As social divides, polarization, and educational inequalities intensify, the AXA Foundation for Human Progress and Ashoka launched Unlock Education in automn 2025, a three-year program that places education at the heart of social cohesion.
Unlock Education supports social entrepreneurs (Ashoka Fellows) who transform the education system into a space where young people develop empathy, cooperation, critical thinking, and agency, while strengthening trust within educational communities.
The program is rooted in the strong conviction that education is an essential lever to enable young people to reach their full potential. By focusing on empathy, cooperation, and leadership, it seeks to instill in them the skills and values they need, to strengthen social cohesion and to contribute to a positive transformation of society.
Over the next 3 years, Unlock Education will support 30 Ashoka Fellows tackling systemic challenges, and implementing innovative solutions tailored to key stages of children's and adolescents' development:
Early childhood (0 to 6 years) – Growing well: Laying the foundations of empathy, curiosity, and resilience, and introducing new approaches to reading and mathematics for solid lifelong learning.
Primary childhood (7 to 13 years) – Living well together: Fostering collaboration and a safe environment to develop critical thinking, creativity, civic spirit, ethical awareness, and autonomy.
Adolescence (14–18 years) – Finding the right path: Developing leadership and civic engagement, helping young people envision their future, and preventing school dropout
A Global Initiative Driven by Community
To build a global community committed to addressing polarization and social fragmentation through education, after France, Belgium and Türkiye in year 1, the partnership expand to Germany, Thaïland, the UK, and Brazil.
AXA employees will have the opportunity to engage with the world of social entrepreneurship, develop new skills such as systemic thinking and collaborative leadership, and explore ways to support Ashoka Fellows in advancing innovative solutions in education.
Six Inaugural Fellows Supported, Deploying Local Innovations in Service of a Global Vision of Living Together
In its first year, in 2025, the program was deployed in France, Belgium, and Türkiye.
The selected Ashoka Fellows are working on key issues for the future of our societies: fighting disinformation and strengthening critical thinking, developing social and emotional learning and well-being at school, climate education and civic engagement, the inclusion of children with disabilities or special educational needs, and reducing inequalities linked to poverty and geography.
Through these first six Fellows, Unlock Education embodies a vision: that of an education that prepares young people to live together in diverse and evolving societies, by strengthening their ability to understand the world, connect with others, and act for the common good.
The six Fellows and AXA entities have launched multiple collaborations. By acting on teaching practices, school curricula, public policies, and local ecosystems, these projects have already proven that human-centered education can become a powerful systemic lever for social cohesion.//
Discover All the Projects of the Ashoka Fellows
France: Fighting Misinformation, Integrating Emotions into Learning
In France, Aude Favre left traditional journalism after witnessing the rise of conspiracy theories and disinformation to create Fake Off and CitizenFacts. Her goal is to prepare a new generation of citizens who can take a step back, verify facts, and resist manipulation in a saturated information environment.
Fake Off offers immersive workshops, newsroom simulations, podcasts, and educational tools that teach young people to verify information, detect biases, differentiate between facts from opinions, and understand the economic forces behind disinformation. The initiative also trains teachers and educators to integrate media literacy into their classrooms and strengthen students' ability to debate, cooperate, and build sound arguments.
By directly tackling disinformation in classrooms and equipping education professionals with long-term tools, the project helps establish media literacy as a pillar of the education system, fostering critical thinking at scale.
Ashoka Fellow Profile: Aude Favre | Unlock education
Vanessa Duchatelle addresses another pillar of social cohesion: well-being and social and emotional learning (SEL) at school. Through ScholaVie, she helps transform a system largely focused on academic performance into one that recognizes that success also depends on understanding one's emotions, cooperating, and caring for others.
ScholaVie trains education professionals - teachers, school health staff, and education teams - to integrate social and emotional skills into their daily practice: empathy, self-regulation, collaboration, and stress management. The project relies on a research-based methodology, in-person and remote training and a digital platform of pedagogical resources. It collaborates with ministries, local education authorities, researchers, and local authorities.
By placing social and emotional learning at the heart of educational practice, ScholaVie redefines the mission of school: not only transmitting knowledge, but also building resilient school environments where well-being becomes a systemic priority.
Ashoka Fellow Profile: Vanessa Duchatelle | Unlock education
Belgium: Mobilizing Climate Education, Rebuilding Educational Trajectories
Koen Timmers draws on his experience as an educator In Belgium to lead an ambitious project that turns climate education into a driver of engagement, skills, and global empathy. His organization, Take Action Global, connects classrooms around the world to explore the effects of climate change, co-design solutions, and share their actions through a collaborative curriculum available in many languages.
Students progress from understanding the issues to taking concrete action by leading projects - planting trees, reducing waste, running local awareness campaigns, and more. In the process, they develop critical thinking, cooperation, and leadership skills. Teachers are provided with structured tools to connect global challenges to local realities and integrate climate topics into their lessons in a lasting way.
By creating shared curricula, communities of teachers, and large-scale projects, Take Action Global helps make climate education a structural part of education systems rather than a occasional topic, and anchors environmental engagement at the heart of learning.
Ashoka Fellow Profile: Koen Timmers | Unlock education
Theo Vaes addresses a critical yet often overlooked issue: the impact of poverty on young people's educational and professional pathways. Through Kanzo, he has long worked to strengthen family stability and housing security by creating long-term “buddyships” between volunteer citizens and people facing vulnerability.
Based on this foundation of trust, his project Athena provides open learning spaces for teenagers who are excluded or dropping out of school, where they can rebuild their self-esteem, regain a sense of purpose, and reorient themselves toward education, training, or employment. By connecting housing, social support, learning, and professional integration, Theo mobilizes an ecosystem of public, nonprofit, and civic actors around these pathways.
By addressing living conditions, self-confidence, and future prospects simultaneously, Athena demonstrates that tackling school dropout cannot be limited to the walls of the classroom. The project promotes a systemic approach that calls on social and education policies to address the root causes of inequality, rather than only their symptoms.
Ashoka Fellow Profile: Theo Vaes | Unlock education
Türkiye: Turning Rural Schools and Adapted Education into Levers for Equity
In Türkiye, Mine Ekinci founded KODA based on a clear observation: children in rural areas face significant educational inequities, and village teachers often remain isolated and undersupported.
KODA builds a network of teachers, students, and communities to transform these schools into centers of opportunity and local pride. The organization supports teachers in becoming educational leaders, engages families and communities in school life, and fosters connections with universities and policymakers to integrate rural education into national strategies. Its approach combines social and emotional learning, teacher support, and the design of inclusive learning environments.
By creating a genuine ecosystem around village schools that includes teachers, families, researchers, public authorities, KODA makes rural education a strategic priority and shows how investing in these areas can help close geographic gaps, prevent school dropout, and strengthen social cohesion at the national level.
Ashoka Fellow Profile: Mine Ekinci | Unlock education
Zafer Elcik turned his brother's autism into a global movement for inclusive learning. His platform Otsimo democratizes access to special education through educational games and therapy apps for children with autism, disabilities or special educational needs. These apps are complemented by a family app to track progress.
Otsimo helps make special education more accessible and affordable, and better adapted to families' realities, while offering tools and training for parents and teachers. By intervening from early childhood, the project creates favorable conditions for long-term success, autonomy, and social participation for these children.
By bringing together families, education and health professionals, and policymakers around shared resources, Otsimo helps drive education systems toward more inclusive models, where children with disabilities or special educational needs are fully considered in policies and practices.
Ashoka Fellow Profile: Zafer Elcik | Unlock education
About Ashoka
Present in over 30 countries, Ashoka is the 7th most influential NGO in the world. It carries the vision of a world where we all are changemakers in service of the common good, placing social innovation and systemic change at the heart of its action. Since its creation, Ashoka has identified, supported, and scaled social entrepreneurs who deliver large-scale solutions to today's most pressing social and environmental challenges.
To learn more about the Unlock Education program and eligibility requirements, visit your country's website at https://unlockeducation.ashoka.org/