Exciting news…. The winners of Ashoka’s Sport for a Better World Competition were announced this morning. The criteria for the competition were: innovation, social impact, and sustainability. This was Ashoka’s most competitive competition ever, with 382 entries from 69 countries. From those, 16 Finalists were selected by a prestigious panel of judges including basketball star Luol Deng, FC Barcelona President Joan Laporta, Nike CEO Mark Parker, and UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman.

The Changemakers community then voted on 3 overall winners… And Grassroot Soccer was named a winner!! (The other two were: Sports4Kids (United States) and Rede Jovem Project (Brazil).) GRS was the only winner working on Sports for Development in Africa AND the only winner using soccer (note: the vast majority of both entrants and finalists were soccer-related initiatives).

As a winner, GRS will receive $5,000 as well as exposure and “technical support” from Ashoka and Nike. This is a HUGE win for GRS as the exposure, and technical support, we receive from winning this competition will surely prove to be key in helping spread the word about our good work in Africa.

Thanks to all of you for your support and help in voting GRS into a winning slot!

Check out the website for more info:
http://www.changemakers.net/en-us/competition/sports

Thanks again!

Ethan Zohn

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 5th, 2008 at 8:23 pm .