Health Agency
Today’s health needs will not be met by today’s health systems without re-organizing solutions for the paradigms for the future of health.
Since 1982, Ashoka has been identifying and collaborating with social entrepreneurs working at the intersections of healthcare, health access and well-being. As a result, We have advanced our collective knowledge base in how to effectively organize and are now ready to act towards supporting agency in health.
- We believe that health systems should be built on the foundation of health agency where individuals with their communities lead, direct and contribute to their own good health journeys and the good health journeys of others.
- We are passionate about working on, supporting, or advocating for integrated and social healthcare solutions that promote the creation of equal, integrated partnerships between people, their communities, medical care stakeholders and social care workers towards agency in health for all.
Health agency, changemaking and the future of the healthcare workforce
For over 40 years, Ashoka has had the unique privilege of learning from our community of Fellows and social entrepreneurs operating at the intersection of social entrepreneurship and health. For more than 10 years, Ashoka has been partnering with health-focused companies and foundations to learn, test, and uncover new paradigms and insights on health and healthcare systems worldwide.
Today, Ashoka is continuing to develop and uncover our purposeful work in Health and wishes to share some recent insights on a workshop we hosted in October 2023 around Health Agency, Changemaking, and the Future of the Healthcare workforce.
Have you read the report? Give us feedback!
Our past and present initiatives
The future of the healthcare workforce
In 2024, we are convening committed and diverse groups of European health stakeholders (policymakers, corporates, patients, social entrepreneurs, social services, etc.) who will be defining new narratives for the future of the healthcare workforce.
They will be both working at their country level as well as the European level to imagine the narratives that are needed to advance the desired conditions, roles, and frameworks for the healthcare workforce.
More information to come.
(Re)imagining community health
Ashoka and The Johnson & Johnson Foundation have joined forces to surface pioneering practices and grow the field of Community Health innovation in Europe.
With this 3 years partnership (2022-2024), we are determined to build a system that values well-being and prevention as much as it values treatment. Out of 136 applications, we selected 8 change leaders from the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany.
Winners received a monetary prize of €50K and followed a tailored learning journey to deepen their systems change strategy and their leadership and facilitation skills to lead multi-stakeholder collaborations.
Learn more about the initiative.
Integrated health
Over the past 12 years, Ashoka and Boehringer Ingelheim have built the collective global vision of increasing access to healthcare for people, animals, and their communities: Making More Health.
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, in 2021, we brought together leading health-social entrepreneurs in Europe to draw a collective picture of our healthcare systems and identify the root causes of the most pressing issues in the field. We implemented 6 facilitated online workshops to analyze the health system, create shared intentions and goals, and co-create specific actions and solutions. Five social entrepreneurs developed a collective advocacy strategy to influence policymakers in Europe to implement policies that equip patients and communities to be active agents in their healthcare journeys.
Download the health position paper.
Contacts
Léna Borsoi
Léna Borsoi co-created and co-leads collaborative initiatives gathering, respectively, Ashoka Health Fellows and Gender fellows who are are analyzing systemic issues in their region and joining forces to address them.
For several years, she has been researching and working on the nexus between leadership and impactful cross-sector collaborations, more particularly as a program manager for the Executive in Residence program, supporting collaboration between corporate leaders and social entrepreneurs.
Yeleka Barrett
Yeleka holds a BA in Kinesiology from the University of Western Ontario, and a BASc in Public Health from Ryerson University. During her time at Ryerson University Yeleka volunteered with Youth Challenge International spending 2 months in Zanzibar, Tanzania working with youth and local community based organizations (CBO's) on, youth employment, peer education and HIV/AIDS awareness and stigma reduction.
After graduating from Ryerson, Yeleka completed a CIDA internship as a Capacity Building Officer in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania with the: Interagency Coalition on AIDS and Development, and the charity organization: Canadian Support of Rural African Initiatives (CSRAI). In this role, Yeleka worked with a wide variety of CBOs helping them to effectively combat the effects of HIV/AIDS through business training, project implementation and outreach.
Today, she continues to volunteer on the board of CSRAI as acting Project Committee Chair. Yeleka is passionate about community health development and is enthusiastic about working with Ashoka to help drive the vision of: Everyone A Change Maker.