$ 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 45 Ambassador-led initiatives addressing the 17 Sustainable Development Goals in 2023
SDG Impact Tracker
Interested in supporting impactful initiatives led by young leaders? Search this database of over 430 projects from the One Young World Community to find out more.
ZoEasy
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.
MCJ Togo
MCJ Togo - Togo
Simtekpe Koboyo Maza-Abalo Fawi
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:47
SROI
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.
Commonwealth Youth Peace Ambassadors Network (CYPAN)
Commonwealth Youth Peace Ambassadors Network (CYPAN) - Botswana
Sesame Omphile Mogotsi
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:49
SROI
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.
BlueHack Pasos Libres
BlueHack Pasos Libres - Colombia [coordinating region]
Sebastián Arévalo Sánchez
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:4
SROI
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
Sanitation Africa Limited - Uganda
Samuel Malinga
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:7
SROI
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.
Accelerate EV
Accelerate EV - USA 1 [coordinating region]
Salem Afeworki
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:5
SROI
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.
enke: Make Your Mark
enke: Make Your Mark - South Africa
Rufaro Mudimu
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:4
SROI
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
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.
Coliba Ghana
Prince co-founded Coliba Ghana in 2016 to address the issue of plastic pollution and to promote environmental sustainability.
Coliba Ghana currently operates 40 recycling centres in Accra plus 16 across Cote D’Ivoire, and has recycled 700 tons of waste in total. Plastic waste is a serious problem in West Africa, and Prince decided to tackle this issue after losing his best friend in a flood disaster caused by plastic pollution.
Currently, about 10% of plastic waste in Ghana is recycled while the rest finds its way into water-bodies, causing environmental and health challenges.
Coliba collects and recycles single use plastic, ensuring that it gets processed sustainably using circular economy principles. The Coliba app allows homes, schools and businesses to request recycling pick ups at the touch of a button. Waste pickers, referred to as Coliba Rangers, then arrange a pick up and bring the collected plastic to the Coliba recycling centres for further processing. Coliba Rangers are trained in environmental sustainability and waste processing, giving them access to work that both benefits their pockets and the planet. The Coliba app also teaches users how to properly separate waste for efficient processing. Rural communities are incentivised to recycle through cash incentives, call credits and other in-kind benefits. Coliba has also established a plastic processing plant in Abidjan, where recycled bottles are turned into plastic pellets which can then be repurposed into new plastic products.
At One Young World 2018 The Hague, Prince was able to connect with some Coca Cola delegates. After returning home, these contacts connected him with a West African subsidiary of Coca Cola called Voltic Mineral Water. Coliba was able to secure a partnership with Voltic Mineral Water, where Voltic committed to setting up 200 plastic recycling centres across Ghana. To date, 40 of these centres have been established, massively increasing the impact of Coliba’s plastic recycling efforts.
Prince has plans to set up a new plastic processing plant in Ghana. Around 90% of recycled plastic that is put back into manufacturing is made at a very low quality, which means that it cannot be processed again after use. Coliba Ghana plans to start a processing plant that produces higher quality plastic items from recycled plastics, to ensure that these products can be kept in the processing cycle.
FINLIT Nepal
FINLIT Nepal - Nepal
Prakash Koirala
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:4
SROI
Prakash founded FINLIT Nepal to ensure that underserved communities have access to financial education and services. FINLIT Nepal has directly impacted 175,000 people across 48 districts in Nepal, teaching them how to manage their finances and helping them to access banking services that were otherwise inaccessible. FINLIT Nepal has hosted 5,000 workshops in rural communities where few people participate in formal banking systems. According to the Global Findex database for 2017, only 45% of adults in Nepal have access to banking systems.
FINLIT Nepal trainers provide workshop attendees with introductory piggy banks to get them accustomed to long term saving and to discourage bad spending habits. This allows attendees to put into action the principles they learn during the workshop. Trainers then return to each community after a month to count the saved funds and help people deposit their savings into a formal bank account. FINLIT Nepal also helps people to use their newly established bank accounts to plan for future business costs, with the goal of supporting them to become self-sufficient in generating an income. This allows people to purchase materials like farming tools, and plant their own food.
FINLIT Nepal also works with banks to help them design banking products that would suit people living in rural communities. One such product was a child friendly bank account to help children better manage their finances. FINTLIT Nepal also hosts workshops at schools to teach students about financial literacy, and how to open up a banking account. In two months FINLIT Nepal was able to reach 1,700 students, with 1,300 of these students going on to open a child bank account. FINLIT Nepal also educates economic migrants about how to manage their finances when working abroad. Many Nepalese people leave the country in search for jobs, with economic migrants making up 10% of the total population2. However, remittances can be lost or mismanaged due to lack of information, so FINLIT Nepal informs workers about the best channels for sending money home. The organisation also works with these people to encourage them to start their own businesses in Nepal to help support the domestic economy internally rather than working abroad. Prakash’s One Young World experience has encouraged him to think more about the long term sustainability of his work and about how to better align the aims of FINLIT Nepal to the UN sustainability agenda.
Creative Skills 4 Peace Book Donation and Library Project
Creative Skills 4 Peace Book Donation and Library Project - Cameroon
Nina Forgwe , Acheleke Christian
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:4
SROI
The Creative Skills 4 Peace project works with young people in prisons across Cameroon, to provide them with education and vocational skills training that can help them to access better opportunities upon release. As a part of Local Youth Corner, the Project currently works with eight prisons across six regions in Cameroon and has impacted 12,000 inmates. One Young World Ambassadors Christian and Nina each lead different aspects of the project.
Christian leads the vocational training, or ‘prisonpreneur’ programme. The programme begins with a consultation process in each of the eight prisons, where the inmates are asked which type of entrepreneurial initiatives they would like to be involved with. Projects range from fashion and jewellery design, to poultry farming, to making soaps and detergents. The products are then marketed and sold by Local Youth Corner. The inmates are able to keep 50% of the revenue, with most of it being put away into secure, individual savings accounts while some is used as spending money. The remaining revenue is divided between the prison, the state treasury, and reinvested into the project to make it self-sustaining. In this project 300 prisoners have been trained by peer mentors, with the intention that the trained participants will then go on to teach these same skills to their fellow inmates as the programme progresses.
Nina works on the book donation and library project and has secured three million CFA Francs worth of books which have been donated to the prison libraries. As part of this project Nina launched an essay competition to encourage inmates to think critically and use the library more. Inmates addressed the question, ‘What can I do as a peace ambassador to make my community better?’ and the winning essays were awarded a cash prize. This programme encouraged inmates to read widely and discuss their ideas with each other, creating a buzz around the prison that encouraged more people to get involved. Some inmates went on to create book clubs after the competition ended. Nina has also led a project to develop a lexicon to tackle hate speech and violence in Cameroon, a rising problem since 2016.
HeySuccess
Milenko founded HeySuccess as a platform to connect curious students with opportunities to work and study internationally. As a student, Milenko found that he had to spend a lot of time searching and applying for all the different study abroad programmes he was interested in. He decided to create HeySuccess in 2014 to help students with a desire to travel abroad find these opportunities compiled on one platform. By providing scholarship details and travel events on this platform, HeySuccess makes studying and working abroad more accessible for young people, regardless of their interests or economic background.
Travelling abroad for work or studies can be hugely beneficial for young people, exposing them to new cultures and different styles of working. HeySuccess provides thousands of opportunities in 190 countries around the world. So far, HeySuccess has around 250,000 registered users, and it has connected more than 8,000 young people to opportunities in other countries. HeySuccess runs on a premium model, and it works with big corporations to help them recruit top talent from around the world for internships and graduate positions.
In 2014 Milenko was awarded a One Young World grant that helped the fledgling HeySuccess platform to organise live sessions at four universities in the Balkans, which led it to gain almost 2,000 new users on the website. This also allowed Milenko to invest some money into the beta version of the site, which launched in 2015. This traction helped HeySuccess to raise further funds, enabling it to become the global platform that it is today
Desarrolladores de Empresas, S.A. de C.V.
Desarrolladores de Empresas, S.A. de C.V. - El Salvador
Miguel Zepeda Yassin
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:27
SROI
Miguel and his family founded Desarrolladores de Empresas, S.A. de C.V., to develop effective communication and conflict resolution skills in communities across El Salvador. Desarrolladores de Empresas has trained more than 9,000 people in the past year, strengthening their employability skills as well as their personal and professional relationships. The organisation runs effective communication workshops for businesses, schools and community groups to help resolve existing tensions and to improve the ability to communicate and empathise between colleagues.
Desarrolladores de Empresas operates on a sustainable social business model. Training sessions are sold to large organisations to improve communication between employees. These funds are then used to help offer similar training schemes for communities in need that are unable to pay. Training sessions are facilitated in a fun and playful way to encourage even the most reluctant members to join in. The sessions are tailored to match the interests and abilities of the age and education level of the participants. Miguel also appears regularly on TV and radio to discuss conflict resolution and empathy, increasing buy-in to the appeal of these principles from the general public. After attending a Desarrolladores de Empresas workshop, participants have reported improved personal and professional relationships and an increased ability to manage conflict.
Miguel attended the One Young World 2018 The Hague Summit as a European Commission Peace Ambassador. Participating in the EC workshop on countering violent extremism through communications narratives inspired Miguel to formulate a project aiming to change the narrative of conflicts in El Salvador that he will execute later this year.
Thriving Talents
Michael founded Thriving Talents in 2012 to develop young talent in Malaysia, which works to improve their innovation and adaptability skills, preparing them for the demands of changing job markets. Today, Thriving Talents operates in 40 countries and has trained 65,000 people. Michael believes that the millennial generation is the most influential in the world, so it is essential to equip young people with education and training that creates economic opportunity and enables them to maximise their positive impact in society.
Thriving Talents specialises in providing services for the millennial generation to drive up employability and entrepreneurship amongst young people in Malaysia and beyond. Young people are provided with coaching, training and development programmes to better prepare them for the working world. The organisation provides consultancy services to Fortune 500 companies, NGOs and government bodies seeking to engage with young people. Thriving Talents also strives to ‘future-proof’ young people through upskilling and corporate training programmes, helping them to launch their own enterprises and social ventures that address issues in their local communities. Thriving Talents is set to reach it’s 41st country, South Korea, later this year. Michael also has a radio show where he inspires young people to contribute to a better world.
Michael attended the One Young World 2010 London Summit, where he presented a Youth Report that he had compiled featuring the hopes and concerns for the future of 32,000 young people across Malaysia. He subsequently compiled a One Young World Impact Report together with fellow Ambassador Jonathan Chu, highlighting the actions taken by 100 young people in Malaysia to create a better world. These findings were presented at the 2011 Zurich Summit. These experiences strengthened Michael’s research capabilities and motivation to support impactful young people in Malaysia, contributing towards the decision to found Thriving Talents in 2012.
World Peace Initiative Foundation
World Peace Initiative Foundation - Benin
Mensah Philippe Houinsou
Ambassador-led Initiative
1:60
SROI
Philippe teaches young people about the benefits of mindfulness and meditation through his work with the World Peace Initiative Foundation. His work has impacted 8,000 people in 27 countries across Africa. Working with his team, Philippe conducts workshops to help people better manage their emotions, enabling them to become better communicators, and to have more productive relationships with their colleagues, friends, and families. Participants are given the opportunity to look at things from a different perspective, improving their social awareness and increasing consciousness of how their own actions can impact others. Philippe is a certified mindfulness and meditation trainer, having completed a meditation fellowship in Thailand in 2015. Two years later, he got certified emotional intelligence practitioner by Six Seconds, the emotional intelligence network. He uses his learnings to help improve the emotional intelligence of participants so that they can build on their conflict resolution skills. Trainings have been conducted in Benin, Niger, Mali, The Gambia, DR Congo, Chad, Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso, Nigeria, Côte d’Ivoire, Cape Verde and South Africa, amongst others.
After attending the One Young World 2018 The Hague Summit, Philippe was inspired to further scale his work. He has set up a new organisation by the name of Resonant Africa which focuses on building the Emotional Intelligence (EQ) as well as socioemotional skills of young Africans. The organisation implements three projects including “EQ in Schools”, which strives to make emotional intelligence and social emotional learning a part of the school curriculum. This approach is currently being piloted in one school in Benin, with plans to roll out the project to the whole country and beyond in the coming months. Resonant Africa also promotes the UN sustainable development agenda and provides trainings and workshops to develop the leadership potential of young African people.
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 Biographies: short biographies of Ambassadors who are growing into influential leaders for social good in some of the world’s largest companies, organisations, and in government.
- One Young World Funded Projects: detailed case studies of grant recipients from One Young World's funding opportunities, including Lead2030, Rebuilding Communities, and the COVID Young Leaders Fund.