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Volunteer Hands

Social Entrepreneurship: When the Political Becomes Personal

Lisa Batya Feld

The Jewish Women’s Archive and the Jewish Women’s Foundation of New York are joining together to honor JWFNY’s fourteen Isha Koach honorees for this year. Each of these social entrepreneurs were shaped by experiences where abstract social or environmental problems suddenly became very concrete.

Brooke Stern

After witnessing a number of failed philanthropic projects in Uganda, Brooke Stern created Supporting Opportunities for Ugandans to Learn (S.O.U.L.), empowering Ugandans to lift themselves out of grinding poverty and providing self-sustainable solutions in education, healthcare, and business entrepreneurship opportunities.

Laura Stachel

Stunned by the poor conditions in which Nigerian doctors were working, Laura Stachel created We Care Solar to offer hospitals “Solar Suitcases” that fuel reliable lights.

Laura Spero

In Nepal, where oral decay is the most prevalent childhood illness and adults fully expect to lose all their teeth as they age, Laura Spero established Jevaia Oral Health Care to provide sustainable, community-based rural dental care.

Helen Lieberman

Shocked by the poverty of South Africa during the worst years of apartheid, Helen Lieberman founded Ikamva Labantu (Future of Our Nation) to offer black South Africans access to education and social services.

Amy Lehman

After being stranded by a typhoon in an isolated region of Sub-Saharan Africa, Amy Lehman was driven to provide health care for the communities there by creating the Lake Tanganyika Floating Health Care Clinic/Water-based Aid, Value, Engagement.

Melissa Kushner

Having lost her own father at an early age, Melissa Kushner founded goods for good to ensure that orphans in impoverished countries were not left without support.

Anya Cherneff

A longtime opponent of human trafficking, Anya Cherneff found a new way to literally empower women in Nepal by founding Empower Generation to teach women and girls to become clean energy entrepreneurs.

Danielle Butin

Danielle Butin created the Afya Foundation to bring much-needed medical supplies to crisis-stricken communities, providing aid after the 2010 Haitian earthquake, the 2011 Japanese tsunami, 2012’s Hurricane Sandy, and the 2014 Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone.

Sivan Borowich-Ya'ari

Using Israeli innovations in solar technology, Sivan Borowich-Ya’ari created Innovation: Africa to bring more reliable electricity to developing communities throughout Africa.

Jessica Beckerman

In 2005, while still an undergraduate at Brown, Beckerman co-founded Muso, an organization that works to eliminate maternal and child mortality in the developing world through a combination of health care and preventative medicine.

Anne Heyman

Inspired by the youth villages that allowed Israel to welcome staggering numbers of orphans after the Holocaust, Anne Heyman created the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village to shelter orphans of the Rwandan genocide.

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