Ashoka
Project Title
For project support of a youth changemaker challenge for civic engagement in the U.S. and Sub-Saharan Africa
Date
Mar. 05, 2026
Duration
24 months
Description
While more than 70percentof sub-Saharan Africa’s population and 52percentof the world’s population are under thirty, formal political structures are dominated by older adults. According to UN Youth,fewer than 3percentof parliamentarians globally fall within this age bracket. For forty-five years, Ashoka hasleveragedits international network of social entrepreneurs to address this gap by developing youth leadership in the changemaking sector. To date, they have developed over 20,000 youth-led social ventures across thirty-seven countries and provided over $20 million in seed funding.With this proposed grant, Ashoka willbuild onpast changemaker initiativesto launch theCarnegie Challenge for Civic Leadership. Workingwithground-level partnersto promote thisinitiative, the challenge willsupportover 1,000youth aged twenty and below toidentifysolutions for civic issues intheir communities acrossthe U.S., Kenya, Nigeria, and South Africa. Selected participants will receiveprize money to launch and grow their projects, certification as civic leaders, and ongoing support within a strong global communityof changemakers.