This story was submitted to the Ashoka 30th Birthday Card by Aditi Shekar, who has been working with Ashoka nearly four years, first to build the staff pool and now with Ashoka's Changemakers program..
Some days I wake up hating my alarm clock for the awful noise it makes. I pry my eyes open, while still fighting the natural urge to get just another five minutes of sleep. Finally, I manage to convince myself to get up, to stretch and to think about my day ahead. That’s when it hits me.
In an hour, I will be happily mingling in the inspiring halls of the world’s leading social entrepreneurship organization. My 11:00am meeting will bring together our various priority programs – each seeking to elect, build and support the engines of social entrepreneurship – to come together and leverage massive amounts of change-making. By 1:00pm, the wheels of the morning’s discussions will be in motion – using our global reach and breadth
to maximize our impact. At 3:00pm, I’ll have a call with one of our Fellows – the foundation for our existence – who has advice on how to better build the infrastructure of this rapidly expanding field. By 4:30pm, it’s time to implement those programs – call the printers, marketers and project managers, and hit the pedal to the metal. But before I know it, and before I’ve had time to get it all done, it’s 6:00pm and I am winding down the day at Ashoka.
The simple idea that this organization is built on continues to captivate me. The potential of the Ashokan world goes beyond superficial change and divulges deep into the psyche of change-makers – trying to tap into the undiscovered potential of so many entrepreneurs out there. Yet, beyond all the system-changing, heart-thumping, ground-breaking work we do, there is something even more refreshing that draws me to Ashoka. In today’s world occupied by stories of war and terror, Ashoka stands atop the mountain and shouts out its mantra of "Everyone A Changemaker". This belief in people – whether it’s your sister, your wife’s little cousin, or even your 90-year-old grandmother – allows Ashoka to envision a world where everyday people can create change.
It isn’t often that an idea comes along that can completely re-create the way we live life, the principles we base our values on or the way resources are shared around the world. I whole-heartedly believe that Ashoka is a mechanism of that change to come, along with the other organizations pushing for a more equitable and just world.
So as I go to bed tonight, I don’t dream of being Paris Hilton’s new BFF. Instead, I dream of being a social entrepreneur – the job and title that deserves utmost respect, fame and attention from our society.
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