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Dear Skoll Newsletter Subscriber, We've posted the following stories to the Skoll Foundation Blog over the last two weeks: Skoll Social Entrepreneurs in Haiti
Several Skoll social entrepreneurs have active programs in Haiti and may be facing urgent funding needs following yesterday's earthquake. Partners in Health, water.org and Peace Dividend Trust work, respectively, on health care, water and sanitation, and peace and humanitarian programs. We encourage you to visit these organizations websites in the coming days as the extent of the damage becomes clear to see whether they are seeking emergency funding relief and contribute, if you can. Thanks. Three Skoll Social Entrepreneurs Compete in Chase Community Giving Challenge
Three Skoll award recipients - Camfed, Half the Sky and Kiva - are among 100 organizations in the final round of the Chase Community Giving challenge. This is an initiative designed to harness social media for fundraising, as well as to generate exposure for social change organizations. Each of the top 100 has presented a "big idea" on what they would do with $1 million. Chase will award a $1 million prize and five $100,000 prizes to the top vote recipients. Voting opens January 15. YouthBuild Profiled on the Huffington Post
YouthBuild, founded by 2007 Skoll social entrepreneur Dorothy Stoneman, had a great profile this week on the Huffington Post. Julia Moulden provides a compelling overview of Dorothy's work, with some good anecdotes on the program's impact. She also highlights how the federal and state governments have stepped up to the financing plate for YouthBuild because of its proven successes. Citizen Schools at the White House
Eric Schwarz, the co-founder and CEO of Citizen Schools and a 2005 Skoll social entrepreneur, participated in a White House event on education. Citizen Schools taps adult volunteers to run after-school education programs at the middle school level in 37 sites across the U.S. At the event, President Obama recognized 85 Presidential Award-winning math and science educators and announced a new $250 million initiative to bolster science, technology, engineering and math education. The White House asked Citizen Schools to train the 85 teachers, who represent every state in the nation, on its apprenticeship curricula and online volunteer support community.
GoodWeave Featured on NBC Nightly News
GoodWeave (formerly RugMark), whose U.S. operations are run by 2005 Skoll social entrepreneur Nina Smith, was recently featured on NBC Nightly News. GoodWeave uses a certification program to reduce child labor in the carpet making business in South Asia. The segment gives a good overview of GoodWeave's approach, as well as both the challenges faced and progress made.
Top Moments of the Decade in Social Entrepreneurship
The Skoll Foundation got a nice send off for 2009 from the Social Entrepreneurship blog at Change.org. A post on the Top Moments of the Decade in Social Entrepreneurship listed the initial public offering of eBay at #1 because it became the launching pad for Jeff Skoll and Pierre Omidyar's social change work. The post also mentions Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship recipients Teach for America and Kiva, as well as the debut of "An Inconvenient Truth" at the 2006 Skoll World Forum.
Gifts with Meaning
New York Times columnist Nick Kristof's Christmas eve column encouraged people to give gifts with meaning. He identified eight organizations he believes are doing great work, including the Afghan Institute of Learning, run by 2006 Skoll social entrepreneur Sakena Yacoobi, and the Acumen Fund, a Skoll partner.
Changing the Mission of High School
U.S. high schools have long focused on graduation rates and college enrollment as key measures of success. Neither is sufficient, argues J.B. Schramm, the founder of College Summit and a 2006 Skoll social entrepreneur, in this op-ed in the New York Times. J.B. and his colleague, E. Kinney Zalesne, talk about how high schools, pushed in part by federal legislation, will start measuring graduating students' success through the first year of college to determine if they are producing kids with the skill sets they need to effectively handle the challenges of college.
OneVoice Movement Engages Top Israeli Politicians
The OneVoicement Movement, founded by 2008 Skoll social entrepreneur Daniel Lubetzky of PeaceWorks, hosted public conversations in December with two senior Israeli politicians on prospects for peace. OneVoice hosted Former Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz in Ariel, one of Israel's largest settlement blocs, to discuss his new peace plan. Opposition leader Tzipi Livni also joined OneVoice to explore whether peace with the Palestinians is possible at this juncture.
Amazon Conservation Team Creates Innovative Virtual Tour on Deforestation
The Amazon Conservation Team, led by 2008 Skoll social entrepreneurs Mark Plotkin and Liliana Madrigal, has teamed with Google Earth and The Jane Goodall Institute to create a virtual tour of communities in Tanzania and Brazil who are impacted by, and working innovatively on, deforestation. They presented Speaking for the Forests - Indigenous Communities & Google Earth – Partnering in REDD in Copenhagen. The 6-minute virtual journey provides good insights into the issue of deforestation on both continents. You need Google Earth on your computer to watch this, but it's worth downloading. The file is here.
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Skoll Social Entrepreneurs in Haiti
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