Ambassador Spotlight: May 2021

Wheeling Happiness Foundation works to achieve equity, wellbeing, and access for people with disabilities and financially underserved groups in all spheres of life. Globally, people with disabilities have been somewhat neglected in Covid-19 relief and response, and Wheeling Happiness directed its efforts to bridge this gap in India.

The foundation instituted a project called Happy Janta Kitchen through which volunteers prepared 5,000 cooked meals per day, across 3 cities, over a 4 month period, for vulnerable families unable to leave their homes. In addition, Devika identified 90 financially underserved families from across the country with at least one disabled family member. She supported them with dry rations, sanitary kits, first aid kits, disability aids, and counselling for the entirety of 2020. In addition to this work, Wheeling Happiness continues to support disabled athletes at the grassroots level, so that they are able to continue to invest in their training and nutrition in spite of the loss of their livelihood.

In May 2021, Wheeling Happiness has started a new fundraising collaboration along with NABET India, wherein it is raising funds to provide essentials at the doorstep of 200 poor families of severely disabled beneficiaries. This ensures that people with complex disabilities and comorbidities do not have to expose themselves to the virus just for day-to-day survival.

Devika has also contributed extensively to the COVID-19 Children & Young People With Disabilities Global Statement.

mymizu is a multiple-award-winning initiative to tackle plastic waste. The free mymizu smartphone app connects people to 200,000 free water refill stations globally. Using mymizu, it’s possible to refill your water bottle anywhere, and as the organisation’s tagline states “it’s good for the planet, the body and the wallet”!

Furthermore, mymizu provides creative educational experiences, consultancy services and lifestyle products, building a movement towards a world where sustainable living is easy and fun. To date, the organisation has tracked the reduction of over 100,000 plastic bottles, engaged tens of thousands of users across over 50 countries, and have built a network of over 1,000 cafes, restaurants and other businesses that have joined the mymizu movement as "refill partners". mymizu has also built strategic partnerships with leading brands such as Audi and Mitsubishi Chemical, local governments such as the Kobe City government, and with schools, universities, and nonprofits across Japan.

Its successful impact has led to mymizu being selected as two-time winner of Japan's "Minister of Environment Prize", Japan winner of the Chivas Venture, and one of Nikkei’s 100 brands building the future of Japan. Robin himself was recently recognised by M.I.T. Technology Review in its inaugural "Innovators Under-35 Japan" awards.

Reuby Mae started Love Angel Ph in January 2017, formerly named The Care Club Ph. Its primary focus is community outreach for the indigent children and low income families.

The philanthropic project runs a variety of different programmes to donate different resources, from food and school supplies, to clothes and toys. Whilst fundraising remains a constant challenge and obstacle to providing these essential donations to vulnerable families and children, to date, Love Angel Ph has connected with approximately 500 families and 7 different schools in Reuby Mae’s home town and community.

The flagship and most successful project has been the ‘Rice to Rise’ initiative, run in 2020. Through this, the organisation managed to assist between 250 and 300 families with rice and other staples through the Covid-19 crisis. Building on this, the organisation is working to develop and fund a sustainable livelihood project which would extend this help on a long term basis.

Jazmin is Director and Founder of Fundación BoaPaz, a Costa Rican organisation that promotes inclusion through education, entrepreneurship, innovation, and human rights for people with disabilities. Within that, Generación Bicentenario is an initiative supported by the government of Costa Rica that promotes an intergenerational and equitable approach to exchanging ideas, opportunities, and solutions to issues of human rights.

The central work group is composed of 21 people who lead on issues ranging from education access to agro-productive enterprises, adolescent groups to indigenous communities, environmental topics to sport, science to the arts, and much more.

Among the projects on which Jazmin currently is Bill #22.206 for the creation of a National Digital Literacy Program (PNAD), for which she is a spokesperson. The bill aims to guarantee universal access, universal service, telecommunications solidarity, reduction of the digital divide, as well as digital literacy. She is also one of the leaders on a National Survey of Children and Youth for UNICEF Costa Rica.

Nunu is the Founder of Young Positives, a South Sudanese non-profit that convenes adolescent girls and young women living with HIV to accelerate the preventative care and support services for young people living with the disease.

With funding from UNAIDS through consortium organisations, Young Positives conducted a rapid assessment to ascertain the needs of their demographic in the high-risk areas within Juba, the capital. It conducted a series of peer to peer dialogues to end early child marriage with the aim to reduce HIV prevalence and encourage girl-child education. Young Positives also conducted community awareness raising on HIV prevention and treatment to transform local attitudes and tackle deep-rooted misunderstandings around HIV infection. Meanwhile, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the organisation participated in raising awareness to tackle the spread of the virus in this highly vulnerable demographic. It aims to establish a network of adolescent girls and young women which will enable them to voice their concerns to decision making bodies in South Sudan.

To date, the organisation has directly helped 150 young women and teenagers through its initiatives. This includes 10 adolescent girls and 10 young women who are currently engaged in a women leadership development programme, receiving mentorship on management skills and leadership.

In 2018, Valerie and Marie co-founded the Board of Young Professionals within KPMG and KPMG Law in Belgium. The purpose of this group was to establish a framework to connect young people in the firm with its sustainable business initiatives and to give them a platform from which to speak up and share ideas with the management of the firm. This all serves the aim of empowering change for KPMG’s people, clients and communities.

The group consists of 30 enthusiastic employees who work on several projects within the firm, focusing on diversity and inclusion, environment, and health. They are also involved in partnerships for external projects, such as Enactus Belgium and YouthStart. The team creates innovative new projects that fit into the strategy of the group and that of the company, motivate their colleagues, and challenge the KPMG management team.

In the area of entrepreneurship, the Board helped incorporate and promote Enactus in Belgium, which now has nine student teams with 80 students and 12 projects, whereby we continue to mentor and challenge the students in their sustainable entrepreneurship projects, together with the other partners. Environment activities include the development of a sustainability dashboard to visually represent the firm’s impact on the environment. Furthermore, the team assists the firm in further defining the sustainability strategy and the roll-out of electrical vehicles. The Board also has created a community to improve cultural integration and exchange to promote diversity and inclusion in the workplace. Before the virus struck in 2020, the team organised a blood donation drive in the office headquarters through which more than 125 people registered to donate blood. During the pandemic, the health focus has been primarily to support mental health and health at home.

Lara is part of a group of Google Italy employees who volunteer to run the S.T.A.R. program. The group were brought together with a shared passion for STEM subjects. They were motivated by the various barriers that prevent students, especially girls, from deepening their interest in this educational field, including stereotypes, prejudices, and lack of female role models.

The team strongly believes in the importance of STEM subjects, especially in an increasingly digital world, and that these subjects can offer innumerable opportunities in terms of professional and career development. As such, they designed the S.T.A.R. Program workshop for teenagers between 14 and 18 years old, to convey the importance of this subject and to encourage them to pursue this avenue of education. The programme raises awareness of gender biases that have an impact on women's studies and, therefore, career choices. It also presents the most interesting aspects of applying STEM knowledge into work activities, shares experiences of young women who have chosen a career in STEM fields and demonstrates how STEM subjects are applicable to all professional fields: from art, to science, medicine, sport and fashion.

The group has organised 10 events since the beginning of 2019, engaging more than 500 students. They recently redesigned the event in light of the Covid-19 pandemic to take on a digital and remote format. Lara and the team have also built a parallel Train the Trainer format, to enable their colleagues and external educators to help to spread the content and its message.

Prakash believes that by providing people with engaging financial education, he can create a positive impact in society, and has worked in this space since 2009. He founded FINLIT Nepal in 2017, and despite still being relatively young has gained strong support nationally and internationally. FINLIT Nepal is working with the Central Bank, Banking and Financial Institution and other stakeholders around the issues of financial inclusion of people.

FINLIT Nepal focus is on community-based financial education and works with stakeholders to align activities and resources for greater impact. It is currently working in Nepal, India and the Philippines. Over 12 financial institutions, 320 local groups, 275 high schools, 37 colleges and more than 185,000 individuals have joined the movement nationwide in Nepal.

The project is making a tangible difference, as 83% of our participants have diversified their income sources, implemented their new skills to start new endeavours, new employment, or new enterprises. It has trained 36 SMEs and helped them a secure investment, and worked with farmers to establish and increase dairy processing units, meat, and improve the integration of technology. Young participants aged 19-25 have joined a startup business path inspired by the project. Members of local community bodies have formed their own SMEs and employ themselves. The investment is done by the members of the local community body themselves with the help of government, cooperative and MFI loans.

Nasha is a co-founder of the Sustentabilidad Sin Fronteras group comprising 35 professionals from multiple disciplines who work collaboratively to solve complex sustainability issues. The team consists of lawyers, climatologists, geographers, environmental scientists, publicists, communicators, producers, and various other professions.

The group's lines of action are awareness, mitigation, and adaptation. Through various activities, the group provides civil society with information and tools to tackle the most important environmental problems and advocate for greater climate commitments from governments. The group’s flagship annual event on climate change and youth are recognised as one of the most important in the country, with attendance of students from multiple different provinces who travel for the event. More than 35,000 young people have been impacted by the various programmes, events, reports, and campaigns that the group has run in the past 4 years.

CAF Development Bank of Latin America promotes sustainable development through credit, non-refundable resources, and technical assistance to improve the lives of all populations in Latin America. In order to promote financial inclusion in the region, CAF was looking to accelerate the digital transformation of microfinance institutions (MFI) serving vulnerable populations. The bank collaborated with the Accenture Development Partnerships, for whom Gonzalo works as a Social Impact Consultant.

First, Gonzalo and the team conducted an interactive workshop with 10 MFIs from across Latin America to provide an end-to-end overview of digital transformation and steps to follow. Then they selected 4 institutions from Bolivia, Costa Rica, and Ecuador for detailed diagnostics into their business and social impact strategy, their end-client’s customer experience, their operating model, and the impact of Covid-19. From this, these organisations were supported in creating a digital transformation journey that would better enable them to support their clients, vulnerable communities in LATAM. The chosen initiatives have received 50 digital transformations in data, analytics, new services, financial education, and process improvements powered by technology.

There are 12 initiatives currently in the implementation phase and the successful execution of these initiatives is expected to impact over 200,000 people in vulnerable communities.

Globally, the importance of STEM-related fields in driving innovation and economic developments cannot be overemphasised. Samuel identified that the area’s contribution to development primarily arises from women who have defied prejudice and stereotypes to make an impact in this field. He founded Shaping Women in STEM (SWIS) Africa to support these women, celebrate them, and use their stories to inspire other young women.

SWIS facilitates sessions on a virtual community platform through which it connects women at the top of their careers with upcoming stars to share their expertise and experience with the next generation of women in STEM. To date, they have organised 7 programmes, 10 interviews, celebrated over 30 women in STEM, and directly impacted over 500 young women. Moreover, it leverages partnerships with the Women in TECH Group, Carnegie Mellon University, Rwanda and MTN to spotlight 20 Women in TECH in celebration of the International Day of Girls in Tech in 2021.

Over the next 3 years, Samuel and the organisation hope to have inspired at least 1,000 young women through the programmes, empowering them to pursue a career in STEM and achieve success in their respective fields.

Andrea Orság is the co-founder of MissionC, a strategic consulting firm based in Amsterdam, which aims to accelerate the transition to a circular economy globally. She is a consultant with many years of experience in risk management, strategy, and change management. This expertise lends to Andrea’s regular speaking, lecturing and moderating engagements on issues related to Circular Economy, Sustainability, Purpose and Impact.

Andrea got recently interviewed about the Role of Creativity in Circular Economy by the Slovak Business agency and Circular Slovakia. In this article, Andrea details her story, the need to restore natural systems and embed circular economy principles at the core of business strategies, differences and similarities between the Netherlands and Slovakia in terms of their problems and solutions, and recommendations for creators and companies seeking sustainability solutions.

Andrea continues to share wisdom through other channels, on 3rd June moderating a session Women in Leadership with executives from leading companies, and recently contributing to the OYW Ambassador-led initiative, the “We Have a Dream” book.

Heitor has worked with One Young World partner Novartis in Brazil for over 6 years, currently employed as an Oncology CRM Consultant managing programmes to improve pre-diagnosis, diagnosis, access, and adherence on a patients journey. The main ambition is to extend the lives of oncology patients.

In Brazil, patients must deal with a poor public health system on a daily basis, while the private system has significant resources to provide comprehensive, high-quality treatment. Heitor and Novartis’ mission is to provide the same level of treatment to those patients without access to an oncology centre or even a hospital.

He coordinates a programme to reduce the time between cancer diagnosis and drug infusion/injection, primarily in cases of leukaemia, melanoma, and breast cancer. At the same time, it provides comprehensive assistance to help patients deal with their treatments’ adverse effects and to support their caregivers. This includes counselling, skincare products, home nursing services, palliative support and much more. In 2021, there are currently more than 250,000 oncology patients in the public healthcare system being assisted from cancer diagnosis until treatment.