Recipients of Skoll Awards for Social Entrepreneurship (R-Z)

www.riders.org

Social Entrepreneurs: Andrea and Barry Coleman
Award Year: 2006

Andrea and Barry Coleman share a passion for motorcycles. Through the racing world, they became involved in fund-raising 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, 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. In 2008, Rides launched a program in Gambia that makes it the first African country to be able to deliver health care to its entire population.

www.roomtoread.org

Social Entrepreneur: John Wood
Award Year: 2006

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 on a yak carrying more than 3,000 books. He founded Room to Read in 2000 to provide educational resources for children who might otherwise face lifelong illiteracy. The organization has constructed 765 schools, established more than 7,000 libraries, provided 5 million new children’s books, created 180 computer and language rooms, and funded 6,800 girls’ scholarships. Over 2.4 million children now have access to the Room to Read network of schools and libraries.

www.rootcapital.org

Social Entrepreneur: William Foote
Award Year: 2005

William Foote was an investment banker during the Latin American growth years of the early 1990s. After the peso was devalued in 1994, he spent two years in rural Mexico studying and writing about the financial crisis and its effects on rural people and the environment. He founded EcoLogic Finance (now Root Capital) to provide loans of between $25,000 and $500,000 to small and medium-sized enterprises working in sustainable agriculture and fisheries, wild-harvested products, certified wood and ecotourism. Since inception, Root Capital has made 550 loans valued at over $120 million to rural producers in Latin American, African and South Asian countries, with a 99 percent repayment rate. Its has also provided financial training to 55 grassroots businesses representing 27,000 small-scale producers.

www.rootsofpeace.org/

Social Entrepreneur: Heidi Kühn
Award Year: 2006

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 planted 1 million fruit and nut trees, helping show farmers they can earn more growing crops than poppies. Roots of Peace is also active in Angola and Cambodia.

http://www.criancarenascer.org.br/ingles/Inicial-Ing.htm

Social Entrepreneur: Vera Cordeiro
Award Year: 2006

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 provides an array of social services to approximately 1,000 people per month, helping to lift them out of poverty. Its model is being replicated at 24 other independent centers. Plans call for adding 10 to 13 new centers to the network by the end of 2011. Renascer Child Health Association was renamed Saúde Criança in October 2009.

www.sfcg.org

Social Entrepreneurs: John and Susan Collin Marks
Award Year: 2006

John Marks, a former diplomat, founded Search for Common Ground (SFCG) at the height of the Cold War to build bridges between East and West. Susan Collin Marks, a South African peacemaker, joined in 1994. SFCG works in 17 countries to transform and heal violent conflict across whole societies. Its toolbox includes such well-known means of conflict resolution as mediation, facilitation and back-channel dialogue; and less traditional methods like community organizing, TV and radio soap opera, music-video and sports. SFCG specializes in using popular culture to create understanding among ethnic communities and to achieve measurable change in attitudes. It is working to bring its media production capacity to global scale.

http://www.sonidosdelatierra.org.py

Social Entrepreneur: Luis Szarán
Award Year: 2005

The eighth child of struggling farmers, Luis Szarán was “discovered” by a prominent musician and was given the opportunity to study music with master teachers in Europe. He founded Sonidos de la Tierra in early 2002 in Paraguay to help children from similar backgrounds have opportunities like his own. He says, “Young people who play Mozart by day do not break windows at night,” and he likes to point out that singing or playing in a musical ensemble imparts discipline, self-esteem and teamwork. He has helped residents of 120 communities establish philanthropic societies, work together to improve the future of their children and directly benefit 10,000 young people.

http://www.teachforamerica.org

Social Entrepreneur: Wendy Kopp
Award Year: 2008

Wendy Kopp was struck by the inequities in the U.S. education system as a freshman at Princeton University where she saw smart, talented public school students struggle academically because of their weak preparation. At the same time, many of her peers were searching for jobs that would offer significance and meaning. In her senior thesis, she outlined a plan to build a national teachers corps by recruiting recent college graduates to teach in America’s neediest schools. Upon graduation, she began implementing her idea, raising $2.5 million and convincing schools to participate. In its first year, Teach For America placed 500 young teachers in low-income classrooms. Today, Teach For America fields 6,000 corps members, reaching 500,000 students; at the same time, its 14,000 alumni are serving as important leaders and advocates for education reform. Skoll funding will support Teach For All, a new organization created as a partnership between Teach For America and Teach First, the first adaptation of the program in the U.K., to help entrepreneurs in other countries who are pursuing the development of the Teach For America model locally.

www.transfairusa.org

Social Entrepreneur: Paul Rice
Award Year: 2005

Paul Rice founded TransFair USA in 1998 to build a more equitable and sustainable model of international trade that benefits producers, consumers, industry and the earth. TransFair USA helps small farmers in developing countries through its work with cooperatives in 58 countries. By certifying the products of these cooperatives as fair trade, it guarantees consumers that farmers were paid fairly. Fair trade farmers also meet minimum international employment and environmental standards. Since 1998, 1.5 million farmers, farm workers and their families have earned more than $125 in additional revenue from access to the U.S. fair trade market. TransFair USA has signed agreements with more than 700 U.S. companies to source fair trade products.

http://www.verite.org

Social Entrepreneur: Dan Viederman
Award Year: 2007

Dan Viederman’s experience in leading non-governmental organizations in rapidly growing countries like China convinced him of the need to improve workplace conditions globally. When he came to Verité in 2001, he took the organization beyond its factory audit roots and engaged workers in a solutions-driven, participatory model that in 2006 improved working conditions for 420,000 workers. Verité's reputation for credibility and impact has prompted international firms such as Gap, Levi’s and Starbucks to seek its help for major restructurings. With support from Skoll, Verité is strengthening partnerships with NGOs in dozens of countries and will train 1,500 practitioners to replicate its model by the end of 2009.

www.villagereach.org

Social Entrepreneur: Blaise Judja-Sato
Award Year: 2006

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 251 clinics that serve 5.2 million people in Mozambique. It is expanding to additional provinces in Mozambique, and into Malawi.

www.visayanforum.org

Social Entrepreneur: Cecilia Flores-Oebanda
Award Year: 2008

As a child in the Philippines, Cecilia Flores-Oebanda helped her family survive by selling fish and scavenging garbage. As freedom-fighters against the Marcos dictatorship, she and her husband were imprisoned for four years and separated from their oldest son. Their two other children were born in detention. After democracy prevailed, Cecilia founded the Visayan Forum Foundation (VFF) in 1991 to eliminate human trafficking through public-private partnerships that rescue, protect and reintegrate victims. The organization has served 33,300 victims and potential victims to date and has filed 71 legal cases on behalf of 187 complainants. By 2011, VFF plans to expand its multi-sectoral networks and build its program capacity.

http://www.visionspring.org

Social Entrepreneur: Jordan Kassalow
Award Year: 2009

Jordan Kassalow’s idea for VisionSpring grew out of over 20 years’ experience providing eye care to the world’s poor, and a chance visit with a weaver in rural Mexico who lost her job due to failing vision. Jordan realized that something as simple as inexpensive, ready-made eyeglasses could have a significant impact on reducing poverty – for those who suffer from poor vision, and for those who take advantage of the business opportunity to sell glasses. Since 2003, VisionSpring’s award-winning innovation, the “Business in a Bag”, has empowered Vision Entrepreneurs across four continents to run profitable businesses selling eyeglasses – over 200,000 pairs to date.

http://www.water.org

Social Entrepreneur: Gary White
Award Year: 2009

Over 20 years ago in Guatemala, Gary White watched a little girl carrying contaminated water alongside a stream of open sewage, back to her shack. Shortly thereafter, Gary started Water.org, dedicating his life to bringing safe drinking water to people living without it. Water.org has grown into the leader in microcredit solutions for the water and sanitation sector while continuing its original grant-based model. Both approaches have resulted in healthier communities, less time and money spent obtaining water, and improved dignity. Since its inception in 1990, Water.org has invested approximately $6 million in water and sanitation projects, which have directly benefited more than 350,000 people.

www.witness.org

Social Entrepreneur: Gillian Caldwell
Award Year: 2005

WITNESS was launched in 1992 to get video cameras into the hands of human rights activists. One was Gillian Caldwell, who was investigating Russian prostitution rings. She told WITNESS that advocates needed training and access to more media outlets. WITNESS hired her as executive director in 1998; she built the organization into a major international resource for the media and the human rights field. The organization’s partner groups across the world have produced videos that have been used as evidence in legal proceedings, as testimony before U.N. commissions, for grassroots education and mobilization and as a deterrent to further abuse. The Hub is a dedicated WITNESS website hosting content about human rights abuses from contributors globally.

http://www.youthbuild.org

Social Entrepreneur: Dorothy Stoneman
Award Year: 2007

After graduating from Harvard University, Dorothy Stoneman joined the civil rights movement and lived in Harlem for 20 years. Seeing abandoned buildings, homeless people and idle youths moved her to start YouthBuild. YouthBuild re-enrolls young people in an alternative YouthBuild school where they complete high school and build affordable homes for their neighbors while transforming their own lives. Each year YouthBuild programs engage 8,000 youths in 44 states in local programs supported by the national YouthBuild USA organization and produce affordable housing for 1,000 low-income or homeless families. Skoll support is helping 500 YouthBuild graduates tell their stories to millions of Americans, expand the program and fund a re-entry program for adjudicated youths in three states.