Our Ambassador of the Week is Faizal Abdoelgafoer from Suriname. Faizal’s passion for working with young people has recently earned him the appointment of Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs in Suriname. Faizal is the youngest person ever in the history of Suriname to serve as a Government Minister.
Having witnessed how young people were and still are suffering from not having equal opportunities, Faizal became interested in youth work.
Faizal’s focus as Minister is to create more opportunities for young people in government or in partnership with local or international organizations. He also aims to increase the collaboration among the many non-governmental organizations that are working with youth and sports.
“There are many organizations doing very good activities in the field of youth and sports. We need to collaborate more, so we can increase the impact of our initiatives,” said Faizal at his inaugural speech.
Prior to being appointed Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, Faizal started as a Youth Officer of the United Nations Millennium Development Youth Ambassadors Programme (UN MDG YAP) at the age of 17.
He was was then elected as the UN MDG Youth Ambassador when he worked on the distribution of schoolbags including stationary and uniforms to families or children in need, which still has a tremendous impacts on stimulating school age children to attend school.
Faizal's project was so successful that he was re-elected as Youth Ambassador, after serving a full term of two years. He made history by being the first Youth Ambassador to be re-elected.
