Ashoka Community takes on top leadership roles in Brazil's administration

The significant and growing influence of our ‘Everyone a Changemaker’ (EACH) movement in Brazil was reflected in - and will be strengthened by - the number of Ashoka community members chosen to lead strategic positions in the various executive branches of the new administration.

We are thrilled to have eleven members of our Ashoka community (Ashoka Fellows and other leaders) in leading roles within Brazil's federal administration. They have created widespread social change for the good of all and are respected across sectors and geographies. We invite you to explore the groundbreaking ideas that led them to this pivotal moment where we see a concentration of changemakers leading national-scale progress.

Fellow Ana Moser was appointed as the Minister of Sports. In the Ministry of Indigenous Peoples, Fellow Joenia Wapichana, was the first indigenous person named president of Brazil's Indigenous Affairs Agency (FUNAI).  In environmental-related issues, Fellow Carlos Nobre became Member of the Board of the Brazil Development Bank, with a critical role over the Amazon and climate agenda of the bank. Fellow Beth Cardoso will coordinate social participation in the Ministry of Agrarian Development and Family Agriculture. Ashoka alumni Carina Pimenta, co-founder of Conexsus with Fellow Valmir Ortega, was nominated as National Secretary of Bioeconomy. In the Ministry of Culture, Fellow João Jorge was appointed as president of the Palmares Cultural Foundation, tasked to promote and preserve the African-Brazilian culture. In the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship, Alexandre Silva, a member of Brazil's Next Now Community, became National Secretary of Rights of Older People. 

In the Ministry of Education, the repercussions of new nominations over Ashoka’s new paradigms (Every child practices empathy and Every young person perceives herself as a Changemaker) are equally relevant for the EACH movement. Katia Schweickardt, former Manaus Secretary of Education and a Next-Generation Leader (NGL) of the EACH movement, has been appointed as the National Secretary of Basic Education. She then invited another NGL from Manaus, Euzeni Araújo, to be her chief of staff. Euzeni was the one who first connected to Ashoka, valuing and supporting two Changemaker Schools from Manaus. Katia’s first engagement with the EACH movement was her participation in the selection panel for Ashoka Young Changemakers in 2019. At the end of their term in the Secretariat of Education, they edited a book entitled Changemaker Education - The trajectory of Manaus as a reference for teaching and learning through quality management (in Portuguese). 

As Katia was officially sworn in, she turned to Ashoka’s community to select social innovators in education for key positions in her team. The first result of that is that Ashoka Fellow Cybele Amado is now the National Director of Teacher and Education Professionals Training, after leading the Anísio Teixeira Institute, a governmental entity responsible for teachers training in the state of Bahia. Another important addition to the team is Raquel Franzim, who had a leading role at Alana Institute, founded by our Fellow Ana Lucia Villela, and has just been appointed as Whole Student Education General Director at the Ministry. 

Other Ashoka Fellows have been influential in previous administrations, but we recognize the unprecedented power of the ‘Everyone a Changemaker’(EACH) network effect carried by these eleven leaders in the new administration. The fact that they are counting on each other as social innovators for the public demonstrates their trust in Ashoka's process of searching, selecting and engaging co-leaders across a broad spectrum to shape new norms for the good of all. 

Having these changemakers in the federal administration will take the EACH vision to a national level, bringing more strategic partners and intensifying the connections among the EACH movement co-leaders across geographies, and between them and the federal administration.