ErinFornoff

I grew up in the Blue Ridge Mountains of the Appalachian Range. We had apple and cherry trees and bears would eat the apples in the fall. Something about the mountains imparts a sense of humility and a connection to the land. I live in the middle of the city but am always homesick for the beauty and silence of the hills. There is no place more beautiful in the world.

Priority shift

Erin studied Anthropology and Rhetorical Studies from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. As an undergraduate, she founded and ran a community garden to teach principles of organic agriculture and build links between students and the broader community. She won a social entrepreneurship fellowship to start a civic education program, which she introduced in ten elementary schools in central North Carolina. Motivated by a strong belief in action-oriented solutions for problems, she spent two years working for Academy Award winner Barbara Trent on an environmental justice campaign involving a low-income community, using film and community mobilization as means of empowerment. Looking to study other ways of tackling social justice issues, Erin worked at the United Nations Headquarters, writing regional reports on the Millennium Development Goals and creating the Plan of Action for the International Year of Microcredit 2005. During her tenure as an intern with Ashoka, Erin worked nights doing hypothermia outreach and serving as a homeless shelter supervisor in Washington, D.C. At Ashoka she helped launch the Social Entrepreneurship Series, and now helps run the Water Innovations Project launching in Southern Africa, Latin America, West/North Africa, and Asia; and works on knowledge capture for Fellows. In her free time she trains for marathons, writes, and holds dinner parties.