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War orphan fights to rebuild families'Social entrepreneurs' help local reformersBy Manav Tanneeru  Haidy Duque Cuesta fled her hometown after her father's murder. SPECIAL PROGRAMMINGYOUR E-MAIL ALERTS(CNN) -- Haidy Duque Cuesta was 23 when her father was murdered, one of the many victims of the bloody conflict that has roiled Colombia for decades, splintering communities, shattering families and displacing thousands across the country. Cuesta's father was a public official and schoolteacher in Monteria, Cordoba, in the northwest corner of Colombia, and a leader of the Union Patriotica, the political arm of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), a guerrilla force that has clashed with the government for decades. He was killed by a paramilitary group because of his role in the Union Patriotica, Cuesta said via a translator during a telephone interview. Fearing for her safety, she left Monteria and moved to Bogota, but she soon found a way to channel her grief and anger. She began working on a master's thesis that focused on people, like her, affected by Colombia's "dirty war." As part of her research, she came across many displaced families. She founded a group called Taller de Vida, or Life Workshop, soon after, to help displaced victims of the conflict. Whereas the paramilitary groups try to break up communities, she said, her organization helps the displaced redevelop bonds to communities they once knew and reconstruct the social fabric that shaped their identities. So far, the group has helped about 2,000 families, she says. The rise of 'social entrepreneurship'Cuesta is one of hundreds of community actors around the world supported by Ashoka, a United States-based organization aimed at nurturing "social entrepreneurs." A "social entrepreneur" -- the term has recently come into use in media and academic circles -- is a private citizen who tackles social or community problems. "The social entrepreneur is a bit unlike business. They're not trying to capture a market. They're trying to get local people everywhere to stand up and take their idea and run with it," Bill Drayton, the founder of Ashoka, said. "This is an enormously contagious process. People don't resist being powerful." Ashoka, named for an Indian emperor, says it has chosen 1,700 Fellows worldwide since 1981, and spends more than $17 million a year financing them. The organization, funded by private individuals and foundations, addresses such issues as refugees, economic development, the environment and education. The philosophy that informs Ashoka and the social entrepreneurship movement has subtle but important differences from charities, nonprofit groups and nongovernmental organizations -- some of the traditional providers of social services. Instead of forming an organization around a solution and then implementing it top-down, Ashoka aims to decentralize innovation and empower people to come up with ways to solve community problems. In essence, it incubates reforms started by individuals rather than corporate or government entities. A successful solution to a community problem is made sustainable -- a mantra for the movement -- and then shared with other social reformers. 'Historic moment'Drayton, formerly a consultant for the management firm McKinsey and also an assistant EPA director in the Carter administration, formed Ashoka in 1980. "Around that time, a historic moment came, which is why we started it then," he said. At the beginning of the 1980s, post-independence generations throughout Asia, guided by a desire to improve on the work of their parents, who struggled against colonial rule, were gaining political power. Generals were losing control of governments in parts of Latin America, and communism was collapsing in Eastern Europe. Meanwhile, U.S. President Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher of Britain were articulating a "less is more" approach to government and spending. "It put pressure on [nonprofit organizations] to come up with new sources of income because they were worried government funding might be cut," said Greg Dees, faculty chairman of the Center for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University. "There was also recognition that government wasn't the best place to stimulate innovation." The result was a combination of idealism and pragmatism, a point embraced by Dees, who grew up in the 1950s and 1960s, and expressed disillusionment with the results of that era. "I believe that we're coming out of an era where we are hopeful that large-scale government solutions would solve most or all social problems. I'm skeptical whether they can do that," he said. "To some extent, social entrepreneurship is a reflection of a different kind of approach that relies more on private initiative and creativity to find better solutions to social problems." Asked if social entrepreneurship was simply another buzzword, Dees said, "Imagine asking an entrepreneurship professor whether there are risks to promoting entrepreneurship in the business world, whether entrepreneurship is right for every business, or whether it might just be a fad. "Any kind of innovation holds risks, but risks can be managed, and without risk, there is no progress. We definitely need progress on so many social problems." The 2004 tsunamiThe ultimate goal of social entrepreneurship is to create institutions that "can serve as a balance to government, an alternative to government, or a complement to government as well," Dees said. The response to the 2004 South Asian tsunami, which killed more than 200,000 people and affected millions of others, is an example of that possibility, said Venkatesh Ragavendra, who manages the Asia program at Ashoka. Ashoka has about two dozen Fellows in the region, each concentrating on a different project, Ragavendra said. "In the immediate aftermath of the tsunami, our Fellows were able to mobilize local populations and local resources. Where the international agencies and organizations were not able to react, they were able to mitigate the situation through the community networks and were able to partner with local governments and local agencies," Ragavendra said. Ashoka put its Fellows in touch with each other, and they shared their local knowledge of what was working and what wasn't in dealing with the thousands of people displaced in the tsunami's aftermath. However, for all the ideas of a larger framework, the essence of social entrepreneurship is rooted in individual, personal experiences. Personal developmentFor Cuesta, founder of Taller de Vida, the role of social entrepreneur has led to a measure of healing after her father's murder. "I understand why I had to live this experience. I had to live it so that I could realize the gravity of the situation in my country," she said. "This pain makes sense because it has transformed into possibility and hope. "My dad, he was an accomplice in all of this construction. We feel him as very present and very alive, something we did not feel before Taller de Vida." 
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