One Young World Ambassadors are leading projects in every country of the world, creating substantial social impact across all 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Every month our Coordinating Ambassadors select someone from their region who has created significant social impact locally, regionally or even worldwide. We are delighted to feature a selection of these exceptional young leaders below. If you would like to be considered, please reach out directly to your Coordinating Ambassador. Unsure who is your Coordinating Ambassador? See the breakdown of countries here
Selva Montealegre Mendoza, Mexico - AB inBev
Selva is leading the drive for gender equality and female empowerment in AB InBev in more than 10 countries across Latin America. After attending the 2018 Summit in The Hague, Selva connected the works she had been doing on gender equality outside of her job to her role in AB InBev as Continuity Manager. With her local teams throughout Latin America, she has been implementing a strategy for female representation in the logistic area of the company. Programmes on gender equality and empowerment have impacted 100 women in AB InBev since 2019. These programmes have focussed on the creation of job opportunities for women, trainings and policies on maternity leave and reintegration.
Alongside these projects, Selva has been striving for gender equality through her involvement in the state government office, Red Mexicana para el Servicio Público, and the Women Ambassadors Forum since 2014. In 2017, she was selected as Mexico's ambassador for the Women Ambassadors Forum.
Juan Viloria, Colombia - Venezolanos en Barranquilla
Juan is the Vice-President of Venezolanos en Barranquilla, a non-profit supporting migrants, refugees and returnee people from Venezuela who are residing in the Caribbean region of Colombia. The humanitarian assistance they provide is comprehensive in its scope. They have delivered over 7,200kg of food, 11,780 units of medical supplies, 3,100 items of clothing, and served more than 8,100 hot meals to the community to name a few. Additionally, the organisation increases the opportunities for this community by supplying access to seed capital, work orientation workshops, education, and recreational activities such as sports.
Alongside all this, Venezolanos en Barranquilla defends the human rights of Venezuelans by raising their issues on an international level through participation in global networks, and by facilitating participation in Venezuelan elections. The organisation through these, and other, services has assisted over 50,000 people, significantly increasing their resilience and integration.
Tom Marshall, the Netherlands - Extraordinary Life
In 2016, Tom founded Extraordinary Life. This organisation provides personal, high-level development training to people on a broad scale. In doing so, opportunities usually reserved for companies and professionals have been made available to over 5000 young people. Extraordinary Life has hosted TED-style talks, community gatherings and Taboo Topic discussions, all with the aim of aiding the personal development of participants.
Tom was inspired at the 2019 Summit in London to grow the scope and scale of his organisation. With a small volunteer team in Denmark and larger team in the Netherlands, they have organised sessions in both countries as well as Switzerland, Spain, the UK and Uganda.
Jana El-Assaad, France - Wintegreat
Jana is the Communications Officer at Wintegreat, an organisation which trains refugees in France to revive their projects, build their confidence and boost their professional future and enable society to seize the opportunity of a value creating integration.
Wintegreat offers a programme in which newcomers are trained to resume their studies or find a suitable job. With their programmes, Wintegreat has supported 1,178 people, of which 73% have found a desired job or studies within half a year of completion. Members of the Wintegreat team have established contact with Professor Muhammad Yunus at the London Summit in 2020 and Wintegreat has been working on a collaboration with the Yunus Centre since then. In the future Wintegreat aims to expand beyond the borders of France and employ their successful method in other nations.
Samantha Thian, Singapore - Seastainable
Seastainable is developing, funding and scaling youth-led marine conservation initiatives across South-East Asia. Samantha founded Seastainable in 2018. Not only do they reduce plastic consumption through sales of their environmentally-friendly straws, their profits have contributed $30,000 to over 33 conservation projects around the region. Through Seastainable's grants and funding, 925 individuals become involved in marine conservation initiatives, positively impacting around 5,200 people. Initiatives supported by Seastainable have focussed on the protection of endangered aquatic species, environmental education, recycling and cleanup efforts, and much more.
At the 2019 London Summit, Samantha connected with another project which had been initiated by Ambassadors: CarbonEthics. Together, they offset CO2 and restore marine eco-systems through the "Blue Carbon Programme".
Rodrigo Santos, Brazil - Seeds Apparel Company
Rodrigo is co-founder of Seeds Apparel Company, which has two major focuses. Firstly, through its slow fashion clothing brand, Seeds Apparel promotes conscious consumption and sustainable production. Secondly, they promote sustainable development beyond just production, through partnerships with reliable projects such as Refugio 434 and Estrela Milinha.
Seeds Apparel work with local partnerships and businesses, spreading the message of transformation and a focus on nature through their products. Rodrigo’s work foregrounds the protection of urban nature and supports vulnerable youth. Through this, more than 500 people have been positively impacted by the brand. Recently, Seeds dedicated an entire event to provide clothes to Venezuelan refugees and collected 350 items of clothing. Alongside this, during their last collection they worked with famous local musicians, transferring their sales profit to Estrela Milinha, an NGO which looks after children and the elderly.
Nomqhele Samantha Siziba, Zimbabwe - Youth Invest
Youth Invest, founded and led by OYW Ambassador Nomqhele Siziba, supports and develops young people in Zimbabwe by facilitating entrepreneurial participation in their local economy. Through various training projects and support networks, Youth Invest stimulates the economic success of young Zimbabweans.
Recently, Nomqhele and the Youth Invest team have launched the Promoting Rural Tourism Entrepreneurship (PRTE) project for Victoria Falls. This project is aimed at the involvement of young entrepreneurs in the economic development of the tourism sector in Victoria Falls. Workshops on tour-guiding and story-telling, digital marketing and financial literacy are provided to young artisans in the area. A hub, both physical and online, will be established where these artisans can sell their projects. This is predicted to increase artisans household income by 87% in the area.
Zafarbek Sulaimanov, Kyrgzstan - Educational Inititiaves Foundation
After attending the OYW Summit in 2012, Zafarbek launched an educational NGO called the Educational Initiatives Foundation. This NGO’s primary focus is the improvement of education in Kyrgyzstan. Through various educational projects and collaborations it aims to increase access to quality education whilst simultaneously boosting the creative economy in Kyrgyzstan.
Since its establishment, Zafarbek has worked with various educational platforms, knowledge databases, professional orientation programmes, and olympiads. These olympiads, for instance, help to foster an enthusiasm for learning new applicable skills such as programming and finance. Zafarbek is also involved with ProKG, an organisation of professionals which focuses on inspiring young people. These various projects increased the quality of education for thousands of people in Kyrgyzstan. Moreover, Zafarbek also provides a scholarship for 2 university students and 5 children professional orientation projects.
Chiara Stocco, Italy - Tawazun
Tawazun is a one-stop health app that provides practical tools, such as online guided meditations and mental well-being exercises, to support physical and mental struggles of Arabic speaking users. Through its library of content, Tawazun aims to reduce the stigma surrounding mental health in the Arabic speaking world.
Chiara co-founded Tawazun after attending the 2018 Summit in The Hague. The team working on the app has developed professionally curated content for the enhancement of mental wellbeing of Arabic speaking users. So far, early versions of Tawazun’s tools have helped roughly 100 people. However, Tawazun projects to reach 2.8 million users in four years time. Tawazun will enable the Arab world to discover, understand, and benefit from the healing processes of guided mental exercises, enhancing their health within the privacy and safety of a personal app.