Ben & Jerry’s unveil 5 winners of the Join Our Core contest launched earlier this year in partnership with Ashoka to seek out social entrepreneurs across Europe with innovative business models that make a difference in their communities.
The winners, who were selected from nearly 200 entrants, each received a €10,000 cash prize and a mentoring program by Ashoka. They will also have their names featured on a new commemorative Ben & Jerry’s flavour in 2013.
“When Ben and I set up the company in 1978, we believed that giving back to the community was as important as making great-tasting ice cream. We certainly think we’ve found those same values, not only in the five winners, but in many of this year’s entrants and we’re very excited to see how all these young businesses grow,” said Jerry Greenfield.
Join Our Core was launched by Ben & Jerry’s in the belief that as businesses grow they should share their prosperity. The company will now support and nurture the winners who have demonstrated they share that vision.
The winners are:
- Archipelago – one of the largest communities of young entrepreneurs in Western Europe that help young people create sophisticated businesses through events, think tanks, and crowd sourced funding initiatives.
- FairMail – a social enterprise that produces fair-trade greeting cards from pictures taken by at-risk teenagers in Peru, India, and soon Morocco.
- Mattecentrum – provides free math tutoring for up to 70,000 young people every month
- Play31 – uses the unifying power of football (soccer) to bring people together who have been torn apart by war.
- Rubies in the Rubble – addresses social issues of unemployment, social exclusion, and waste through the production of chutney and jams