At the heart of the national flag of India is the Ashoka Chakra, a circular symbol depicting the wheel of darma. (‘Chakra’ in Sanskrit means ‘wheel’.) The Ashoka Chakra is so named because it is found on artefacts from the time of the Mauryan (ancient Indian) Emperor Ashoka the Great, one of the world’s greatest leaders, who unified and ruled over most of present-day India in the third century BCE. Appalled by the ravages of war he waged, he is said to have embraced and promoted Buddhism, including the renunciation of violence and dedication to social welfare.

In honour of Ashoka’s accomplishments as a leader and social innovator, the world’s largest global association of social entrepreneurs took his name. Ashoka: Innovators for the Public was founded in 1980 “on the premise that the most effective way to promote positive social change is to invest in social entrepreneurs with innovative solutions that are sustainable and replicable, both nationally and globally.” Since then, Ashoka has established programs in 70 countries and elected more than 2,000 Fellows. Focusing on work in the citizen sector -– civic engagement, economic development, environment, health, human rights and education -– these Fellows are “men and women with system-changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems”. With the support of Ashoka, the Fellows endeavour “to inspire others to adopt and spread their innovations -– demonstrating to all citizens that they too have the potential to be powerful changemakers”.

Appropriately, one of Ashoka’s several initiatives is called Changemakers.

“We say we are open sourcing social solutions,” says Karin Hillhouse, Director of Changemakers Partnerships. “We run a series of global competitions addressing subjects of real concern, and that our partners want to address. Through an online collaborative competition platform, we give our partners the opportunity to break out of the stagnant sources they’ve found. They find whole new markets and opportunities for their work that they wouldn’t otherwise have.”

Tourism is one of the fields in which Ashoka and Changemakers have been eager to get involved. Changemakers was therefore pleased to discover whl.travel. “We first learned about whl.travel when it entered one of the Changemakers competitions, about three years ago,” said Hillhouse. “The entry did not win, but we began a conversation. We always say that if you’re on [a competition] platform, you’re a winner. And, in that sense, whl.travel is sort of like the home run for us.”

The conversation “grew into a wonderful relationship,” Hillhouse continued, “where whl.travel had ideas they brought to us about how to go forward with working in tourism as a lever for social change. They said, ‘Gee, you should talk to National Geographic’ and made introductions. So Ashoka began a partnership with National Geographic and, in turn, because of that partnership, we were able to pull whl.travel back into a very important relationship that helps whl.travel. There were all these synergies, back and forth.”

Over time, the synergies found form as the 2008 Geotourism Challenge: Celebrating Places, Changing Lives, the goal of which was “to identify and showcase innovators — individuals and organizations — that support the approach known as geotourism: tourism that sustains or enhances the geographical character of a place-its environment, culture, aesthetics, heritage, and the well-being of its residents”.

The 2008 challenge is now complete, the three winners having been winnowed from 321 entries describing inspirational projects in 83 countries. “We weren’t surprised by so many excellent entries, but it is so gratifying to see the variety of the entries that came in from all over the world,” commented Hillhouse. “It was just fantastic to see the quality and range of entries. When we got to the last [review] session, we came up with I think 34 on the shortlist that went to the judge’s panel, but there could easily have been 60, or arguably 90.” Perhaps some of these will rise to the top during the next two Geotourism Challenges to be held in 2009 and 2010.

Ultimately, however, the collaboration between Ashoka, Ashoka’s Changemakers, National Geographic and whl.travel is to reward the people -– both locals working in tourism and travellers -– for demonstrating care for a destination. “The point is that open sourcing and getting these stories out, getting entries in, being seen, presenting yourself is a very valuable thing to do,” concluded Hillhouse. “Among other things, it offers up opportunities for travellers to engage and see about work they wouldn’t otherwise be hearing about” –- the very essence of responsible travel.

Posted under responsible organisations, whl.travel newsletter