When Fr Eugene Watrin passed away on 29 February at the age of 84, most of the eulogies praised his contribution to Nepali education and social service. Although his association with the Fulbright commission was mentioned, Fr Watrin had kept a low profile and few knew that he was also a volunteer representative of the Ashoka Foundation, a global fellowship dedicated to identifying and supporting social entrepreneurs.

The Ashoka Foundation works to create a critical mass of social innovators worldwide. Like business entrepreneurs, not all social entrepreneurs succeed. However, the ones that do help transform society. Journalist and media trainer Bharat Dutta Koirala is an Ashoka Fellow who went on to win the Magasaysay Award two years ago for his contributions to the institutionalisation of media in this country.

Environmentalist and heritage conservationist Anil Chitrakar, journalist Rajendra Dahal and women's empowerment activist Rita Thapa are some other Ashoka Fellows who have made their mark on Nepali society. There are many like them all over the globe. This book is a saga of some of these remarkable people and their pioneering work. Fr Watrin's story is not in this book, but his life is reflected in almost all narratives in the collection.

Despite its title, How to Change the World is not a DIY social entrepreneurship handbook or a how-to guide for dummies. Even if it were possible to teach entrepreneurship of any kind, it would be too ambitious to attempt it through a single book. What the author sets out to do instead is profile personalities he chooses to call "restless people".

The author's justification for illustrating a trend through the stories of selected achievers is disarmingly simple: "An important social change frequently begins with a single entrepreneurial author: one obsessive individual who sees a problem and envisions a new solution, who takes the initiative to act on that vision, who gathers resources and builds organisations to protect and market that vision, who provides the energy and sustained focus to overcome the inevitable resistance, and who-decade after decade-keeps improving, strengthening, and broadening that vision until what was once a marginal idea has become a new norm."

From Javed Abidi in India campaigning for the rights of the disabled to Veronica Khosa in South Africa advocating care for AIDS patients, the book profiles restless souls who had the courage of conviction to see their ideas through the travails of implementation.

Like its commercial version, social entrepreneurship too requires a certain amount of commitment and risk-taking: hence, "the first ones usually spring from the middle and upper classes, largely because they enjoy access to resource and information". This sometimes prompts the criticism that social activism is the playfield of the elite. Bill Drayton, the man who dreamt up the Ashoka (a-shoka-absence of pain in Sanskrit) Fellowship realised that unencumbered existence was a pre-requisite of independent action. He has devised the scheme to free internally-fired individuals from the worry of daily necessities for a few years so that they can devote themselves fully to their transforming missions.

The book is a tribute to the innovative idea of supporting persons rather than their projects, an ode to Bill Drayton. If only the book itself was a little more readable, and the price tag more affordable than $28. Wait for the Indian edition before you rush to buy this one.

There is now an opportunity for the legions of Fr Watrin admirers in Nepal to contribute to a fellowship set up by the Ashoka Foundation in his name. The Ashoka Fr Watrin Fellowship for Social Entrepreneurship is a fitting tribute to the late educator. (CK Lal)

How to Change the World: Social Entrepreneurs and the Power of New Ideas David Bornstein, Oxford University Press, New York, 2004, $28