Welcome Change

At a time when the U.S. is experiencing a childcare crisis, family childcare educators offer critical support to working parents and families. Yet these providers (who are, in essence, our children's first teachers) are under-valued and many struggle to keep their neighborhood businesses open. For a look at the national landscape and possible reforms ahead, we’ll talk with Ashoka Fellow Jessica Sager, founder of All Our Kin, who is working to transform the childcare system. Her insights and policy recommendations are informed by her network of 1,100 family childcare educators in under-resourced communities in Connecticut and New York City, and by partners in 23 states.

This episode previously recorded on March 8, 2023.

Welcome Change is Ashoka's news and insight series - short conversations with the world's leading changemakers on what works, what's next, and the role we can play. 

Browse the series: https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/welcomechange 
Follow here: https://twitter.com/ashokaus

Over the last five years, more than 300 journalists worldwide have been tragically killed. Ashoka Fellow and investigative reporter Laurent Richard founded Forbidden Stories, a global journalist network that collaborates to ensure “killing the journalist won’t kill the story.” Since 2018, they have published countless major investigations in 50 countries, bringing the world breaking news on the Pegasus Project among others, which revealed a global web of cyber-surveillance of unprecedented scale targeting journalists, human rights defenders, politicians and more.

Listen in to this episode of Welcome Change as we hear from Laurent about the impact of their investigations —including their most recent one on the disinformation-for-hire industry— and the role collaboration plays in safeguarding press freedom.

Welcome Change is Ashoka's news and insight series - short conversations with the world's leading changemakers on what works, what's next, and the role we can play. 

Browse the series: https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/welcomechange 
Follow here: https://twitter.com/ashokaus

We’ve likely all had the unfortunate experience of needing to replace our phone because it didn’t support the latest operating system or because repairing it would be nearly as costly as getting a new one. This industry practice is called planned obsolescence and it explains why electronics are now the fastest growing source of waste in the world, with serious impacts on our planet, let alone our consumer culture. Ashoka Fellow Laetitia Vasseur is out to reverse the practice in France and across Europe by building new incentives (and laws) for tech companies to embrace designs that work for people and planet, now and in the long run. Join us on February 15 to learn more about our right to repair.

*Episode recorded live on February 15, 2023.

Welcome Change is Ashoka's news and insight series - short conversations with the world's leading changemakers on what works, what's next, and the role we can play. 

Browse the series: https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/welcomechange 
Follow here: https://twitter.com/ashokaus

After 10 years of negotiations, the UN signed a historic international agreement to protect the world's oceans and the staggering 10 percent of marine species at risk of extinction. This is welcome news for the blue planet, and it raises the question of how the treaty will get implemented once ratified.

Ashoka Fellow Wietse van der Werf, founder of Sea Ranger Service, has some answers. For the last 7 years they have been training young people from coastal areas as Sea Rangers to manage Marine Protected Areas, grooming them as the next generation of maritime workers. On this episode of Welcome Change, listen in to learn more about the High Seas Treaty and practical, scalable solutions that conserve our oceans.

*Episode recorded live on April 5, 2023.

Welcome Change is Ashoka's news and insight series - short conversations with the world's leading changemakers on what works, what's next, and the role we can play. 

Browse the series: https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/welcomechange 
Follow here: https://twitter.com/ashokaus

Ashoka Fellow Ariel Koren is elevating access to expert translation as a basic right and working towards a future where people of diverse backgrounds and languages can give and receive vital information – whether managing a health crisis or applying for asylum – in a language they know well. Ariel's translator collective currently supports 110 languages.

On this episode, we look at what's working and what's next when it comes to increasing freedom of mobility and eliminating language barriers.

*Episode recorded live on February 22, 2023.

Welcome Change is Ashoka's news and insight series - short conversations with the world's leading changemakers on what works, what's next, and the role we can play. 

Browse the series: https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/welcomechange 
Follow here: https://twitter.com/ashokaus

All over the world, women face astounding rates of sexual harassment on public transport. In Kenya, this issue affects 88 percent of women. What if we could redesign public transport systems to fundamentally improve safety for women and other vulnerable groups? This is the question social entrepreneur Naomi Mwaura is answering with FLONE Initiative – the organization she founded in 2013.

Listen in to hear about Naomi’s deep love and appreciation for “matatus” - Kenya’s minibuses - and how she is transforming an entire industry from the ground up by putting more women in charge and by paying attention to things like bus routes, predictable schedules, incident tracking and more.

This conversation is part of an insight series on what's next for gender equity, supported by Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

*Episode recorded live on February 8, 2023.

Welcome Change is Ashoka's news and insight series - short conversations with the world's leading changemakers on what works, what's next, and the role we can play. 

Browse the series: https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/welcomechange 
Follow here: https://twitter.com/ashokaus

Ashoka Fellow Laura Zommer is a fact-checking pioneer from Argentina who founded Chequeado and co-founded FactChequeado to combat Spanish-language disinformation across 17 Latin American countries and the U.S. While several of the large platforms, from Meta to Google and Twitter, make efforts to combat misinformation in English, their investments in other languages, including Spanish, is dismal in comparison. With 60 million Latinos living in the U.S. and no significant Spanish-language fact-checking efforts operating in the U.S., Laura paired up with Spanish Ashoka Fellow, Clara Jimenez Cruz of Maldita.es to fill that gap and address the rising societal costs of rampant misinformation.

Listen in to hear from Laura about how their new U.S. outfit FactChequeado is debunking and defunding Spanish-language disinformation. 

*Episode recorded live on February 1, 2023.

Welcome Change is Ashoka's news and insight series - short conversations with the world's leading changemakers on what works, what's next, and the role we can play. 

Browse the series: https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/welcomechange 
Follow here: https://twitter.com/ashokaus

From his global headquarters in Kampala, Uganda, Ashoka Fellow Solomon King is on track to deliver hands-on science and technology education to one million African children by 2030. On the youthful African continent - where 60% of the population is under 25 - Solomon believes that building robots, learning to code, and working with AI is the best way to equip young folks with world-class science and technology skills and help them transform their continent and the world.

On this episode, we hear about the kinds of robots' kids are building, what Solomon thinks about the power of AI, and how to ensure every child has access to practical, engaging STEM education.

To follow along with his work, see his twitter here.

*Episode recorded live on January 18, 2023.

Welcome Change is Ashoka's news and insight series - short conversations with the world's leading changemakers on what works, what's next, and the role we can play. 

Browse the series: https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/welcomechange 
Follow here: https://twitter.com/ashokaus

Starting in Baltimore, Ashoka Fellow Bree Jones sees an opportunity to restore neighborhoods that have rich histories but are experiencing hyper-vacancy due to decades of disinvestment and systemic inequities. Working with first-time home buyers and an array of city actors, she is catalyzing block-level restoration and building the wealth of Black residents – without displacing legacy neighbors.

Listen in on this episode to meet Bree, learn more, and check how her team's development approach and principles may apply in your community. 

*Episode recorded live on December 7, 2022

Welcome Change is Ashoka's news and insight series - short conversations with the world's leading changemakers on what works, what's next, and the role we can play. 

Browse the series: https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/welcomechange 
Follow here: https://twitter.com/ashokaus

Armin believes that everyone of all ages and across all socio-economic groups should have access to legal knowledge and services. By launching the first legal clinic in the U.S. staffed by young people (and supervised by a licensed attorney), Armin has proven that it is possible to simultaneously harness the untapped power of young people, reimagine high school legal education, extend community access to legal services, and transform the pathways into the legal profession.

In addition to the legal clinic model he piloted in Austin, Texas in 2017, Armin and his team at Youth Justice Alliance develop curriculum, host a scholar's program, and work with law schools and bar associations around the country to ensure talented, bilingual, and diverse students from underrepresented communities are equipped with the legal knowledge and tools to navigate the justice system, support their communities, and pursue legal careers.

Listen in on this episode to hear Armin reflect on his journey so far and his vision for how this model can take root around the country, democratizing legal knowledge and transforming the legal field in the process.

*Episode recorded live on November 16, 2022

Welcome Change is Ashoka's news and insight series - short conversations with the world's leading changemakers on what works, what's next, and the role we can play. 

Browse the series: https://www.ashoka.org/en-us/welcomechange 
Follow here: https://twitter.com/ashokaus