Empowering Young Social Innovators

Thank you for your investment in the next generation of social entrepreneurs. Over the last 3 months, TakingITGlobal in conjunction with various partners, has supported a new group of emerging innovators to sprout social ventures. In October, winners of a Microsoft Innovate for Good Seed Funding for Innovation Challenge received scholarships to the Sprout E-course along with financing of up to $2,500 to seed their ventures. Fourteen youth representing Bangladesh, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Sri Lanka, Ukraine, United States, Uruguay and Vietnam are on track to complete the 9 week e-course by November 30, 2012 and become eligible for further support in the form of a micro mentorship program as well as accessing additional funding opportunities.

As part of the Pearson Fellowship for Social Innovation, a total of 14 Sprout graduates from cycles delivered between 2009 and 2012 were awarded seed grants of $1,000 USD and access to an individualized coaching and action program. Fellows participate in bi-weekly coaching sessions with resident social innovator and Manager, Social Innovation Programming, undertake a series of reflective and venture-building activities through an exclusive online platform, and engage in group mentoring sessions with subject matter experts.

From Australia to Kenya and Nepal to the Gambia, the great ingenuity and imagination of our Fellows will create impact across the globe. The diversity of issues they seek to address through their social ventures is illustrated below:

• Sia Komba wants to give back to her community of Freetown, Sierra Leone by supporting young people in accessing IT skill-building and connecting them to employment opportunities.
• Tinashe Mafukidze transformed her experience as an immigrant youth into an opportunity to help others through ImmigrantYouth.org
• Daniel Um lives in Manila, Philippines and will launch a tailored fourth and fifth grade math curriculum through his project Video for Life to ensure students at under-resourced public schools in his city have access to engaging learning experiences.
• Alison Burkett aims to support healing and storytelling through Write to Remember 1994, an initiative that helps Rwandans document their stories of living through the genocide while sharing the lessons of this historic tragedy with young Canadians.
• Sartaj Anand will launch a 21^st century skill-sharing online platform to match talented professionals with in-demand skills to not-for-profit organizations.

Your donation has made it possible for these young innovators to create change in their communities. We are looking forward to profiling our Fellows as they launch and grow their initiatives and sharing the outcome of their ventures with you.