Consider, if you will, the following vignettes:

The chicken is huge, with black streaks and an air of menace. It is the size of an adolescent Labrador. It was invented only recently in India after years of painstaking research. One man believes it holds the key to ending extreme poverty all over the world. And after much head-scratching, some very important people are beginning to say, ‘you know, he might be right’.

This classroom is in a school in Zimbabwe, where millions of young girls are ignored, abused, and face a life of servitude. After the end-of-class bell has rung, some of them stay behind and talk about their lives, and something inside each of them is lit. ‘I can do this,’ they think.

Buses emerge in formation from a depot in Hackney, East London. The service was created out of protest at government cuts that affected elderly and vulnerable people three decades ago. Today, what began with one community minibus has transformed into a national industrial juggernaut. It takes on major corporations and it wins, and it helps those in need more than ever before ...

There are more. A young mayor in Fukuoka, Japan, has a vision for his city that involves harnessing the many talents of his citizens. A TV chef ’s flagship restaurant serves food cooked by apprentices from some of the UK’s poorest estates. Great Italian design houses showcase the beauty of artisan-made objects from far flung corners of the globe in an elegant, eclectic display, at the centre of which is a many-hued basket covered in designer offcuts …

At first glance these may seem like quite disparate references; I beg to differ. In the pages ahead I will contend that projects like these, taken together, represent a unique global force, comprising millions of activists from myriad walks of life: restless, unquelled spirits eager to change the world around them.

As we come to understand the ties that bind these folks, something very powerful happens. Their work becomes part of a broader narrative, a global story, if you like. It tells of people on the ground somehow driving mass political and social change; remaking the fabric of state and market from the ground up; transforming millions of lives in the process.