Dr Benjamin Bocio Richardson founded FUMEBO to provide healthcare to the poorest regions and vulnerable Haitian population in Dominican Republic. He was inspired by his father who owns a dental surgery in Santo Domingo, and formalised the philanthropic work he already did in 2010 after in the wake of the earthquake. Once he qualified from his studies, Dr Benjamin took over the running of the organisation.

In particular, they focus their attention on the southern part of the country where healthcare provision is poor and the Haitian population is discriminated against. Partnering with governments and hospitals, they have established relationships with doctors and nurses who attend 11 annual treatment sessions in the 11 poorest regions in Haiti. During these sessions, they provide healthcare and dental checks for patients who have a monthly income less than $20 dollars and no medical insurance. Depending on the results of the check-ups they receive treatment or hospital referral, and all patients are given vitamins.

Since foundation in 2010, they have seen over 70,000 people and provided supplements to all. Of those patients, 276 have been treated for dental health issues, and 405 have received essential treatment for medical conditions. Alongside this frontline care, they have set up a foundation to provide educational support to students in middle-schools, including nutritional education.

Dr Benjamin attended the 2019 Summit in London where he established a connection with One Young World partner Johnson & Johnson, based in the Dominican Republic. Since returning, he has won deserved recognition, receiving the National Solidarity Volunteering Award by the Vice-President of the Dominican Republic.

Nour describes the 2014 Dublin Summit as a “wake up call” in his career that motivated and inspired him to create change. Dame Ellen MacArthur’s session on the circular economy stuck with Nour, and he used this thinking to develop a brand new product line with sustainable production at its core.

The Biolage R.A.W line uses ingredients that are up to 100% of natural origin and upwards of 99% biodegradable. The packaging is 100% Post-Recycled Plastic, making the R.A.W Shampoo and Conditioner range L’Oréal’s first Cradle-to-Cradle certified sustainable product line, with the formula validated platinum, which means it is in line with the circular economy and green chemistry principles. The #LiveRaw campaign helped to educate professional stylists and customers about sustainable hair care practices that can minimise their environmental impact.

Zinah founded Ishtar Handmade Soap to provide Iraqi women with opportunities to become self-sufficient and generate income.

Ishtar Handmade Soap trains women and girls to make their own soaps and detergents, and then supports them to sell the finished products in their shop in Baghdad and in bazaars across the country. Through these workshops, Ishtar Handmade Soaps has created employment opportunities for 12 full time and 25 part time workers. Ishtar Handmade Soaps focuses on providing these opportunities for women in need, such as refugees, widows, and young women pursuing an education. These women form different parts of the business, where some focus on production and packaging whilst others work as sales representatives in the weekly bazaars or market the products through social media.

Ishtar Handmade Soap prides itself on using fresh, natural ingredients that are kind to the skin and beneficial for your health. The organisation donates 30% of the profits generated to local people and causes in need. These funds have been used to support people suffering from cancer and in need of heart surgery, as well as a local animal shelter. Most recently, Ishtar Handmade Soaps helped to sponsor three Izidi girls through university in Mosul, since their families had no resources to allow them to study after fleeing ISIS.

In the future, Ishtar Handmade Soaps has plans to open a large workshop in Iraq where more women in need can be trained and supported in business to create their own products.

QueenB was founded by Yasmin Dunsky & Noga Mann to make computer programming and coding accessible and interesting to young girls. The organisation has taught 500 girls how to code and has reached 1,000 young people through running popup workshops and hackathons.

QueenB runs weekly coding classes for high school girls, who are taught the basics of computer programming by female undergraduate students reading programming at university. High school students go to classes based in four different university campuses across Israel. Classes consist of 15 students led by four mentors, with each class lasting for three hours per week. The class curriculum has been specifically designed to appeal to generation Z girls, encouraging them to pursue programming opportunities that they may not have considered otherwise. Girls learn how to code alongside peers from all backgrounds. Ultra orthodox Jewish girls learn alongside Arab girls for example, allowing them to become friends and learn about each other in a safe environment whilst acquiring valuable new skills. Students pay a small fee to reserve their space for the class, with 15% of all attendees accessing the class for free due to insufficient means. QueenB has established partnership with influential tech companies including Google. QueenB reports that 80% of girls who complete the two year programme have gone on to choose computer science as a major in their 10th grade education.

Yasmin & Noga are currently working on Frizzl, another joint venture that teaches children how to code using a mobile phone app

Vincent co-founded WateROAM in 2014 to develop water filtration solutions that can be used in disaster stricken areas to give people quick access to clean drinking water. More than 70,000 people have benefitted from access to water filtering pumps in 21 countries across Southeast Asia.

More than 140 million people in Southeast Asia lack access to safe drinking water, while almost a billion have no access to basic sanitation. Waterborne illnesses are largely attributed to biologically contaminated surface water. Natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and landslides can also leave people without access to clean drinking water. WateROAM works to create innovative solutions to enable people living in low-income and disaster-prone areas to treat contaminated water. WateROAM stands by the four key pillars of simplicity, portability, durability and affordability. These principles ensure that the products developed match the needs of the target market. The organisation currently has three different filtration models in production, each catering to different needs and circumstances.

In 2018, Vincent and his team were awarded the Facebook Social Entrepreneurship Award, winning $5,000 worth of Facebook advertising credits and tailored mentorship from a Facebook executive working in the Asia-Pacific region. This helped the WateROAM team to better market their products on Facebook. The advertising campaigns contributed to a 90% rise in web traffic, resulting in more than 1,000 leads and almost 6,000 new followers.

Victor founded the Garden of Hope Foundation in May 2014 to develop the skills of underprivileged young people living in the Kibera slums in Nairobi. Garden of Hope Foundation has worked with 5,000 young people since its inception, helping them to develop their entrepreneurial and leadership skills. The foundation runs an entrepreneurial skills training programme for women and girls living in Kibera. It develops their business skills, and helps them generate new income streams that have the potential to help lift families out of poverty. This programme is primarily targeted towards those who have been victims of forced marriages or have dropped out of school at a young age. So far 3,000 women and girls have been equipped with entrepreneurial skills through this programme.

Garden of Hope Foundation also educates women on sexual health and rights, as well as providing sanitary towels to 500 girls each month to help them manage menstruation properly. This makes these products accessible for people who would otherwise be unable to afford them. Garden of Hope Foundation also works to improve the leadership capacity of young people through the Mentoring and Leadership Programme. Working with 20 high schools across Kibera, Garden of Hope Foundation links high school students with university students who then provide career guidance and personal development opportunities. The main purpose of this programme is to create behavioural change amongst at-risk young people. In the past year, 250 young people have benefitted from this programme.

After attending the One Young World 2018 The Hague Summit on the MFA Enterprise for Peace scholarship, Victor won the Pan African Award for Entrepreneurship in Education through a nomination from the MFA. This award included a $5,000 grant given to the foundation, as well as a three year incubator partnership

Unathi founded Gradesmatch as a platform for young people to access career advice and information, as well as to further educational opportunities across South Africa and Namibia.

Gradesmatch was founded after Unathi attended the One Young World 2013 Johannesburg Summit, and has impacted more than 84,000 people to date. Gradesmatch works to educate young learners about potential career paths that suit their academic strengths and interests. Gradesmatch helps students to make well informed career decisions by giving them information about the job market, higher education and scholarship opportunities.

The platform specifically caters to students from lower socio-economic backgrounds to help provide relevant career guidance to communities that are typically underserved. Although it primarily operates as an online platform, Gradesmatch also hosts career expos and teacher training sessions to further maximise its reach. Gradesmatch is zero-rated by Vodafone in South Africa, which means that Vodafone users can access the platform from their phones for free, without credit or data.

The organisation also offers recruitment services for southern African companies to source top talent. Gradesmatch provides monitoring and evaluation consulting to refine organisational education programmes as well as market research and advertising services.

Unathi was inspired to start Gradesmatch as a social business after hearing TOMS founder Blake Mycoskie speak about sustainable giving through for-profit business at the 2013 Summit

Spandana founded ZoEasy in July 2016 as a platform for “blue collar” migrant workers to find jobs that match their skills and expertise. Currently, ZoEasy has a database of 65,000 people, and has successfully run pilot placements which matched 100 jobseekers with suitable employment.

In the United Arab Emirates, migrant blue collar workers form 43% (4 million) of the overall population. However, recruitment in this sector is archaic and cumbersome as many companies rely on middlemen to fill their blue-collar vacancies. These intermediaries charge both the worker and the employer substantial sums of money to match them to jobs that may not be a good fit for either party. There can be up to six middlemen involved in recruiting one worker, with each middleman taking a cut of the fees. Through this system, job seekers are charged up to $2,800 and employers charged $300 for each placement. These are huge expenses for people from low-income backgrounds trying to create a better life. Despite this, they find themselves in jobs that were misrepresented and that they are overqualified for. Some examples include a qualified teacher being given a job as a cleaner, and a software engineer being employed as a waiter. ZoEasy creates a direct link between employers and job seekers, enabling “blue-collar” workers to access jobs in an ethical and transparent way. Companies must go through a background check before they can publish job openings on the site. ZoEasy has started noting retention rates and recording feedback from workers to collate more accurate information about working conditions. ZoEasy is currently undertaking research and development to further refine the job placement model before rolling out the programme more widely. Spandana and her team recently signed MoUs with two prominent State Governments in India to initially train and place 200 “blue collar” workers into appropriate jobs abroad. ZoEasy continues to establish notable partnerships and further refine the operating model through research and feedback from clients.

After speaking on stage at the One Young World 2018 The Hague Summit, Spandana was inspired to consider the wider needs of her clientele and is now considering how to turn ZoEasy into a community platform offering a range of services to jobseekers.

Simtekpe founded MCJ Togo in 2012 as a youth empowerment initiative. After attending the One Young World Summit 2018 The Hague and learning more about different approaches to peacebuilding, Simtekpe re-focussed his efforts to be more centred on preventing and countering violent extremism.

One such project that came out of this experience is the Preventing Extremism project that works with children in schools. MCJ Togo trains students in preventing and countering violent extremism, reaching 9,000 young people across six schools. Working in the town of Blitta in central Togo, MCJ Togo started a campaign to educate young people about the value of peace and conflict resolution in the run up to the Togo Legislative Elections in December 2018. Elections in Togo are often met with civil unrest and violence, with more than 1,000 people being killed in the 2005 elections when the incumbent president took power. The December 2018 elections triggered similar opposition protest, with reports of live rounds being used on protestors by government forces2. MCJ Togo works with young people to explain the importance of civic participation and how to make your voice heard without participating in violence. Students are taught about the use of propaganda, the merits of non-violence and effective techniques to prevent the spread of violent extremism. These young people were then able to understand the protests in the run up to the election from different perspectives, using their skills to discourage the use of violence amongst their peers.

Sesame is the Country Coordinator of Commonwealth Youth Peace Ambassadors Network (CYPAN) for Botswana, a network of young people that works to promote peace using positive peer engagement and youth development approaches. To date CYPAN Botswana has sensitised over 3,000 young people in southern Botswana through its awareness programmes.

The Peace Education Programme is a structured programme that consists of school and community outreach sessions, each tailored to address local needs. These interactive sessions are non-sectarian and cover topics ranging from tolerance and self-awareness, to femicide and rape culture. The sessions teach values essential to the promotion of peace, and enable participants to think constructively and creatively about how to tackle issues of contention in their local communities. CYPAN Botswana has plans to further develop the Peace Education Programme into a longitudinal project, covering participants from primary school right through to adulthood.

The BlueHack Pasos Libres came about as a collaboration between Colombian Ambassadors following the One Young World Summit 2017 Bogotá. Sebastián is the CEO of Fundación Pasos Libres, an organisation that protects the rights of human trafficking victims and prevents young people from being trafficked. Together with IBM employee and fellow One Young World Ambassador Jesus Tabares, Sebastián coordinated a 36 hour long hackathon to develop innovative solutions using technology to prevent human trafficking.

The hackathon brought together students, professionals, NGOs, companies and international organisations with a passion for helping victims of human trafficking. More than 200 people applied to take part, of which 88 young people were selected. Mentors with technical expertise came from Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and the United States to aid the teams in their challenges. All participants were given training on how to use the IBM Cloud by IBM and were educated about human trafficking by Fundación Pasos Libres and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

After the hackathon, the winning team signed a contract with the UNODC to further develop their proposed solution. Made up of five students of Systems Engineering from the Universidad de los Andes, the winning team designed FIND, a technological and social ecosystem of several tools to identify potential human trafficking victims in a collaborative manner. FIND integrates different sources of information to detect demographic and behavioural profiles of potential victims. One of the FIND’s tools will constantly analyse job ads that could potentially be used to attract victims. Thanks to the contract with UNODC and the advice from Fundación Pasos Libres and IBM, FIND will be actively operating in Colombia in the near future. The team that placed second travelled to Ecuador to present their idea at the Latin American Congress on Human Trafficking and Smuggling of Migrants in November 2018. BlueHack Pasos Libres gained substantial coverage, being featured in 13 stories on newspaper, radio and online platforms and gaining 170,000 impressions on Twitter during the event itself.

Following the success of BlueHack Pasos Libres, IBM has agreed to support Sebastián and his team to organise a second version of the event in Colombia in 2019, with the model being replicated in the United States.

Sanitation Africa Limited works to improve access to water and sanitation health (WASH) facilities, such as latrines and hand washing units. Sanitation Africa Limited has helped 10,000 people to access better hygiene and sanitation facilities in Uganda. Samuel and his team have constructed almost 600 latrines and 20 handwashing facilities to date, and have upgraded more than 1,000 latrines. Uganda does not yet have universal sanitation coverage, which contributes to ill health, absenteeism and low academic attainment. The percentage of people in rural areas with access to basic sanitation facilities actually decreased between 2016 and 2018, from 80% to 79%.

Sanitation Africa works with a team of engineering students to design innovative solutions for sustainable toilet construction, as well as designing technology to upgrade existing facilities to be more durable and effective at a low cost. Sanitation Africa has also developed semi-mechanical pumps to empty pit latrines in areas that are otherwise hard to reach. The organisation strives to become a hub of knowledge on low cost hygiene and sanitation solutions, so that low income communities can benefit from this expertise. Lack of knowledge is a major barrier for communities when working to improve communal hygiene facilities, and so Samuel and his teamwork to make this knowledge and technology more accessible. Sanitation Africa has employed over 870 masons and 100 sanitation promoters in this work, further helping to support the local economy by providing jobs and economic opportunities.

Salem started Accelerate EV in 2018 as a one-stop-shop for consumers in the United States to learn about the benefits of driving electric vehicles. The website compiles available resources so that consumers can easily access all the information they need to guide their buying decisions when considering purchasing a new car.

Accelerate EV educates consumers about the economic and environmental benefits of driving electric vehicles. More than 1,000 people have engaged with the site since its launch in December 2018, and the platform has been shared across social media networks with a following of 30,000 people. The organisation also provides information about rebates and incentives that are available, to encourage consumer purchases from the greater Los Angeles area. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States1 , so Accelerate EV is a critically important tool to help consumers make decisions that will both benefit them financially and help to protect the environment. The website also provides links to electric vehicle cost calculators, enabling consumers to see how much money they could save by switching to an electric car. It also includes details about a 100% electric car sharing programme in Los Angeles, so that consumers unsure about buying an electric car can try sharing one.

Salem is also the founder of Value Sustainability, a consulting firm that specialises in sustainability, climate change and community outreach services. Salem decided to develop Accelerate EV after realising that information about clean energy solutions for low income families is not easily accessible or understandable. This is due to information being scattered across several different platforms. Accelerate EV thus serves to bridge the gap by providing information and tools for low income families to learn about electric vehicles, with the aim of improving their consumer purchases.

Rufaro is the CEO of enke: Make your Mark, which strives to equip young people with an entrepreneurial mindset by giving them relevant skills while cultivating the belief that they are capable of changing their own lives. More than 3,000 young people in South Africa have benefitted from the programmes coordinated by enke to date.

The flagship Trailblazer programme works with high schoolers to help them develop and create a social action project in their local community. Young people aged 15-20 work in groups to develop a sustainable business plan. enke: Make your Mark works with these groups of young people for a period of nine months, helping them from ideation to implementation. Almost 50% of Trailblazer projects continue for at least a year after the programme, with each project typically impacting 50 people in the local community. Ignition is a project that works with young people aged 18-30, training them to become mentors for the Trailblazer programme. Ignition participants learn how to run training sessions and gain experience working with young people, furthering their employability skills and benefitting from access to the enke: Make your Mark network. The Catalyst programme works with school leavers Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET) to help develop their skills so they can re-enter the economy. Catalyst gives young people taster experiences in education, employment and training to enable them to make better choices about their future. The programme works with young people to develop their self belief and confidence. Participants are encouraged to either join formal work or training, or to start their own businesses. enke: Make your Mark has found that 74% of Catalyst participants have placed themselves in some kind of economic activity by the end of the programme. These three projects aim to develop the leadership potential and entrepreneurial spirit of young people in South Africa.

Think Peace is a Malian NGO that works to improve peace and governance in the country through youth engagement. Think Peace has positively impacted the lives of 20,000 people since being founded three years ago. In 2017 Think Peace expanded to the neighbouring countries of Niger and Burkina Faso to further strengthen their work in countering violent extremism and promoting peace.

The organisation undertakes research and advocacy to fully understand the situational context before implementing programmes. This research is also used to formulate policy recommendations which are submitted to national decision makers. Think Peace also conducts capacity building and community support projects, to encourage local communities to take ownership of their own prevention and peace building programmes. The ARC project, which stands for Addressing the Root causes of Conflict, is a campaign that encourages young people to advocate for the prevention of violent extremism in the Sahel region. Rahama runs the project for preventing radicalisation and violent extremism in prisons across Mali. In conjunction with the National Direction of Penitentiary Administration and Supervised Education, Rahama and her team train prison guards and social workers on how to detect signs of radicalisation and how to prevent the rise of violent extremism in the prison. Over 280 prison workers have been trained through this scheme. As part of this project, Rahama also launched a commission on deradicalisation and the reintegration of prison inmates back into society in a peaceful way.

Think Peace also runs a project to improve relations between the security forces and the local communities in southern Mali, near the borders with Niger and Burkina Faso. One project initiated was an agricultural cooperative, where the community was given $5,000 to create a sustainable project and enable young people to be self-sufficient. These kinds of initiatives reduce the risk of being recruited by extremist groups working near the southern borders.