2014安徽卷E
【语篇解读】本文介绍了一个公益组织Ashoka组织人们和贫穷做斗争,改善教育事业,致力于解决社会问题。鼓励人们做小生意,敢于变化,并为自愿改变社会环境的青年提供资金和帮助。 You may not have heard of Ashoka, but for the past 27 years, this association, founded by Bill Drayton, has fought poverty(贫穷) and sickness, promoted education and encouraged small businesses. To support these worthy causes, Ashoka provides money for the world’s most promising “changemakers” seeking to solve (解决) urgent problems and would like to create a world in which every citizen is a changemaker.Drayton believes that anyone can become an agent for change. The important thing is to simply give you permission. If you see a problem that you care about, you can help solve it. The young in particular are willing to accept this concept because at heart every child wants to grow into a happy, healthy, contributing adult. In fact, it is many young people’s ambition to set up programmes or businesses that improve social conditions. An excellent example is an Ashoka project started in 1995 in Dhaka, which handled the rubbish problem facing the city, helped local farmers and provided an income for poor people there.When Masqsood and Iftekhar began to study the problem of all the uncollected rubbish that lay inDhaka’s streets, attracting rats and disease, they discovered that 80% of it was natural waste. So they educated the poor people in the city to compost (把……制成堆粪)this waste. They knew that they would have a market for the end product because local farmers were struggling with chemical fertilisers (化肥) which were expensive and had reduced the natural minerals in the soil over the years. At first, they were refused, but once they were able to persuade them that there was money to be made, the project took off. In 2009 sales were $14,000.Drayton is optimistic that in ten years Ashoka will be making really serious, practical progress in bringing about social change by changing the way we look at economic development.