When you think of bees, what comes to mind?

If you say the delicious honey you put in your tea, or an awful memory of getting stung as a child, you are not alone.

Ashoka Fellow Bach Kim Nguyen is on a mission to teach the world that bees are much more than a creature to be feared or a source of capital through their honey. His organization, Beeodiversity, treats bees as important messengers about the world we live in and is teaching stakeholders in their well-”bee”ing to speak their language.

Beekeepers learn to monitor the causes of bee mortality in their hives and then examine what environment risks this could be a sign of, spotting danger before it becomes evident to humans. They begin to change their mindset around bees, from considering them only as a source of wealth to recognizing their potential as an environmental resource. 

Beekeepers aren’t Nguyen’s only students in the language of bees. He also engages with veterinarians, scientists, and academics to encourage them to consider bees in their work. Their conclusions are being replicated worldwide in a variety of conditions, showing how bees’ messenger abilities are not only limited to Nguyen’s home country of Belgium.

Working with refugees and their host communities

Since the invasion of Ukraine started in February 2021, an influx of men, women and children have arrived to the borders of countries like Romania, Poland, Hungary and Germany to flee from violence and conflict. This situation has also activated empathy, solidarity and action from hosting communities, willing to take a step forward to support their neighbors.

Since the early 1990s, Ashoka Fellow Jorg Richert has worked on integrating and empowering youth from marginalised backgrounds, creating a safe space for street children and youth to, step-by-step, regain their confidence and find their role in society. 

More recently, he has adapted this model to successfully welcome and host refugees from Ukraine. As shown in the photos, soon after the crisis began, Jorg and his team matched refugees arriving at the Berlin main station with German residents willing to accommodate them. 

He also co-initiated an online platform for shelter for all people in crisis-related need: https://unterkunft-ukraine.de/

Growing up, Ashoka Fellow Miguel Neiva was hospitalized twice.

The isolation and loneliness he felt each time sparked empathy toward a colorblind school friend who had suffered bullying. Unfortunately, this is a common experience for colorblind individuals, who face challenges with social integration, roadblocks on their career paths, and even institutionalized exclusion in some countries where they are banned from holding a driver’s license.

Miguel harnessed his empathy during his studies at design school, creating a custom code for colorblind individuals to read color, similarly to how a blind person would read through braille. Each color receives a symbol, which is then applied across different fields. From matching clothes to reading a color-coded subway map, and even painting as children, the code allows the colorblind to overcome prior sources of exclusion.

Empathy remains a core feature of ColorAdd. Alongside ensuring early integration of the code into schooling materials, ColorAdd holds workshops for children to better understand the experience of being colorblind. They learn to relate to their peers who see the world differently, fostering a more inclusive environment as they get older.

Bangkok, Thailand is known as one of the world’s most visited cities. But, what about the rest of Thailand?

How do the small towns included in tour packs benefit from Thailand’s burgeoning tourism industry? The small-scale tourism industries within these towns are swallowed by international corporations with more resources. Rather than creating an opportunity to enable local lifestyles, small town people are often treated as tourist attractions themselves by these companies, rather than communities with agency.

Somsak Boonkam, Ashoka Fellow, is mobilizing Thailand’s small, sustainable tourism companies so that local people are once again enabled to take part in the industry on their own terms. Competition gives way to collaboration under Somsak’s philosophy of tourism. When one village doesn’t have something available, such as English-speaking tour guides, other villages step up with their own resources so that no one has to fall under. All of these companies also share a platform to promote sustainable tourism, so that travelers who choose one package will still gain exposure to even more equitable options.

Beyond his collaborative efforts, Somsak also trains community members in creating and managing their own activities. This cultivates experiences that are not only unique for tourists, but enabling for communities who can manage tourism on their own terms and maintain their dignity in the process.

Maira is responsible for Communications for the Ashoka Europe diamond. Through her work she seeks to define and spread the message that we are all Changemakers. Before joining the team, she managed communications for a UNDP project in Egypt, promoting the values of volunteering among young people in the Arab region. She also co-led a sport for development project in Cameroon in 2012, providing sports venues and training for more than 900 refugee children. Thanks to the profession of her parents, she had the opportunity to be born, travel, study and live in several countries and continents starting with Mexico, going through Poland, Brazil or Pakistan. She studied Sociology and Communications at Brunel University in London, and has a Master's Degree in Journalism from the EFE news agency.

Olaf Willoughby. I am a photographer, writer, and educator living in London. I run workshops and have exhibited in the UK/USA. I’m a founder of a Facebook group, The Leica Meet, with over 18,000 members, I’ve published various books the first of which was about Antarctica and was used as an ebook by the WWF. And the most recent of which was a collaboration with Eileen Muldoon called Visualising Poetry. Focus. My work is centered around a lifelong fascination with creativity. Getting work into the public domain is an exciting moment because it marks the end of a chapter or even the end of a journey - and endings always contain new beginnings…stay tuned!

Daniela‘s new idea lies in at the confluence of creativity, media and impact.

She has many years of experience in the corporate sector, and saw how dispiriting it can be.  

Building on her early #lead young experiences with horse back riding that gave her confidence, freedom and showed her the potential of leadership, she created a series of innovations that empower others to be creative, use media for growth and impact.