Recipients of 2006 Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship

Afghan Institute of Learning

www.creatinghope.org/afghan instituteoflearning Grant Amount: $480,000 over three years (to fiscal sponsor Give2Asia)

Sakena Yacoobi founded the Afghan Institute of Learning (AIL) in 1995 to restore education and health programs in Afghanistan that were dramatically cut during 30 years of warfare. The organization’s 18 Women’s Learning Centers provide services to more than 350,000 Afghan women and children each year. Its 16 Educational Learning Centers have trained 10,000 teachers and have provided school supplies to thousands of young Afghan students, while its university has prepared 125 students for careers as community leaders. AIL plans to expand its teacher training programs and its partnership network to 100 new community-based organizations, ultimately training 3,300 new teachers and improving the health of 500,000 women and children.

Aflatoun (formerly Child Savings International)

www.aflatoun.org Grant Amount: $765,000 over three years

Jeroo Billimoria has devoted her life to helping children in India and around the world. Realizing that children living in poverty need an advocate, she founded Childline, which has fielded 3 million calls for assistance from street children in India’s largest cities. She expanded the concept into an international organization called Child Helpline International, which supports help lines in 71 countries. She used the same model to found Child Savings International, a global network of organizations empowering children to plan and save for the future. The pilot program serves more than 70,000 children in India, using school-based “Aflatoon Clubs” that prepare children to succeed academically, manage income and help to break the cycle of poverty.

Benetech

www.benetech.org Grant Amount: $1,215,000 over three years

While in college learning to make smart bombs, Jim Fruchterman hit upon the idea of using character recognition to make books available to people with reading disabilities. The experience inspired him to create Benetech, a company that utilizes technology to address social needs. With 25,000 books, its Bookshare.org is the world’s largest library of electronic books for the disabled. Benetech’s Martus project, used in 60 countries, helps collect and disseminate information about human rights abuses. In addition to deepening the impact of its current projects, Benetech plans to launch high-potential new projects, build its capacity and advance the field of social entrepreneurship.

Ceres, Inc.

www.ceres.org Grant Amount: $525,000 over three years

Mindy Lubber was a founding board member of Ceres, Inc., in 1989 and became its president in 2003. The organization’s goal is to advance institutional responsibility and environmental sustainability, persuading corporations to change their practices by galvanizing institutional investors. More than two dozen companies took action on climate change as a result of Ceres’ 2003 summit. Its 2005 convening produced a 10-point Call for Action that includes an investor commitment of $1 billion to clean energy technology. Ceres plans to persuade 25 more companies to make public commitments on climate change by 2008.

CIDA City Campus

www.cida.co.za Grant Amount: $1,015,000 over three years

Taddy Blecher was ready to emigrate from South Africa when he took a second look at his native country. “I saw aching poverty,” he said, and he made a life-changing decision to do something about it. In 1999 he and his colleagues opened CIDA City Campus to provide disadvantaged youths a chance to earn a four-year business administration degree. At a cost of just $9,500 per student, CIDA has produced 1,800 graduates with potential lifetime earnings of $635,000 to $1.5 million who teach and sponsor other students. CIDA plans to open new campuses, increase enrollment and create a franchise model called University-in-a-Box entirely built and managed by students.

Ciudad Saludable

www.ciudadsaludable.org Grant Amount: $615,000 over three years

Albina Ruiz started worrying about health and environmental problems caused by garbage in Peru when she was an industrial engineering student. She came up with the idea of creating local enterprises to collect and process garbage, charge affordable fees, reduce waste in landfills and generate income by recycling. After promoting her concept as a consultant for 15 years, she founded Ciudad Saludable in 2001. The organization is generating employment and facilitating cleaner cities. It has trained authorities in 43 municipalities, works with 800 informal recyclers and is helping the government develop Peru’s first national waste management plan. Ciudad Saludable plans to expand in 20 major cities.

College Summit

www.collegesummit.org Grant Amount: $1,515,000 over three years

A product of inner-city schools in Denver, J.B. Schramm noticed that many of his peers were not going on to college, and he became the director of a teen center in a low-income neighborhood of Washington, D.C., to address this problem. It was there that he recognized the gap in college enrollment is not only about talent or ambition, but also about resources and access. College Summit focuses on building support systems during the critical transition from grade 12 to “grade 13” by mobilizing teachers, parents, schools, colleges and communities to help students continue their education. College Summit students have enrolled in college at a rate of 79 percent—significantly higher than the national rate of 46 percent for low-income students. College Summit alumni have maintained a college retention rate of 80 percent. The cost per student has dropped, while the number of students served annually has risen from 925 in 2002 to more than 6,000 in 2005. The organization plans to serve 28,000 students between 2006 and 2009.

Health Care Without Harm

www.noharm.org Grant Amount: $765,000 over three years

While writing a community guidebook on toxic chemicals, Gary Cohen felt compassion for families living near waste sites who were struggling to protect their children. He cofounded Health Care Without Harm in 1996 to inspire health care providers to adopt healthier products and practices. The organization has built a collaborative network of 435 groups in 52 countries. Health Care Without Harm and its partners have closed more than 90 percent of medical waste incinerators in the U.S. and have virtually eliminated mercury medical products in U.S. hospitals. Plans call for a coordinated global effort to educate medical providers, change harmful practices and influence manufacturers to sell healthier products by demonstrating the efficacy and affordability of alternatives. Health Care Without Harm recently produced Clean Design Magazine, Highlights of the 2006 CleanMed Conference, which details some innovative ideas from the growing “green” movement in the health care industry.

Institute for Development Studies and Practices

www.idsp.org.pk Grant Amount: $450,000 over three years

Quratulain Bakhteari grew up in a refugee camp outside of Karachi, where she helped new refugees arriving in Pakistan gain access to basic health care and education. Frustrated by a lack of efficacy in internationally sponsored development projects, she created Institute for Development Studies and Practices (IDSP) in 1998 to train and inspire students to become involved in Pakistan’s social and economic development. The IDSP model, which cultivates trust in local communities, has been taken to 40 districts in the country and has graduated 1,200 students, 80 percent of whom help lead national and international community development organizations. IDSP plans to create a broader network of locally based learning institutions throughout Pakistan.

International Bridges to Justice

www.ibj.org Grant Amount: $765,000 over three years

A former public defender and ordained minister, Karen Tse moved to Cambodia in 1994 to train public defenders. After witnessing many violations of the rights of citizens, she founded International Bridges to Justice to promote systemic global change in the administration of criminal justice. The organization has dramatically improved and even saved the lives of everyday citizens by training and supporting criminal defense lawyers and establishing a network of Defender Resource Centers throughout China. Plans call for expansion in China, as well as Vietnam, Cambodia and other countries where programs are expected to reach critical mass due to public awareness and the creation of professional associations of trained advocates and judges.

Renascer Child Health Association

http://www.criancarenascer .org.br/ingles/Inicial-Ing.htm Grant Amount: $615,000 over three years

Working in a public hospital in Rio de Janeiro, Vera Cordeiro felt helpless and frustrated when children who were successfully treated for an infectious disease returned to the hospital and died from the same disease after becoming reinfected at home. Realizing that she needed to treat whole families, she raffled off her belongings and started Renascer Child Health Association in 1991 to work intensively with poor families. Renascer serves approximately 350 families per year, helping to lift them out of poverty. Its model has been replicated at 14 other independent centers. Plans call for helping an average of 1,000 new individuals every 18 months.

Riders for Health

www.riders.org Grant Amount: $765,000 over three years

Andrea and Barry Coleman share a passion for motorcycles. Through the racing world, they became involved in fundraising for children in Africa. After noticing how frequently vehicles broke down and seeing women in childbirth being carried to the hospital in wheelbarrows, they remortgaged their house and founded Riders for Health in 1996. The organization trains local health workers to carry out daily vehicle maintenance and provides technicians who visit monthly to service vehicles, thus making health care available even in remote areas of Africa. In areas served by reliable vehicles, vaccination rates have risen, death rates have dropped, and the efficiency of health workers has increased 300 percent.

Room to Read

www.roomtoread.org Grant Amount: $1,215,000 over three years

On a trek to Nepal, John Wood visited a school whose crumbling library was almost devoid of books. Remembering how much his hometown library has affected his life, he returned a short time later with more than 3,000 books. He founded Room to Read in 2000 to provide educational resources to children who might otherwise face lifelong illiteracy. The organization has helped more than 875,000 children by constructing 200 schools, establishing more than 2,500 libraries, providing 1.1 million new children’s books, creating 85 computer and language labs, and funding 1,757 girls’ scholarships in India, Nepal and Southeast Asia. Room to Read plans to continue partnering with communities to serve 1.9 million more children by 2008.

Roots of Peace

www.rootsofpeace.org/ Grant Amount: $765,000 over three years

A cancer diagnosis and successful treatment prompted Heidi Kühn to want to give back to the less fortunate and to live close to and nurture the land. Inspired by the international campaign to ban land mines, she founded Roots of Peace in 1997 at her family’s home in the California wine country. The organization takes practical steps toward sustainable development and enduring peace by converting minefields to vineyards, agricultural fields and safe migration corridors for wildlife. Roots of Peace has helped renew production in Croatia’s wine-growing regions. In Afghanistan, it has removed 100,000 land mines and proved farmers could earn more growing grapes than poppies. The model is being replicated in Angola and Cambodia.

Search for Common Ground

www.sfcg.org/ Grant Amount: $765,000 over three years

John Marks founded Search for Common Ground at the height of the Cold War to build bridges between East and West. The organization has provided productive methods and tools for governments, community organizations and journalists to sow the seeds for interethnic harmony. It has produced media programs designed to create understanding among ethnic communities, and it has worked with medical institutions to establish a system to monitor infectious diseases across the Middle East. Search for Common Ground has established multi-pronged conflict prevention programs in Angola, Burundi, Congo, Ivory Coast, Liberia and Sierra Leone. The organization intends to bring its media program to global scale and achieve measurable changes in public attitudes toward conflicts.

VillageReach

www.villagereach.org Grant Amount: $765,000 over three years

Born in Cameroon, Blaise Judja-Sato was a successful U.S. businessman when a devastating flood in Mozambique prompted his return to Africa. While helping with relief efforts, he saw how difficult it was to get medicines across the “last mile” to those in need. He founded VillageReach to solve infrastructure gaps in remote areas, including locating quality suppliers and providing reliable transport and training in vaccine management and safe waste disposal. VillageReach has equipped and trained staff in 88 clinics that serve 1.5 million people in Mozambique. It plans to reach an additional 3.5 million people and replicate its model in other countries over the next three years.

Click here to learn about the 2007 award winners