, joy and, above all, a great passion to apply common sense
solutions.
Ashoka Fellows, Tlholego Ecovillage, South Africa
A note from the artist
Rhetoric without action is pointless. The cut up words, which make up the outskirts of
the cover, represent the current trend in sustainable development. Moving inwards,
through the circle of stylized people, the image begins to move away from rhetoric
toward a state of action. Thus the circle of people symbolizes both Ashoka as an institution
and the communities with which Ashoka is associated. This movement from
rhetoric to action is also visually depicted by the tree, which forms the focus of the
image.
Jason Theron