$ 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.
The Sustainable Flight Challenge
The Sustainable Flight Challenge - The Netherlands
Robin Spierings
Business for Social Good
In KLM, there is a bottom-up initiative called ‘Bold Moves’ where a diverse group of bright minds came together in KLM to breed innovative new projects to push for change in the organisation. The Sustainable Flight Challenge was one of the successful ideas that resulted from this initiative and is being pushed forward by the company, to create much-needed sustainable development.
Having attended the 2019 summit in London and pondering the big questions of how to make an impact after returning from maternity leave, Robin noticed a vacancy in KLM’s sustainability team. She had been inspired by the event to drive transformative change within large companies, and the chance to lead the Sustainable Flight Challenge posed the perfect opportunity.
The project aims to open-source sustainability innovations that will transform the entire aviation industry. These innovations will be brought to life through a challenge where all participating airlines are operating their “most sustainable flight” and leaving a better planet behind.
Despite originating within KLM and being led by Robin, the competition is being run by SkyTeam, an airline alliance. To date, 17 airlines have committed, despite some not previously having sustainability teams. The pre-condition for participation is that all innovations will be open source. This is the beginning of a coalition of companies that Robin hopes will continue to grow after the Sustainable Flight takes place at the beginning of May.
Flights will be judged on 14 different categories, ranging from lowest CO2 emission to biggest reduction, to lowest food footprint and many more. The jury responsible for the decision will include a One Young World Ambassador to ensure youth voices are represented.
Having been launched in October 2021, there is already significant momentum with many suppliers looking to assist and collaborate with airlines to maximise the sustainability improvements. This challenge is the beginning of a long journey towards more sustainable aviation and hopes to build pressure for further developments in regulation and legislation to unlock the potential for sustainability in the industry, as well as educating, sharing strategies and tactics, and finding smart solutions to unsolved problems through collaboration.
“One Young World was a transformative event for me. By the end, I felt empowered, understood the power of raising your voice, building coalitions and realised that in order to make a difference in the world you don’t have to work for the UN or an NGO. One Young World influenced how we designed the challenge itself. Basic principles such as raising awareness, incentivising all forms of collaboration, and acknowledging that we cannot do this alone. This challenge has no individual winners, we are working together to make the planet win!”
Create Purpose
Create Purpose is a social enterprise that supports orphans and vulnerable children (OVC) in Mexico, aiming to tackle the vast and growing threat to 400,000+ who are exposed to violence, trafficking, and exploitation. Edith co-founded a “Caretaker Nutrition Program” and “Garden-Based Learning Program”, to improve both the nutritional knowledge of caregivers in orphanages and improve the quality of meals provided to the children in their care. With her Lead2030 mentor, Julio Ordaz, and the rest of the AstraZeneca team, Edith has built upon the capacity of the initiative and developed as a leader to generate greater impact.
The benefits of the programme were immediate, with Create Purpose securing new collaborations with 8 new orphanages. This allowed them to reach a further 300 OVC with guidance and resources for good nutrition and health. Since that early success, the project continued to build with Edith’s leadership and with the resources of AstraZeneca, working with new institutions, partnering with new governmental organisations, and crucially supporting more and more children.
The $50,000 was invested directly into building a greenhouse to produce the fruit and vegetables for the programmes. This has allowed for revenue generation from selling produce that can be reinvested into the programmes to ensure the projects’ longevity. This commercial aspect will in future involve a commitment from every new customer to sponsor a child in one of the orphanages. Today, the programme operates in 3 states, and in 8 cities. The organisation has run 3 distinct programmes as a result of Lead2030, including 25 in-person workshops, 48 online sessions, and 50 personal orphanage visits.
- 1,532 children supported and educated in the year-long implementation
- 381 orphanage staff trained to provide nutritional care
Edith credits her mentorship from AstraZeneca with “exponential’ development in her leadership. It gave her an international perspective, and the trust of a multinational company has given her greater belief in her solution to the challenge. The experience of her colleagues at AstraZeneca was also a vital resource that taught Edith patience in executing her vision effectively and allowed her to develop better skills in communication.
“The Summit was a once in a lifetime opportunity. My work started way before that, but that point was when we were able to grow exponentially, both in terms of my organisation but also myself in terms of leadership skills. I had never gone outside of Mexico and the US, so to have that global view of the issues, of the solutions even, and to meet with other people and grow as a One Young World Ambassador.”
Pacific Village
Pacific and Maori unemployment rates sit significantly above national averages as sad indictments of the systemic discrimination that continues to plague New Zealand society. Whilst graduating from the University of Auckland, Saia set out to redress the balance and alongside his career as a digital consultant at PwC, he has worked tirelessly on a variety of initiatives to promote greater equality.
Saia has worked to drive progress in his own workplace at PwC New Zealand. He is co-lead of the Pacific Village alongside other Pacific leaders including Simoli Aati and Leo Foliaki, and under their leadership the number of Pacific members has grown from 10 in 2018 to 50+ in 2022 (and counting). The group advocates and shapes the way PwC approaches and engages with talent and representation in an inclusive manner, and builds relationships with non-Pacific allies.
Their work has encouraged the company to invest in people enabled solutions, with a particular focus on increasing the representation of Pacific staff at PwC, and building trust with Pacific communities. Saia also chairs a charity - Moana Trust - focused on upskilling Maori and Pacific people to bridge the digital divide, including teaching children how to code.
Upon joining the workforce, the realisation of Maori and Pacific under-representation was even more apparent to Saia. This drove him to inspire the community in their respective careers and connect them to opportunities in sectors where they are under-represented, for their own development. The first "Navigators of Success" event that Saia led was a careers fair attended by over 8 organisations, for Maori and Pacific students at the University of Auckland. This led to more major events throughout the years, attended by an average of 100 attendees each time.
In addition, Saia used his relationship with PwC and other companies such as Microsoft, EY, Warren & Mahoney, and Vend, to offer in-person tech experiences including tours of their offices for over 200 Maori and Pacific students. On the other side of the equation, he provided consultancy and guidance to prospective employees on talent recruitment from these marginalised demographics.
“One Young World provided the opportunity to expand my horizon in regards to leadership style, scalability of impact, innovation in action, leading with purpose and the importance of backing yourself! To date, the lessons from my One Young World experience continue to shape and influence my approach to leadership and delivering impact.”
Jessica Novia, Unilever
Jessica’s first foray into social impact in the workplace was the Green Office initiative she started in Unilever’s Singapore office. Noticing the waste produced at mealtimes, she decided to intervene. Jessica convened her colleagues to run an environmental awareness event to educate employees to reduce single-use packaging consumption. She also established a partnership with local restaurants frequented by employees to secure a discount for customers who brought their own reusable cutlery and containers.
Soon after moving back to Indonesia, Jessica was selected as part of the delegation to attend the One Young World 2018 The Hague Summit. At a pre-Summit event in Jakarta, she met Bimo and Innandya, fellow environmental enthusiasts working at Johnson & Johnson and BP respectively. She shared her model for a green office with the two Ambassadors, which would form the start of a productive cross-company collaboration.
The event itself was a source of inspiration and pride, as she listened to then Unilever CEO Paul Polman promote corporate sustainability. It reinforced Jessica’s belief that corporate leadership has significant potential for social impact, and multinational corporations have a substantial role in the development of a more sustainable world.
Back in her day job at Unilever as a Brand Manager, Jessica was invited to speak at a company-wide town hall meeting. Her profile after One Young World had been elevated, and Jessica presented the Green Office concept which she had rolled out in the Indonesia office. This included the installation of jet hand-dryers to reduce paper consumption, and the removal of single-use plastics at office cafes, in the canteen and meeting rooms.
In January 2020, Jessica was promoted as a Global Brand Manager and this role has allowed her to explore solutions on top of packaging. She is looking to develop a beauty product that generates revenue that is invested directly into environmental protection and restoration, to encourage the preservation of the resources that are used within the products themselves.
In addition to her role at Unilever, Jessica built on her friendships and shared interests with Bimo and Innandya to found CarbonEthics, an organisation that aims to decarbonize the world through climate education, carbon calculation, and blue carbon ecosystem conservation. They also invest in the local communities directly impacted by coastal erosion to ensure climate justice for those most impacted. To date, the three Ambassadors have sequestered 4,000+ tonnes of CO2 and are supported by 100+ active youth volunteers.
“One Young World Summit has been a focal point of my sustainability leadership journey. I’m looking forward to actively shaping a brighter future of humankind and nature through my current and future role.”
She Starts Africa
Salmine worked as an incubator for social entrepreneurs in Colorado before returning to Tunisia, where she realised that there was a real need for incubator programmes for women in the country. Women account for only 28% of Tunisia’s total labour force, and face significant challenges as entrepreneurs due to social and economic discrimination. Salmine co-founded She Starts Africa in 2018 and began offering female university students workshops for free. Using the data and feedback they gathered during this initial outreach, She Starts Africa was able to develop an incubation programme to build women’s capacity in entrepreneurship.
The 2019 One Young World Summit in London gave Salmine more perspective on how she could help the cause of women entrepreneurs in Africa. She built a network of connections through One Young World which she maintains to this day, elevating her ability to co-create and collaborate with other innovators and entrepreneurs. She Starts Africa has managed to simultaneously develop programmes for women entrepreneurs who are only just beginning their entrepreneurial journey, and those who have experience with entrepreneurship but want to learn more about scaling their businesses and utilising digital tools to make that happen.
She Starts Africa has expanded across the continent, and is now active through university clubs in six countries. The organisation has an extensive list of partners and corporate CSR departments with whom they collaborate to design entrepreneurial programmes. The beginner workshops start with confidence-building exercises before tackling technical training. She Starts Africa’s initiation programme, known as The Labyrinth, lasts for six weeks with actionable outcomes, while the Female Founders workshop is aimed at a more established audience and is oriented towards specific market outputs. So far, the social enterprise has accelerated the entrepreneurship of 750 women.
“I still have my connections from One Young World, I still talk to and collaborate with them, especially in my scholarship. The most interesting thing is the relationships and the network, and the different aspects of the programme that make you think about what you can do better”
Brighter Tomorrow
Brighter Tomorrow - Afghanistan
Pamir Ehsas
Ambassador-led Initiative
23
SROI
Pamir founded Brighter Tomorrow in 2014 with his brothers. Growing up as a refugee in Norway, he was able to take advantage of educational opportunities inaccessible to most Afghans. Around 3.7 million Afghan children do not attend school, with girls accounting for 60% of this number [1]. With a strong urge to improve the education available to Afghan children, Pamir began reaching out to NGOs but was repeatedly told that he was too young. In response, he co-founded Brighter Tomorrow when he was 19 years old.
Pamir attended the 2015 One Young World Summit in Bangkok and immediately felt deeply inspired by the range of speakers and the power of their messages. He was able to pitch his ideas on education to several of One Young World’s Partners, which proved to be helpful for Brighter Tomorrow’s sustainable finance model and partnership-building activities. Under Pamir’s leadership, the organisation has since developed an offline-based education platform that teaches students to read and write in both Pashto and Dari through unsupervised game learning. What distinguishes the Brighter Tomorrow model from alternatives is its scalability; its educational programme is both comprehensive and available on every platform. The tablets are powered entirely by solar panels, ensuring that electricity blackouts do not disrupt the educational progress of the children using them. Each tablet has 16 hours of battery life and is regularly rotated amongst the students to ensure equal opportunity.
Since its founding, 2,000 children have received traditional schooling through Brighter Tomorrow. A further 600 have received ed-tech schooling, though due to COVID-19 only 200 of these were able to complete the programme. More recently, Brighter Tomorrow has partnered with a Norwegian NGO to resume its work in Afghanistan, with 60 students receiving ed-tech schooling in Kabul and Badakhshan.
“The Summit was filled with inspiration, there were such astonishing speakers with such powerful messages. It felt surreal to even be in the same venue as those inspirational people. And that is needed because in this sector you need that support. It was a huge help, the Corporate Partners that One Young World has.”
A Beautiful Mess
A Beautiful Mess - The Netherlands
Naz Kawan
Ambassador-led Initiative
12
SROI
A student of fashion and business economics, and having fled Iraq as a young child with her family, Naz founded A Beautiful Mess to solve two challenges she witnessed in Dutch society. Rapidly rising clothing production and consumption have created a global culture of waste, and currently, less than 1% of used clothing is recycled back into clothes. There is also an undersupported and underused labour resource in the form of refugees, who face various social, economic, and cultural challenges in integrating into the workforce.
A Beautiful Mess operates a 100% circular textile factory in the Netherlands, simultaneously creating jobs for refugees with a background in tailoring, and in turn minimising the substantial negative environmental impacts of the fashion industry. The social enterprise has worked with companies ranging from Tommy Hilfiger to Google, to produce fashion collections that recycle waste textiles and 'dead stock', and provide gainful employment to refugees struggling to break into Netherland's labour market.
Since 2019, the organisation has worked on 40 different collections with funding partners, turning over 8,000 metres of textile waste into 15,200 high-quality products whilst giving regular employment to 15 refugees in the 'Restart Programme'. An additional 25 refugees have received training to help them contribute to and profit from the labour market. The organisational structure is set to evolve in the coming months, shifting more to a B2C model whereby the factory produces collections sold directly through stores in the Netherlands and Belgium, and more to be opened elsewhere. A Beautiful Mess will be rebranded as Twenty Fifty, a name chosen to reflect its commitment to sustainability goals. It will launch its own fashion brand producing unisex collections from fully biodegradable regenerated cotton and recycled fabrics.
Aligned with this work and reacting to the pandemic, Naz co-founded "Mondmaskerfabriek", a social enterprise running a surgical mask factory in the Netherlands. Employed by the Dutch Government, the organisation produced a staggering 48 million masks, continuing to produce 1-2 million masks every week. Crucially, it employed 52 refugee workers via the Restart Programme throughout the challenging pandemic period.
‘’As an Ambassador, I gained a huge network of young like-minded people from every corner in the world doing amazing social impact work with whom I can share my experiences and exchange knowledge. From attending the London Summit in 2019 to speaking at the CogX Conference, being able to share this journey and grow together is a privilege.”
El Derecho a No Obedecer
Colombia has experienced a large influx of Venezuelan refugees in recent years, with 1.7 million Venezuelans now residing in the country, 32% of the total number of Venezuelan migrants on the continent. In a climate of increasing hostility, Alejandro has led an initiative called ‘Your Flag is My Flag’ to promote the social and cultural integration of Venezuelan migrants and refugees across Latin America. They do this through organising conversational spaces, artistic projects, and community mobilisation to combat xenophobia.
Alejandro and his team also developed the Xenophobia Barometer, a platform that analyses online conversations around migration in Latin America with the goal of providing policy-makers with information on public perception in real-time. Your Flag is My Flag has reached 115,000 refugees, migrants, and people from local communities, organising 5 national campaigns, community-based programmes, and anti-xenophobia training. Along with his other projects, Your Flag is my Flag is a part of El Derecho a No Obedecer, which is an independent initiative existing within the wider organisation, Corporación Otraparte.
The 2019 One Young World Summit in London opened professional doors for Alejandro. AstraZeneca nominated him to be part of the first cohort in their partnership with UNICEF, where he became the lead point for advocacy and young people in the air pollution space. In this way, the Summit experience helped to scale his work. In 2018, Alejandro co-founded the National Citizen Network for Air Quality in Colombia, and since then they have successfully mobilised 1,500 people around issues related to air pollution. His project has also opened a school called New Airs to further mobilise young people and to monitor air pollution in 9 cities using low-cost equipment. They have so far trained 130 young people, and have expanded into Ecuador and Peru while influencing local development plans in Medellin and Cúcuta.
“The One Young World Summit opened doors. It gives so many references on how to become a better advocate. I had the opportunity to choose which people I wanted my advocacy to be inspired by."
Come Mejor Wa'ik/Eat Better Wa'ik
Come Mejor Wa'ik/Eat Better Wa'ik - Guatemala
Bibi la Luz Gonzalez
Ambassador-led Initiative
12
SROI
Bibi founded Eat Better Wa'ik as a pilot project shortly before attending the One Young World Summit in 2015, at which she spoke on the social cost of corruption on food. Food insecurity is an issue in Latin America that has only become more pressing and damaging since that time. Guatemala currently experiences the sixth highest level of chronic malnutrition in the world and also a pressing triple burden of malnutrition, with undernourishment, obesity, and non-communicable diseases.
Bibi started Eat Better Wa'ik with the aim of addressing this challenge by merging food security, climate sustainability, and human rights. The objective is to generate food awareness and provoke action to reduce malnutrition through education, economy, agroforestry transformation, consumption, and technological solutions. This takes the form of various initiatives that support not just people in extreme poverty, but engage with those from low, middle, and high-income backgrounds. This is done through creative education, services, and products, connecting local communities with global policymaking. Direct intervention in the form of over 8,500 "improved food baskets" have been a crucial food response to humanitarian crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The team also delivers educational workshops to provide nutritional knowledge to promote healthy behavioural change. Eat Better Wa'ik runs, and provides content for, awareness-raising online and in-person events.
The scale of Bibi's work has grown consistently through the years, and in mid-2019 she re-shaped the organisation after stepping away from her other role with the World Food Programme. This has allowed her to scale up the impact of Eat Better Wa'ik. Bibi and the team have spread sustainability education and impactful operations beyond Guatemala, from Thailand to Uruguay, and the USA to the UK. Through international coalitions, the organisation contributes to shaping global policy on food, climate, and human rights.
“The One Young World Summit was the first opportunity we had to speak about Wa’ik and what we were doing, since it was only 3 months old by that time. It allowed us to connect with One Young World Partners, to collaborate or just be present. It gave me skills, of putting myself out there and participating.”
Fluence
As a recent graduate engineer, Marek was searching for a career in sustainability when he found himself fired from his first job at the height of the global recession. This gave him a chance to reset, pursuing an industry-based doctorate on the challenges of integrated renewable energy to the electricity system. Ultimately, this early career pivot led to him becoming the Managing Director and founding member of a leading global energy storage technology and services company.
Fluence is a company that unlocks a key part of the energy transition by solving intermittency issues around renewable energy. Fluctuations in the generation of renewable electricity mean that surplus energy needs to be stored somewhere to maintain a consistent supply. Thus, innovative hardware and software products such as those made by Fluence help renewables to compete with and displace fossil fuel-based power. The company develops energy storage products that work with a range of battery chemistries and that form standardised building blocks but can be personalised in order to suit almost any customer need. Fluence, which began as a joint venture between Siemens and AES in 2018, has emerged as an industry-leading technology and product company that has delivered the world’s largest fleet of battery-based energy storage. The company recently completed an IPO that raised around $1bn on the NASDAQ stock exchange.
Marek is currently responsible for growing business in the UK, Ireland, the Middle East and Africa where he oversees a team responsible for originating and contracting energy storage products, software and services sales. Fluence continues to grow rapidly, facilitating the clean energy transition with more than 150 projects ongoing in 30 global markets.
“One Young World gave me a gigantic platform to share my message on the role of technology to improve our lives and wellbeing. Addressing the Environment Plenary Keynote in 2017 to an audience of 1200 delegates was a huge honour and something I will never forget. Ultimately, it led to a number of other opportunities, such as being asked to give my TED Talk “Batteries Not Included” the following year.”
Reeddi
Reeddi is a climate technology company that seeks to bridge the gaps in electricity provision in Nigeria by offering an affordable alternative based on clean energy sources. Despite progress in recent years, 75% of the global population without electricity lives in sub-Saharan Africa. Those who do have access to the power grid experience regular blackouts and supply shortages, with Nigerians on average enjoying only 7 hours of grid electricity per day. Olugbenga had the idea for the Reeddi capsule as early as 2017 but the project finally went live in September 2019.
What Olugbenga enjoyed most about his experience at the 2019 One Young World Summit was the access he gained to like-minded people from all over the world, some of whom he is still in contact with. Reeddi has grown tremendously since then, with its sustainable energy capsule included as one of Time Magazine’s best inventions of 2021. The capsules are solar-powered and can be rented for a small daily fee. They are designed to be movable and can be used across multiple environments over a day, with one capsule able to power a wide range of electrical devices. Currently, 500 capsules are operational but Olugbenga hopes to scale this significantly in the coming year.
Through its capsule system, Reeddi provides 1,000 days of clean electricity every month, with a customer base of over 600 businesses and households. Olugbenga has also established a leasing platform, TempOwn, where people can rent critical infrastructure including the Reeddi capsules and other essential equipment. TempOwn is an insurance-covered platform and users can see the value of the emissions they save by renting from it. Since beginning operations, it has had around 800 active users across all fields.
“The access to like-minded people was probably one of the reasons I enjoyed my One Young World experience. Being within the One Young World Community gives you credibility. When we got the Time Best Inventions award, stuff from One Young World came up when they asked about what I've done.”
Piipee
Piipee - Brazil [coordinating region]
Ezequiel Vedana da Rosa
Ambassador-led Initiative
58
SROI
In terms of quantity, Brazil is by most measures a water-rich country. Yet it has experienced rising utility rates resulting from alarmingly low water levels in key hydroelectric reservoirs, while food prices have also increased due to drought [1]. Despite its vast resources, water has proven to be a persistent problem for the country. The huge increases in water prices in 2014-2015 threatened to turn into a full-blown crisis, and it was in that climate that Ezequiel decided to co-found Piipee.
In 2018, Ezequiel became one of the UN’s young leaders for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), representing Clean Water and Sanitation. This achievement gave him the opportunity to attend that year’s One Young World Summit at the Hague. The conversations he was a part of while there led him to connect with Unilever in Brazil. One Young World introduced Ezequiel to a huge new community of companies, partners, and peers with expertise he could learn from and stories from which he could draw inspiration. Ezequiel has come to believe that a problem that’s too big becomes nobody’s problem, and that the best way to tackle the water crisis is to offer a monetary incentive for behavioural change.
Piipee is a prize-winning biodegradable product that removes the smell and colour of urine while sanitising toilets without the need for water. Since production began in 2015, Piipee has amassed a user base of 200,000 individuals. On average people and businesses who use the product have reported a 35% fall in their water bills, and Piipee has the potential to save upwards of 80% of the water used in toilets. Piipee has also established itself in poor communities, providing free services to 30 families with impressive results in cost reduction and behavioural change.
"When I send my information, it’s my name, the UN affiliation, and my One Young World affiliation. It’s really nice to see how people respect these titles. This represents something, I am representing something. It opens so many doors."
ChangeMakers
Salam grew up in a household that encouraged her to pursue the same opportunities as her brothers, but the community outside her home did not mirror this equality. Solving gender inequality would not only overcome an issue exacerbated by years of conflict but could unlock essential economic development for the country.
Salam turned this challenge into the seeds of a social enterprise, ChangeMakers, which she began at the end of 2016 in Damascus. It has the mission of breaking the masculine stereotype of programming, by encouraging and empowering females to enter the programming profession. ChangeMakers achieves this by creating specially-designed curriculums and pursuing interactive teaching methods used by a number of experts who are distinctively passionate about programming. Both boys and girls are invited to these sessions guaranteeing a 50/50 gender ratio to reduce perceived differences. Educational programmes last for between 6-8 hours on average, including 15 different sessions implementing a variety of educational teaching techniques. Now based in the Netherlands, Salam has recently launched a new enterprise to carry forward the work begun by ChangeMakers, called Warsha. Before this shift in April 2021, ChangeMakers had successfully educated 50+ participants between 15 and 18 years old in Damascus, Syria. Success stories include 3 participants securing full scholarships to study abroad and others at private universities in Syria, some using the education as a foundation to start their own enterprises, and many going on to study computer science in further education. In addition to the core programme, ChangeMakers provided 150 participants with a shorter form of the curriculum via workshops and reached an audience of 1,500 at conferences.
Today, Salam’s new social enterprise Warsha is focusing on helping companies and organisations in the West develop research-based programmes to fulfil their social goals, mainly in the East. It collates tech and entrepreneurship resources on an online platform to allow Arabic speakers to access the same opportunities that are available in the English language.
“I admit that One Young World tremendously impacted my life. Indirectly, because I came to the Summit via a scholarship from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the Netherlands. I kept that connection, and later I got an internship. Later, I worked towards and received a grant from the Ministry. It would be unfair to say that One Young World did not open a huge door of opportunities."
Jabez House
Jabez House was founded by Shamelle Rice as the only organisation of its kind in Barbados offering alternative economic opportunities through skills development and empowerment to female sex workers. Shamelle’s initial work focused on HIV and human trafficking, but she quickly realised that a major factor contributing to increased rates of sex work was economic vulnerability and that no one was offering female sex workers an alternative.
Shamelle remembers the One Young World Summit in Bangkok vividly, and seeing so many other young people from across the world with visions as big as hers inspired her with an even greater desire to press on with Jabez House. The Summit also impacted the nature of her vision for the organisation, she learned more about the social enterprise model and began thinking about how she could implement it in her own work. Over the years, Jabez House has helped women transition out of sex work by offering free training courses where women can immediately learn skills that open new employment and entrepreneurial opportunities for them.
Through community outreach, Jabez House has provided 550 female sex workers with the commodities they need to work safely. Around 220 women have gone through its training programmes so far, with the vast majority of these women having transitioned out of sex work completely or cut their involvement significantly. As most of these women are mothers, Jabez House has expanded its efforts to provide school supplies and basic needs assistance like food, clothing, and in some cases housing, to affected children. Since COVID-19, they have focused more on digital empowerment and workshops with female entrepreneurs to ensure that the transitioning process can continue.
"Going to the One Young World Summit and hearing the different sessions, expertise, hearts, it impacted me in a way that caused my worldview, horizon, and everything to be so much bigger than they would have been had I not gone"
Movement for Cooperation and Development of Youth
Movement for Cooperation and Development of Youth - Serbia
Stefan Raicevic
Ambassador-led Initiative
5
SROI
The Movement for Cooperation and Development of Youth (MCDY) was co-founded by Stefan Raicevic and pitched at the 2015 One Young World Summit to one of One Young World's partner organisations, The Resolution Project, who provided the venture with guides, platforms, and funding. Serbia is a country that experiences high levels of youth unemployment, the figure currently stands at 25% but in 2015 this number was far greater at an unsustainable 42%. The MCDY designed its workshops with young people in mind, bringing in experts who were often themselves young professionals, to discuss topics of interest to their peers.
The One Young World Summit spurred Stefan’s own professional development. It was at the Summit that he first discovered the “Big 4” auditing companies, where he is now employed. His engagement with One Young World lasted well beyond the event itself, and in 2016 he became the One Young World Coordinating Ambassador for the Europe 3 region, overseeing event organisation and community engagement in that part of the world. The project management skills he picked up during this period proved useful in both his professional and personal endeavours. The MCDY included a youth academy, which involved going to schools and other educational institutions and organising lectures, workshops, as well as practical small-scale community projects. Participants learned about environmental protection, intercultural community-building, as well as college and career guidance.
The COVID-19 pandemic meant that the next stage in the MCDY’s development was postponed but Stefan has plans to restart the project in 2022. In total, 269 people participated in the smaller community projects, workshops, and lectures while 81 people graduated from the academy. Of these, a significant number received employment opportunities as a direct result of their involvement.
"At the One Young World Summit I learned that for-profit and non-profit worlds can and should cooperate in order to bring changes. This was a key part of our work at the MCDY - to create socially conscious young business leaders through community development projects.”
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.