SSIR Stories Around the World

(Illustration by iStock/Grace Maina)

Over the past year, the editors of SSIR’s six local language editions have thoughtfully selected, translated, and published dozens of SSIR stories they believe will inform and inspire their unique audiences. A few of these have stood out as particularly relevant and meaningful to the social innovation communities in the regions they serve, including the Arab world, Brazil, China, Japan, Korea, and a range of Spanish-speaking countries. Innovation ecosystems and salient issue areas vary widely between countries, but the stories the editors chose to share in this article have a common theme: using innovation to promote equity and inclusion. In fact, the editors of two different editions selected the same story. Here’s a look at what resonated with them and why.

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SSIR Korea

ARTICLE | Centering Equity in Collective Impact by John Kania, Junious Williams, Paul Schmitz, Sheri Brady, Mark Kramer & Jennifer Splansky Juster

Korea is one of the few countries that have experienced an extremely dramatic transformation during the past decades. Once a recipient country of international aid, it has turned into the world’s 10th-biggest economy today. This drastic change has created both opportunities and challenges. Wide income gaps and growing regional disparities have created an obvious yet unspoken hierarchy of social class. This internalized dilemma of inequality continues to show up in pop culture too. The now-famous film Parasite and TV drama series Squid Games depict how different individuals in a circle of socio-economic inequality end up entangled in a chain of horrific tragedies.

The article “Centering Equity in Collective Impact” once again assures Korean readers that collective impact provides an insightful answer to a deeply rooted issue they face. In particular, it provides a universal framework to explain how diverse institutions from private, public, and social sectors can work together to make sustainable and scalable progress toward greater equity. Korea presents a unique setting in which governments play an important role in realizing social impact. Coupled with a matured social sector and active private sector, we may see more cases of successful collective impact from Korea soon.

Many would agree that collective impact is the key to solving complicated social problems. The article emphasizes that the process shouldn’t be dominated by a privileged few and offers practical strategies for making sure every stakeholder’s voice is heard. This is a systematic representation of “leaving no one behind.” It’s also timely, given the heating up of discussions about how to create more equity among people with disabilities, women, and other marginalized groups in Korea.—the editors of SSIR Korea

SSIR En Español 

ARTICLE | Ending Period Shame and Poverty in Asia by Noriko Akiyama, Fan Li & Wenquian Xu

One of SSIR En Español’s main goals is to give voice to Spanish-speaking social innovation communities. To do this, we need to understand our unique audience, and one striking characteristic is that two-thirds of our readers are 18- to 40-year-old women in Latin America. These readers get a lot of shoe ads in their newsfeeds, and there’s something to learn from fashion marketing: You don’t keep shoes on a rack waiting for people to find them, you get a role model to wear them and show them in action. Rather than expecting our young audience to just read what’s on the rack, we think of articles as a meeting point for having lively discussions where experts, practitioners, and readers can connect and discuss what challenges look like in real life.

Choosing to run “Ending Period Shame and Poverty in Asia” was an easy choice, in part because we polled our social media audience and learned that they wanted to read about social innovation related to gender. However, it wasn’t an easy article to publish. It traveled through five different languages before we published it: Japanese, Korean, Chinese, English, and Spanish. It also raised an issue that’s still taboo in both Asian and Latin American cultures. As we discussed with Fan Li, an SSIR China editor who co-authored the original story, it’s still somehow brave and challenging to bring this topic to a public discussion.

For this reason, we needed to tackle the topic in a more visual and didactic way. We started by producing a short video about menstrual poverty that explained the issue, highlighted its relevance to 21 percent of the world’s population, and proposed individual and collective actions to solve it. We also invited two “femtech” entrepreneurs from Argentina and Mexico to share their experience using technology and design to support women’s health. Finally, we co-created a newsletter with Thali Luján, an advocate for children’s menstrual education, with guidance on how to talk about menstrual health with others.

Publishing this article not only connected us to our global SSIR family, but also provided readers with a sense of solidarity and awareness about a common problem for women around the world. Our videos reached 72,500 views and 142 comments, sparking conversation all over Latin America. it’s now the third-most-read article on our website.—Andrea Gonzalez, editor-in-chief, and Carla Aguilar, co-editor, SSIR En Español

SSIR China

ARTICLE | Shrewd Awakening by Avichai Scher

SSIR China decided to translate this story, because it highlights the importance of alliance and the collective momentum that a variety of organizations and individuals working together can generate. The author’s argument that, “Weaving disability inclusion into the fabric of philanthropy requires building a movement beyond a single fund” truly speaks to our audience.

It also aligns with the work we are doing at Leping Foundation’s Diversability Lab, a hub for knowledge, experience, and resources exchange that aims to build a network between actors of disability inclusion. This year, B Corps China team and the Diversability Lab launched a new initiative, B in Action. The initiative will promote​ collaboration and communication among companies in the B Corp community (including but not limited to certified B Corps in China). In particular, it hopes to drive more action and change around disability inclusion and the well-being of people with disabilities.

So far, 75 companies have joined this alliance.​ “Shrewd Awakening,” together with other articles in the Centering Disability series, provided the initiative with valuable viewpoints, experiences, and guidance along the way. We believe this interaction between knowledge and practice is what makes SSIR distinguished and beloved by members of the social innovation community.—the editors of SSIR China

SSIR Arabia

ARTICLE | What ‘Cash Plus” Programs Teach Us About Fighting Extreme Poverty by Imran Matin

We found the pioneering approach to empowering diminished populations described in this article so insightful. Making cash transfers, or direct payments to assist people in need, in an innovative and coordinated way is still not the norm in the Arab region. NGOs and donors are still reluctant to adopt cash transfer models because they lack a holistic view on how they work and can be truly effective.

This limits their potential impact. Different reports, including from the World Bank, suggest that most NGO cash transfer programs in the Arab region focus on meeting the immediate needs of vulnerable communities, rather than creating new and lasting realities for them. The article presents a comprehensive program model that provides beneficiaries with training on how to manage income and expenditure, helping them earn a sustainable income and have a stronger sense of control over their livelihoods.

The story resonated with our Arabic-speaking readers and enticed many visits and shares on our social media platforms.—the editors of SSIR Arabia

SSIR Japan

ARTICLE | Tech Inclusion for Excluded Communities by Linda Jakob Sadeh & Smadar Nehab

This article is about how important it is for technology companies to bring their operations into excluded communities to effectively enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion. It’s illustrated by a case study in Israel, where Palestinians have long been shut out of Israel’s thriving tech industry.

At first, I thought the story might seem too remote for Japanese readers in terms of geographical proximity and religious context. However, as I read on, I realized there were similarities to the situation between women in the technology industry in Japan. Although women are not geographically isolated from tech companies, the percentage of women who go on to higher education in science and engineering is low, and few of them work in the tech industry.

While equal-opportunity admission to technical schools or employment at tech companies alone cannot close this gender gap, the Tokyo Institute of Technology recently announced a new admission method with quotas for female students. Its hope is to raise its female-student ratio from 13 to 20 percent and higher. This could seem like the old inclusion paradigm of bringing excluded communities to the industry (via university) instead of bringing the industry to excluded communities, as the article puts it. However, this affirmative attempt by the top Japanese STEM university to increase inclusion is stirring controversy, and that in itself may be a good start in the right direction.—Ai Nakajima, editor-in-chief, SSIR Japan

SSIR Brasil 

ARTICLE | Tech Inclusion for Excluded Communities by Linda Jakob Sadeh & Smadar Nehab

The very first issue of Stanford Social Innovation Review Brasil was published this year. Among the articles we chose to feature, this one stood out as a story that could help address a central challenge for Brazilian society: inclusion. Brazilian social entrepreneurs are fighting for inclusion in many ways and on many different fronts—including labor, credit, education, health, and social protection—but we still have a lot of progress to make.

Though the case study that illustrates this article is from the other side of the world, I found that as the article unfolded, it felt increasingly familiar. The same lack of opportunity for a huge part of the population and immense inequality it describes also characterizes Brazilian society. And although the main barriers to diversity, equity, and inclusion in Brazil relate to poverty and skin color, rather than religion, the strategies presented in the article can be replicated and adapted to our society as well. The article shows that although many social problems are unfortunately universal, innovators can mold solutions devised elsewhere to their local context.

The ideas, theories, and practices presented in stories like this one can enrich debates, and bring hope, knowledge, and experiences to people working on solutions everywhere.—Ana Claudia Ferrari, editor-in-chief, SSIR Brasil

Learn more about SSIR’s global editions here.

Read more stories by SSIR Global Edition Editors.