$ 1 : 16
For every $1 of value invested, One Young World Ambassadors deliver $16 of social value, based on a Social Return on Investment analysis of 42 Ambassador-led initiatives addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2022
SDG Impact Tracker
Interested in supporting impactful initiatives led by young leaders? Search this database of over 350 projects from the One Young World Community to find out more.
CarbonEthics
CarbonEthics - Indonesia
Agung Bimo Listyanu, Jessica Novia, Innandya Irawan
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:3
SROI
Bimo from Johnson & Johnson, along with two fellow Ambassadors, Jessica from Unilever and Innandya from BP, were inspired to tackle the climate crisis. Hence, they founded CarbonEthics in May 2019.
They designed a Carbon Calculator for individuals and institutions to calculate their carbon footprint easily. This accompanies their Blue Carbon Programme to mitigate the negative impact of carbon emissions.
The organisation plants mangrove trees to provide more carbon storage than terrestrial trees, coastal defence against degradation, a habitat for biodiversity, water filtration and replenishes fisheries for local communities. It plants seaweed to serve as a “carbon sink” for storage, an environmentally friendly alternative to soil fertiliser and to reduce the impact of ocean acidification. Seagrass is also planted for many of the same benefits of the other options, as well as being the “lungs of the sea” as 1m2 of seagrass generates 10 litres of oxygen per day. Finally, it invests in coral to counter the implications of coral bleaching. Shoreline reefs offer coastal protection which has an economic net benefit for Indonesia estimated at $314 million per year, as well as boosting diversity and absorbing carbon dioxide.
This initiative has offset approximately 424 tonnes of carbon with 6,230 trees planted, 1,325 seeds of seagrass, 610 seeds of seaweed and 247 polyps of coral. The organisation also has an educational arm operating through workshops and social media campaigns, including CarbonTrip that promotes responsible eco-tourism. Additionally, by working with local communities for the implementation of the Blue Carbon Programme, CarbonEthics promotes sustainable agriculture among the 17 farmers who plant the mitigation solutions.
CarbonEthics has provided its service to 20 international and local organisations, including One Young World partners who sent delegations to the One Young World Summit in London, helping to improve the sustainability of One Young World’s flagship event.
InnovaLab
Adulai co-founded InnovaLab in 2015, to develop an eco-system of entrepreneurship in Guinea-Bissau. The national attitude amongst young Bissau-Guineans is that politics is the primary means of a stable and healthy income. However, Adulai and his co-founders identified the need for entrepreneurialism to tackle poverty, create jobs and boost economic development in a country where around 70% live below the poverty line (1).
Through in person and online, web and radio, mentoring activities, as well as OpenLabs, Forums, TechCamps, Hackathon and Bootcamps, Innovalabs inspires and empowers entrepreneurs to solve their immediate socio-economic challenges by offering access to technology, resources and stakeholder networks.
Around 5,000 people have been educated through these various courses. Additionally, approximately 20 new enterprises have been incubated, as the course catalyses innovation. One example is Votu, a civic tech platform which involves the population in politics and democracy by encouraging campaigning and increasing transparent publishing of results. Another is WeAgri, which is training over 2,000 young women in digital skills across 15 ECOWAS countries.
In addition to the 5,000 trained entrepreneurs, Innovalabs have run week-long, educational festivals for three years running, one on Science which around 2,000 people attend annually, the other on Entrepreneurship which 4,050 attend.
The Adulai’s next innovative project is UMBUNTU, a pay-as-you-go renewable energy initiative born out of the 2018 One Young World Summit in the Hague.
Sources:
Drop of Water
Hermella conceived the idea of Drop of Water (formerly called Help for a Drop of Water) in 2009 with six of her friends. They had the chance to meet Matt Damon, award-winning actor and Co-Founder of Water.org. In Ethiopia, 62 million people lack access to safe water and 97 million lack access to improved sanitation (1).
After studying civil engineering, she formally founded Drop of Water to tackle the severe water crisis attacking rural communities in Ethiopia. The organisation engages with university students and educates them in hygiene awareness as peer educators for rural communities. Between 50-60 young volunteers have been trained to support their local communities in this manner.
Drop of Water also installs clean water solutions in the communities, which are designed and chosen to suit the specific geological landscape. The installation could be a bore hole, spring water protection, or other equivalent clean water installation.
The other aspect of its work is to implement climate resilience water safety plans to help the maintenance of the clean water sources. These different stages have, through education, awareness, installation and maintenance, provided clean water access to over 30,000 rural Ethiopians in five different regions in Ethiopia.
Hermella personally has spoken internationally on clean water and the water crisis, and continues to connect and collaborate with One Young World Ambassadors working in a similar field.
Source:
(1) https://water.org/our-impact/ethiopia/
Unloc
Hayden co-founded Unloc, an educational social enterprise, in response to his local youth forum losing funding in 2011. With renewed vigour from the One Young World Summit in 2014, Hayden has grown the organisation steadily at a rate of around 40% year on year, reaching more British children every year, offering a more innovative educational programme every year, and creating a larger, more inspired generation of changemakers.
In 2019, Unloc worked with a network of over 200 partner schools and colleges across the United Kingdom. Unloc creates a unique programme for each partner, based around one or two of their core educational pillars: Enterprise, Leadership, Student Voice and Career Pathways.
Each idiosyncratic course teaches the students, and encourages them to be changemakers who contribute positively to the world around them. It is important to the organisation that this educational opportunity is available to school children regardless of their socioeconomic background, thus offering subsidised opportunities to schools in more vulnerable communities.
In 2019, Unloc reached 10,700 British school children, a significant increase on the 830 students who attended training programmes when Unloc was analysed in One Young World’s 2015 impact analysis. Of the students educated in 2019, 7,025 have received entrepreneurial training, 2,750 learned leadership skills, and 970 participated in a student voice mentorship programme.
In 2020, it is on track to reach over 19,000 students. Hayden has established other initiatives through the One Young World network, including a programme he established with fellow One Young World Ambassador Jean d’Amour Mutoni, to accelerate social enterprises in Rwanda.
Prospect for Girls
Prospect for Girls - Gambia
Fatoumatta Kassama
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:25
SROI
Gambia is a country where gender inequality remains a substantial challenge to overcome, and through her organisation Prospect for Girls, Fatoumatta has been leading the charge.
Alongside her Co-Founder, Kujeh Kah, Fatoumatta founded Prospect for Girls in March 2018 with the ambition of providing vocational skills and ‘Sexual and Reproductive Health & Rights’ education to vulnerable women in the Gambia. The two seminal projects were funded by the US Embassy in Banjul.
The first was a nationwide health campaign dubbed “My Period My Pride”, training 1,807 girls from 25 junior schools over a period of eight months. The second is a vocational skills training programme which was launched on International Women’s Day 2019 and recruited 40 women and girls to train them in tailoring, graphics design, food & beverage management and photography, recently graduating with a comprehensive, income-generating education.
The plan for 2020 is to take on 16 women with disabilities for the next incarnation of the programme, however, this is dependent on funding.
Fatoumatta attended the One Young World 2018 Summit in the Hague. She was the recipient of a €5,000 grant from her delegation partner OFID for her organisation Eye Care For All. She invested this into a transformative new project called “Free Sight Restoration Surgeries For 100 Less Privileged People in Rural Gambia”, providing 100 cataract surgeries to elderly patients in rural Gambia and beyond, monumentally improving their quality of life.
Leadership & Executive Acceleration Program
Leadership & Executive Acceleration Program - United States
Courtney Sunna
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:22
SROI
In November 2018, Courtney Sunna joined the Leadership & Executive Acceleration Program (LEAP) as a co-director. LEAP develops the networks, abilities and opportunities of Irish and Irish-American women in New York City and the tri-state area.
LEAP is multi-faceted and enhances not only the career opportunities and leadership capacity of the women involved, but the wider community that they interact with. In 2019, 16 women completed the Leadership Development programme. Through a combination of events, home-study and training, involving a multi-channel, immersive learning and development programme, they advanced their leadership, professional and interpersonal skills, and their personal passions.
LEAP brought in 12 senior level female mentors to guide the participants towards success. All 16 participants of the Leadership Development programme have stated they will use the tools and advice they have received to advance their careers. From the 2019 programme the organisation created a LEAP Women’s Council, for alumni, as a pathway to continue to benefit participants with training and a network, and as a mentor pool for current participants.
LEAP recently launched an online version of the programme to widen their reach and create a way that more women could, and continue to benefit from the expertise and guidance that LEAP offers. To date, 1,000 online participants have enrolled in the online programme. In addition, it launched a YouTube channel on the Irish International Business Network page which hosts the modules for a wider audience.
The programme partners with and supports two charities through the “LEAP in the Community” scheme: Aisling Irish Community Centre and Solace House. LEAP provided 50 employees from these two organisations with leadership and operational strategy training. It has reported successful outcomes for the individuals and organisations. LEAP has boosted the impact of these charities by an estimated 20%, and their fundraising efforts secured $90,000 in direct funding for Solace House.
I Am a Girl Barbados
I Am a Girl Barbados - Barbados
Alian Ollivierre
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:5
SROI
Alian began I Am a Girl Barbados as an event, as a result of her mentorship programme for girls with poor self-esteem. She identified that girls lacked self-esteem as well as the high rates of depression, stress, self-harm and suicidal thoughts. From this, I Am A Girl developed into a leadership academy for young, vulnerable, female Barbadians.
The organisation holds a variety of opportunities and development programmes for the network of young women, as a solution to gender inequality and to empower young women in Barbados. One example is Generation Y, a year long programme where girls connect and support each other during capacity building sessions. Another is the Girls Club, which offers biweekly educational workshops. A final example is the Summer Programme which combines and expands on the previous two programmes.
Girls who participate fully in the I Am A Girl programme are identified from a mixture of counsellors, schools, and social care institutions. As of 2019, there are 175 I Am A Girl members and over 1,500 people have participated in at least one element of the organisation’s programming.
Of the 175 members, there have been a diverse range of outcomes: 15 have received internship placements, 5 have attended university, and 15 an alternative form of further education. They have also produced 25 peer leaders, 20 junior counsellors, two have joined the organisation as staff and one has joined the US Army.
Moving forward, Alian aims to build a transitional home to support girls leaving social care institutions including a 6-18 month developmental programme. I Am A Girl has also established a regional partnership supporting girls in Dominica and St Lucia, called “50 More”. This is part of a wider move towards regional collaboration in the Caribbean.
Thrangu Phrende Clinic
Thrangu Phrende Clinic - Nepal
Wangchuk Rapten Lama
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:3
SROI
Wangchuk is a Buddhist monk and healthcare professional who is the medical director of Thrangu Phende Clinic, providing affordable healthcare to local communities. The Universal Healthcare Coverage index measures service coverage against “catastrophic health expenditure”, and Nepal ranks poorly with a score of 48, significantly lower than most of its neighbours (1).
Having been a monk since the age of seven, and studying healthcare between 2009 and 2012, Wangchuk was appointed as the Medical Director of Thrangu Phrende Clinic in 2016. He immediately moved to officially recognise the clinic in government legislation, and they have since served around 10,000 patients annually with three different categories of treatment: “Western” medicine; Traditional medicine; and acupuncture. From 2019, Wangchuk has been running a laboratory to help produce quick and accurate diagnosis of blood and urine tests. The clinic charges a highly affordable five rupees per visit.
Wangchuk also provides free healthcare access outside the clinic in particularly remote areas where provision is poor. They hold five to six camps per year, where they treat approximately 400-650 patients over a two day camp. They also hold longer camps which allow them to reach up to 800 patients per visit.
The next stage of Wangchuk’s work is to open an ambulance, to provide even better healthcare access to remote rural regions in Nepal. One Young World, and his selection as a Bill and Melinda Gates Goalkeeper, provided him with a network of individuals and organisations who support his mission.
Source:
(1) https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.UHC.SRVS.CV.XD?end=2017&locatio…
The Good Socks Initiative
The Good Socks Initiative - Jordan
Sinan Assaid
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:10
SROI
Sinan is the Co-Founder of The Good Socks Initiative, Jordan’s first food-impact social enterprise in the area of lifestyle products. Despite being based in Jordan, Sinan recognised that food insecurity and malnutrition are global issues which require an international solution. Despite this grand scope, Sinan identified that you don’t need a complex solution to what is ultimately a simple issue.
The premise of The Good Socks Initiative is appropriately simple - when a customer opens a can of socks, someone else in the world opens a can of food. Using a distribution partner, they fund a food donation to the most vulnerable and food insecure parts of the population in Jordan.
The project makes culturally and environmentally sustainable socks, designed and made by local producers. These are then packaged in recycled and recyclable tin cans to minimise their carbon footprint and contribute to the circular economy. This sustainability measure saves approximately nine tonnes of CO2 for every tonne of cans recycled (1).
They began the operation in January 2019, with a small team of full-time staff, contractors and volunteers. The organisation has received financial investment as an award winning social enterprise at a variety of social innovation competitions.
Still in its early stages, the team are already making a significant difference in the battle for “Zero Hunger”, reaching over 1,000 people with vital food donations and support.
Sources:
(1) https://alupro.org.uk/industry/local-authorities/environmental-benefits/
SIYSIFLA
SIYSIFLA - Solomon Islands
Nolan Salmon Parairua
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:3
SROI
Nolan created his organisation, the Solomon Islands Youth Strive Investors for Liberty Association (SIYSIFLA), in 2010. It was created to support, empower and protect vulnerable young people on the Pacific island with the ambition of preventing their participation in crime. In a country where 66% of the population is under 30 years of age, and only 17% of the working age population have formal jobs, this work is essential for the prosperity of the nation and its people (1).
SIYSIFLA have worked with rural youths on the Solomon Islands through a variety of initiatives designed to engage them in the local community, and reduce crime rates because of improved social inclusion and opportunities. Nolan works in collaboration with the provincial and national ministries, NGOs and youth groups to offer his programme in over 70 rural communities.
It offers opportunities and development projects in four primary categories. The spiritual programme includes youth festivals and fellowships to ingrain a community spirit in participants and increase their stake in society. The social program includes community service and fundraising initiatives with which participants invest in their own communities. An educational programme has raised civic awareness and taught vocational skills to participants. Finally, fitness and sports projects offer health and wellbeing benefits.
In total, 285 young people have received a formal or informal education as a result, 80 young people regularly engage in sports activities, and over 700 people have received both spiritual and social support.
Source:
(1) https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2016/09/30/supporting-vulnera…
Agribusiness TV
Nawsheen has a background in agriculture and youth empowerment, and twinned with her husband and co-founder’s journalistic experience they established Agribusiness TV. The organisation seeks to showcase and promote young agripreneurs in West Africa, a region highly dependent on agriculture for employment (60% of active labour force) and economic growth (35% of GDP) (1).
The initiative is based out of Burkina Faso, and works as a media outlet raising awareness and showcasing industry-leading case studies in agriculture. Agribusiness TV produces video content to promote socially impactful and innovative projects working to tackle SDG 2 through agripreneurialism. The team established various channels reaching 191,441 followers on Facebook and 42,900 subscribers on YouTube. The educational videos have been watched 12,000,000 times and average approximately five minutes in length.
Through this, it aims to encourage youth participation in agriculture to ensure the industry is not abandoned by a younger generation. Agribusiness TV runs events to fundraise and support the production of this content to ensure the organisation operates sustainably. As a case study, a cocoa farmer featured on their video channel has received 10x more orders, resulting in them hiring women to support their production, having a multiplier effect on the local economy.
In 2017, in conjunction with this project Nawsheen opened the Agribusiness shop in Burkina Faso, providing a responsible, retail outlet and economic inclusion for 100 products from 25 sustainable suppliers from Benin, Burkina Faso, Togo, Mali and Côte d’Ivoire. The shop sells a sustainable packaging alternative to its suppliers and customers, to prevent the use of damaging, disposable materials.
Nawsheen attended the OYW Summit in London as part of the Dutch MFA “Enterprise for Peace” scholarship, and the pre-programme in the Hague cemented her commitment to seeing investment in agriculture as an avenue for peaceful and stable societies.
Source:
(1) https://www.usaid.gov/west-africa-regional/agriculture-and-food-securit…;
Visionary Education
Cecily joined Visionary Education in 2017, and has taken on the role of Managing Director. She supports its mission to transform education for children in rural China. Educational inequality is vast in China, as a result of a variety of socio-economic reasons including the rural-urban ‘hukou’ dichotomy and income inequality (1).
Cecily heads the Teach Rural Schools Program. Through this initiative, the organisation runs an educational summer camp. The ambition is not purely to improve academic performance, but to change the behaviour and empower the children who participate. The schools Visionary Education partners with are located in a rural area with high rates of poverty.
In 2019, it began the programme in Hebei Lutou Secondary School, an under-resourced school with high student-teacher ratios. The education her programme provides is wide-ranging, but has a primary focus on linguistics, story-telling and cultural understanding. The organisation trains 11 young, international volunteers.
Cecily and the volunteers then spend 150 hours developing the curriculum and the volunteers’ capacity to teach. Ultimately, the team deliver an 11 day programme, which in 2019 reached 330 children at the Hebei Lutou Secondary School aged between 13 and 15. Cecily and the volunteers visit each school for camps over two consecutive years, and share the learnings with the principal and management of partner schools to facilitate their innovation.
Cecily has been promoted to Managing Director at Visionary Education, also now overseeing an empowerment and educational programme for engaged, rural schools principals.
Source:
(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4497582/#!po=57.5000
Damaan Humanitarian Organisation
Damaan Humanitarian Organisation - Syria
Mohammad Kanfash
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:2
SROI
The struggles of the Syrian people are well documented, but the struggles of healthcare providers is particularly shocking. A study by the Lancet medical journal concluded that “Syria has become the most dangerous place on earth for healthcare providers” due to the weaponisation of healthcare (1). Despite this, Mohammad Kanfash has grand plans for his organisation.
Founded in 2015, Damaan Humanitarian Organisation (DHO) supported schools, medical centres and communal kitchens in under siege locations. In 2018, the organisation folded to targeted violence after providing healthcare to 50,000 citizens, 250,000 family meals, clean water to thousands and was undertaking literacy elimination and employment educational programmes for young women and girls. From 11 clinics to none, Mohammad has since reinvigorated the organisation and they have a center with five functional clinics. In 2019, in these new medical centres, DHO reached 5,400 vulnerable Syrians with healthcare.
The work of DHO in the field of combating starvation and provision of aid was used by legal practitioners and academics and eventually contributed to the change of the Rome statues in December 2019 (2). This amendment will hopefully stop the use of starvation as a weapon of war in civil wars and will contribute to accountability initiatives. Mohammad is also contributing to a book bringing together leading academic minds on how to prevent and reimburse the crime of starvation.
In response to the unravelling situation in Idlib, Mohammad is working with ‘KUNO’ or the Platform for Humanitarian Knowledge in the Netherlands to advocate for an increase in aid and international support. The organisation continues to grow but faces the constant challenge that the larger it gets the more of a target it becomes.
Sources:
(1) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/15/syria-conflict-study-cond…;
(2) https://www.globalrightscompliance.com/en/news/vital-amendment-to-the-r…
My Mind Matters Too
Meg started "My Mind Matters Too" as an awareness campaign for student mental health, in reaction to Government pledges for investment into mental healthcare for people over the age of 35 and under 18. There was nothing for young people, transitioning into adulthood, despite the fact that three-quarters of adults with a mental illness first experience symptoms before the age of 25 (1).
The campaign evolved into an organisation. My Mind Matters Too became a consultancy for King's College London, helping them draft a five year strategic well-being plan of which Meg is a co-author. This has provided a support network to protect the mental health of over 30,000 students. They have since provided an equivalent service to University of Greenwich, Cambridge and Liverpool reaching an additional 50,000 students.
The consultancy also provides mental well-being guidance for various companies and non-profit organisations. Within King's College they have run weekly wellbeing sessions, started a women's mental health support group, and held educational lectures and events. These projects have reached over 1,000 young people in total.
My Mind Matters Too is the premier youth-led organisation researching the mental health needs for young people, and will produce a white paper in 2020 collecting insight from over 25,000 participants across London to provide essential, regional and age-specific data to further their work guiding government policy.
Sources:
(1) https://www.ippr.org/files/2017-09/1504645674_not-by-degrees-170905.pdf
TransFarm Ventures
Clarena founded TransFarm Ventures after returning to her local community having gained expertise and experience working in Nairobi for an organisation in the agriculture industry. This industry is central to the Kenyan economy, accounting for approximately 70% of labour and around 25% of the annual GDP.
In March 2019 she founded the organisation to boost the productivity and revenue of young, local farmers. She wants to use this project to protect and support the local economy. Additionally, it protects the local community from the impacts of famine by maintaining a sustainable and stable production of grain.
TransFarm Ventures has increased food production in the community by implementing greenhouse technology and other modern agricultural techniques. It enables producers to double production by growing produce all year round rather than over six months. It then sells to three local supermarkets each, bypassing middle-men to increase revenue.
Since founding, 10 young farmers have participated in the mentorship programme, five of whom have been connected directly into the economy. Additionally, Clarena has carried out information seminars for 60 youths, and has provided university seminars.
Clarena has connected with a fellow OYW Ambassador from the Dutch MFA delegation, and together they have established a relationship with schools setting up organic kitchen gardens. This project aims to make agriculture more attractive to the next generation.
How to use to the SDG Tracker
Search for projects by the following case study categories:
- Ambassador-led Initiatives: qualitative and quantitative analysis of the social impact of projects which are led by young leaders in the Community.
- Business for Social Good: written case studies for initiatives ran by corporate partner organisations, led by young Ambassadors/employees.
- Leadership Stories: short biographies of Ambassadors who are growing into influential leaders for social good in some of the world’s largest companies.
- Covid Young Leaders Fund: detailed case studies of grant recipients from One Young World's 2020 funding opportunity for projects tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Lead2030: detailed case studies of the Lead2030 award winners and how their projects have generated impact from participating in the programme.