Ashoka Fellows working in the field of disability

Crystal is reshaping how Nigerian society confronts childhood limb loss, dismantling the stigma and economic barriers that deny children timely medical care and prosthetics. Through The IREDE Foundation, she unites medical referrals, peer support, and policy advocacy into a national model that ensures every child is rehabilitated and celebrated, not hidden away.

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With Project Enable Africa, Olusola is pursuing a vision of transforming the reality for persons with disabilities in Nigeria, dismantling the social, institutional, and economic barriers that marginalize them. He is shifting people from disabilities from mere beneficiaries into active change agents, helping companies become more inclusive while expanding access to assistive technologies.

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Museums in Turkey remain inaccessible to many, and Çiğdem Aslantaş is changing that by turning them into inclusive learning spaces for all. Her Bongo Art Project tackles the physical, cognitive, and attitudinal barriers that exclude people with disabilities and other disadvantaged groups, making accessibility the norm and museum staff co-creators of that change.

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Prachi founded Nayi Disha with the vision of transforming the ecosystem of care for children and young adults with intellectual developmental disabilities by positioning families as the primary drivers of change. She is shifting societal mindsets to recognize parents and caregivers not just as supporters but as key change agents in their children’s lives.

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In Germany, the traditional model of care and housing does not allow for disabled people (especially with intellectual disabilities) to make their own choices and keeps them isolated from other citizens. Tobias is breaking this model by connecting the dots between inclusive housing initiatives and the larger ecosystem to make inclusive housing in the form of mixed-abled flat/house sharing a nationally recognized alternative. Through this he is establishing a care system based on self-determination and eye-level relationships.

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While cultural participation is a human right, society has failed to make it widely accessible. Understanding that inclusion is broadly perceived as complicated and costly to achieve, Lisette sets out to change the practice of key stakeholders in the cultural sector, build an inclusive network with them and leverages that through changing funding frameworks in the political system.

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Martino is reshaping global sport and society through the Mixed Ability Sports model, a transformative, community-driven approach that integrates disabled and non-disabled individuals as equals in grassroots clubs—challenging exclusionary systems, shifting cultural perceptions of disability, and fostering long-term inclusivity, equity, and social change.

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Josep has built a pioneering, global, sustainable model in the health system for chronic conditions through a patient-centered approach, which is paving the way for a healthier, lifelong contributing society.

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Valentina is helping society - especially non-disabled people - reimagine inclusion and the full participation of people with disabilities. She transforms lived experience into collective advocacy, demanding dignity over pity and belonging over barriers. Her work affirms the right to live fully - with risk, joy, and autonomy, and to receive care with respect. She reframes public space as a shared, accessible environment and recognizes caregivers as key to social equity. For Valentina, accessibility is not optional, it’s a right, and she’s working to make it universal.

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Carola is making inclusive education a reality by connecting schools, communities and the private sector in this joint effort. By developing practical strategies to incorporate empathy into schools, she is building an education system that benefits everyone.

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Micaela Connery is advancing disability-forward housing solutions that open doors to more affordable homes and opportunities for everyone. Uniquely positioned as both a housing developer and advocate, she is meeting immediate housing needs, moving an entire field forward, and proving that accessible, affordable, and inclusive housing is attainable.

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For deaf children to practice and master social and emotional skills, they need to have their parents and caregivers acquire a common language that they can share and learn together from the deaf child’s birth. Nancy has created a first-of-its-kind approach to addressing this problem in East and Central Africa with the endorsement of the largest children’s hospital in East and Central Africa.

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José is creating a mindset shift in the sports industry by positioning people with disabilities as an economic and innovation opportunity, activating a global movement of functionally diverse entrepreneurs and decision-makers.

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The lives of caregivers of persons with disabilities have been reduced to helping others, and their own needs and potential have been dismissed. Olga created a national network of support for caregivers to back them up and free their potential.

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There is a widespread belief that men are more likely to be on the autism spectrum. However, in Poland alone, there are 500K women and non-binary people late-diagnosed or not to be diagnosed at all on the autism spectrum. Ewa opens a spectrum of possibilities for diagnosis and full life for girls and LGBT+ people on the autism spectrum.

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Marta is creating a new architecture in the Spanish health system positioning inclusive sports as an essential right of all patients with acquired brain injury (ABI), significantly improving their quality of life, and shifting their role from lifelong patients to active citizens.

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Roberval is changing mindsets around disability and building the infrastructure in Latin America to make natural spaces accessible to all. He collaborates with the public and business sectors to ensure that tourism destinations are fully accessible, while building capacity at the community level to receive visitors so that the new market contributes to local development. By bringing more people with disabilities outdoors, Roberval is challenging perceptions of what they can and cannot do.

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Celmira is raising a generation of children who are more empathic and inclusive, through a universal learning methodology which radically changes the way all children learn to read, write, or communicate, regardless of special needs or disabilities.

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For over 30 years, Grégoire Ahongbonon, a former mechanic from Benin, has developed a new broad-spread system that spots, helps, and re-integrates the ten percent of the population suffering from a mental illness. From being stigmatized and isolated, they can recover their dignity and reclaim their lives. Rejected and forgotten, many people with treatable illnesses like epilepsy, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and even depression end up chained to trees or in their homes, or are left to wander the streets, without proper clothes, searching for food in the trash.

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José de Jesus is architecting the pre-conditions for the empowerment for people with disabilities, putting interconnected systems in place that allow them to live independent, purposeful lives that in turn inspire and pave the way for others. Through Juntos, José supports people with disabilities to develop their leadership skills, while also creating an enabling environment by engaging families, communities, and the private and public sectors to ensure effective inclusion at all levels.

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In a country where the persistence of lingering stigma about persons with disabilities impacts far too many, their rights are still a long way from where they should be. Lizzie dedicated the past decade to understanding the negativity around the term “disable” and after years of exploration, she finally found the specific intersection where she could bring significant change in the world. Lizzie is amplifying the voices, building capacity, and creating visibility for women and girls with disabilities across Kenya and beyond.

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Fran is empowering every child in the world in need of protheses and orthopedic supports to become the protagonist in the identification of their needs and the design of their solutions supported by a multidisciplinary community.

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Jane has made the de-stigmatization and advancement of people living with albinism a national policy priority for Kenya. With the explicit endorsement of the African Union, it has become an urgent policy priority for all the member states. Her latest innovation, “Albinism and I”, is an online initiative to be rolled out in 2024 with the goal of creating and linking communities of support for people living with albinism across Africa as well as extending to other regions of the world.

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Due to the lack of rehabilitation medical service and delivery systems in conventional hospitals, patients had to go from one hospital to another, living a life of “rehabilitation refugee” who become further alienated from the rest of society. Jeesun Lee has broken new grounds in a conventional hospital system by establishing a Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) service focused on patients with disabilities, especially among children and adolescents, and seeking ways to spread her model through various financial and administrative means.

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Challenging the sense of isolation that families with children with diverse abilities too often feel due to silos built by specific medical diagnoses and traditional advocacy, Jenny Lindström-Beijar has designed a new methodology to enable these families to celebrate their identities, build friendship networks, and exercise their sense of agency to model and scale a more inclusive understanding of ‘normal’ in neighborhoods and businesses across Sweden.

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