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.
Ashoka Health Fellows community gathering
We are conducting a series of online gatherings for Ashoka Fellows across the globe to connect and share insights with other peers working in the health sector. Central to Ashoka's approach in identifying new health Fellows, partnering with health actors, and driving paradigm shifts in the health system is the notion of Health Agency.
Health Agency is achieved when individuals, with their communities, can lead, direct, and contribute to their own health journeys and those of others.
Read more about the series, and download our new report on Health & Nature.
Join the next gathering of Ashoka's Health Fellowship community on July 8st, 2026, at 14:00 CET.
Health: We All Take Charge
An EACH revolution is in itself a health revolution.
The world is shifting rapidly to a new way of managing health. We are moving towards a world where individuals will lead and direct their own health journeys and contribute to the good health journeys of others. In an Everyone a Changemaker (EACH) World, millions of people are equipping themselves and others with new behaviors and skills that allow them to be powerful givers and players in the new game.
The accelerating pattern is very clear: 90% of the 950 Ashoka Fellows who focus primarily on health put the patient and then those who are close to them and their community in charge.
Download our new report to learn about the new model of health management.
Resources on 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. You can read more about the work that was done here.
Connecting health and nature
This collaborative publication emerges from the conviction that we are all changemakers, capable of transforming how we understand and cultivate health.
Through diverse voices, experiences, and forms of knowledge, we open a radically necessary conversation: What does it mean to heal in relation to the Earth? What happens when we realize that caring for a forest, a stream, or a garden is also an act of caring for ourselves?
A new Health System for a thriving health workforce
This article explores how shifting narratives, mindsets, and structures can unlock healthier systems for both professionals and communities. Drawing on a unique multi-country process led by leading social entrepreneurs in France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands, this recently published article shares powerful insights on reimagining professional roles, financing prevention, embracing collective imagination, and placing care, equity, and wellbeing at the heart of health systems change.
Case studies: strategies that activate a network of changemakers towards systemic change
Ashoka Fellow Nneka Mobisson
Healthcare accessibility for people with chronic diseases in Africa
Ashoka Fellow Dorica Dan
Healthcare accessibility for people with rare diseases in Romania
Our past and present initiatives
(Re)imagining community health
Ashoka and the Johnson & Johnson Foundation launched a 3-year partnership (2022–2024) to advance Community Health innovation in Europe, focusing on well-being and prevention alongside treatment.
From 136 applicants, 8 change leaders from the UK, Belgium, the Netherlands, France, and Germany were selected. Each received a €50K prize and participated in a tailored learning journey to strengthen their systems change strategies and leadership for multi-stakeholder collaborations.
Learn more about the initiative.
Integrated health
Over the past 12 years, Ashoka and Boehringer Ingelheim have collaborated on the Making More Health initiative to expand healthcare access for people, animals, and their communities. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we convened leading health-social entrepreneurs for six online workshops to identify the root causes of the most pressing issues in the health field. These sessions examined systemic healthcare challenges, established shared goals, and co-created actionable solutions. As a result, five entrepreneurs developed a collective advocacy strategy aimed at influencing European policymakers to equip patients and communities to be active agents in their healthcare journeys.
Download the health position paper.
The future of the healthcare workforce
In 2024, we convened committed and diverse groups of European health stakeholders (policymakers, corporates, patients, social entrepreneurs, social services, etc.) to define new narratives for the future of the conditions, roles, and frameworks of the healthcare workforce.
We aim to explore the cultural, structural, and mindset shifts needed in our health systems to support thriving health systems. Join us as we discuss emerging roles and relationships between health professionals and patients.
Amidst global and regional crumbling of healthcare foundations, what is the resiliency we need, and how can we collectively build it?
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.