Skoll Foundation Announces 2012 Award Winners and Their "Citizen-Driven Change"
[Source: Skoll Foundation, by Sally Farhat Kassab, November 29, 2011]
Palo Alto, CA – The Skoll Foundation has announced the 2012 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship.
“Looking at our winners, we are humbled,” said Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the foundation. “Our goal is impact – these are the people pulling it off. They’ve shown not just entrepreneurial vision, but the persistence needed to make lasting change. The four organizations we honor this year offer scalable, proven solutions to some of the world’s most daunting problems. Three of the four are from Asian countries. All are pioneering new grassroots mechanisms that unleash the power of citizen-driven change, a hallmark of true social entrepreneurship.”
The Skoll Foundation invests in, connects and celebrates social entrepreneurs and the innovators who help them solve the world’s most pressing problems. Since its founding by Silicon Valley entrepreneur Jeff Skoll in 1999, it has given $270 million to support social entrepreneurs and their organizations in the areas of development and aid reform, deforestation, water and sanitation, economic and educational opportunity, healthcare access and treatment, sustainable markets, food security and post-conflict stabilization.
The Skoll Award provides a three-year core operating support grant for recipients to extend their already impressive reach. This year’s Skoll Awardees join the growing global network of 91 Skoll social entrepreneurs from 74 organizations who are tackling the world’s most pressing problems. The Skoll Awards will be formally presented by Skoll Foundation Chairman Jeff Skoll and CEO Sally Osberg at a ceremony to be held on March 29, 2012. The event is an annual highlight of the Skoll World Forum, convened in Oxford, England, each spring.
This year the winners are:
Gawad Kalinga
Landesa
Nidan
Proximity Designs
Please see below for detail.
For further information, please see www.skollfoundation.org or contact Holly Finn, Director of Communications, at hfinn@skollfoundation.org.
Gawad Kalinga transforms slums into peaceful and productive communities. It works with 2,000 communities in the Philippines and other nations where poverty exists, including Cambodia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. Engaging all sectors of society, mobilizing them to work together to end poverty, the organization is building a global army of volunteers on the ground and online, working with schools, corporations and other organized institutions to mainstream a culture of caring and sharing. Gawad Kalinga means to “give care.”
Said Tony Meloto, Chairman of Gawad Kalinga: “The Skoll Award is an affirmation of hope-builders and poverty-busters. The challenge before us is to scale to reach more communities in desperate need. We see a great opportunity, now, to bring our model to many parts of the world where the debilitating effects of poverty hamper the progress of nations and burden their people.”
Said Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation: “Gawad Kalinga brings new perspective to our growing portfolio of social entrepreneurs tackling poverty. With their deliberate focus on values formation and partnerships, Tony Meloto, Luis Oquiñena and their team have transformed large swathes of the Philippines. And they’ve successfully replicated the model in urban and rural environments, at half the cost of alternative interventions. We are delighted to welcome Gawad Kalinga to our Skoll community of social entrepreneurs.”
Landesa tackles a neglected barrier to progress: land rights. More than a billion people have little to no legal control over the land on which they depend. When women, in particular, gain such rights, good things happen: farm yields increase, child welfare improves, domestic violence goes down. Landesa launched the Landesa Center for Women’s Land Rights to ensure millions more women have these legal rights to their land. It is now amplifying its message to support land rights internationally.
Said Tim Hanstad, President and CEO of Landesa: “This award from the Skoll Foundation is a vote of confidence not just in Landesa, but also in the catalytic potential of secure land rights to create economic and social opportunity. We are poised to scale our impact significantly – partnering with governments to ensure as many as 20 million more families have legal rights to land by 2015.”
Said Sally Osberg, President and CEO of the Skoll Foundation: “We recognize that – with growing food and income insecurity, gender inequality and natural resource constraints – now is a pivotal moment in which others must join Tim Hanstad and his team, prioritizing sustainable means for securing land rights. We are honored that Landesa is joining our Skoll community of social entrepreneurs.”
Nidan champions informal workers in India’s north and east, who proudly call it their own organization.The country’s informal sector makes up 93 percent of the workforce, creating 64 percent of GDP. Nidan organizes these workers, incubates sector-based collectives and partners with government to demonstrate that models of rights-based, inclusive growth can work. It advocates, too, from local governance to state and national level governance structures and policy institutions. Nidan means “solutions” in Hindi.
Said Arbind Singh, Executive Director of Nidan: “We started Nidan in 1996, proving the model in Bihar, and realized we had to go further and promote advocacy at a national level. But expanding with scant resources, and a need for more technical inputs, was a challenge. The Skoll Foundation has changed that, making it possible for Nidan to hit our impact targets not just regionally but nationally.”
Said Sally Osberg, President and CEO of The Skoll Foundation: “From the slums of Bihar to the streets of Delhi, Nidan gives informal workers more than a voice; it gives them ownership of their collectives. This award celebrates Arbind Singh and his team’s belief that solutions for the bottom billion in India and around the globe can be found in the bottom billion themselves. We are thrilled Nidan is joining our Skoll community of social entrepreneurs.”
Proximity Designs uses a design-centric approach to identify high-impact opportunities to boost agricultural productivity and increase income for millions of smallholder farm families. The pioneering on-the-ground enterprise in Myanmar (Burma) designs, builds and markets affordable products and services that vulnerable rural families use to transform their lives: they design with empathy. So far more than 90,000 income-boosting products and services have been sold, changing the lives of more than 400,000 people. Proximity will grow its work in irrigation products, farm advisory services and product financing as well as expand into rural energy products.
Said Debbie Aung Din and Jim Taylor, Co-founders of Proximity Designs: “It is a real honor to be recognized, knowing this award is for very selective social enterprises that have a big impact on big problems. Our hardworking staff and the strong rural families in Burma are the true heroes and should be recognized for their resilience and innovation in the midst of sometimes overwhelming constraints.”
Said Sally Osberg, President and CEO of The Skoll Foundation: “Proximity does groundbreaking work in one of the toughest, most isolated places on earth: Myanmar. Founders Debbie and Jim Taylor and their organization offer thoughtful on-the-ground design and rigorous impact evidence, addressing extreme poverty by treating the poor as customers and promoting economic growth at the bottom of the pyramid. We couldn’t be more pleased that Proximity Designs is joining our Skoll community of social entrepreneurs.”
