Five Starling Collective Fellows Awarded with Excellence Award
The importance of grassroots generosity is more evident than ever. Grassroots leaders and organizers around the world are now working with greater urgency – and often under even greater constraints, and with little to no resources. But it is exactly the kind of innovation and leadership they bring to the table that will prove crucial for transforming the current systems and structures that are clearly not serving us.
To uplift, amplify, and connect more leaders and foster innovative ideas, GivingTuesday created the Starling Collective – a learning collaborative for grassroots leaders to identify new best practices that can be replicated and scaled to mobilize more collective action, now wrapping up its third cohort. The five-month program supported 50 grassroots leaders, representing 29 countries, speaking 33 languages, and ranging in age from 14 to 57.
The Starling curriculum gave participants the tools and knowledge to transform the society from the grassroots. During their 5 months together, the Fellows:
- reflected on their theory of change and who comprises their community
- strengthened and built forms of collective action that will solidify into new practices and infrastructures
- learned how to use data equitably and ethically to measure their impact
- crafted their stories and honed their messaging to scale not only their projects but generosity broadly
- built a tight-knight community of generosity practitioners who they can seek advice and encouragement from in the future.
New to the program this year was the Starling Collective’s Starling Excellence Award. Five cohort participants who demonstrated exceptional leadership and the commitment to increase generosity and drive systems change received an additional $5,000 USD each to help rapidly implement ideas that can have an immediate impact. Starling Excellence Award winners include:
- Nguyen Tran Thuy Tien (Vietnam) is launching a project to empower deaf leaders by building confidence and skills in leadership and policy influencing.
- Mateo Molina (United States) is a 14 year old entrepreneur who’s using cookie sales to support families in need in Cali, Colombia.
- Hafsa Ahmed (United Arab Emirates) who co-founded Peer-Minded, a youth-led mental health organization in the UAE empowering and equipping students to take charge of their wellbeing
- Javier Ortiz-Cortes (Puerto Rico) is leading theater plays with puppets and workshops that highlight the importance of generosity and decent work
- Phil McGrath (United Kingdom) who is connecting communities by encouraging neighborhood outreach and skill sharing, with a focus on addressing loneliness and isolation in the elderly population.
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