On October 5 2023, One Young World convened eight exceptional young leaders attending its Belfast 2023 Summit to meet with InterAction Council Co-Chair Bertie Ahern, former Taoiseach of Ireland, and former President of Colombia and Nobel Peace Laureate Juan Manuel Santos.
The reason for this meeting and the formation of a Global Youth Security Council (GYSC) is to address existential threats to the global community. The Council is now made up of fourteen One Young World Ambassadors, working and developing research, policy, and briefings to understand and address these existential threats to humankind.
Strategy 'X'
During the inaugural meeting of the Council, Dr Jo Nurse, Strategic Analyst to the InterAction Council, presented Strategy 'X'. The strategy details the interconnectedness of the existential threats facing humanity and how they interact and reinforce each other, with the potential to escalate existential catastrophes.
The GYSC was selected to cover a range of expertise that equips them to identify and design intersectional solutions that overlap the different clusters and provide escalating solutions. The key threats fit into four clusters:
Peace
Prosperity
Planet
People
GYSC Members
Fourteen One Young World Ambassadors were chosen to tackle this range of topics, applying their unique expertise and experiences to create escalating and intersectional solutions.
Isaac Olufadewa
Nigeria
Bio
Isaac is a medical doctor, researcher, healthcare innovator and social entrepreneur with over a decade of experience advocating for health equity and social justice. His public health advocacy and over 52 peer-reviewed research works are focused on infectious diseases, sexual health, NCDs and mental health. He is also the Founder and Executive Director of Slum and Rural Health Initiative.
This organisation provides quality healthcare to underserved people in urban slums, IDP/refugee camps and hard-to-reach communities. Dr Isaac is also a HIRe Modeling Fellow for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Barrise Griffin (she/her)
Bahamas
Bio
Barrise Griffin is an expert in Disaster Risk Management and Development. Barrise’s research and work focuses on critically examining the social perceptions and contributions of risk to create more effective strategies for disaster preparedness, mitigation and response in The Bahamas and throughout the Caribbean.
Barrise is the Founder & Principal Consultant of Mangrove Strategies and a Consultant with the Inter-American Development Bank. Her blog, “Master of Disasters” provides tips and strategies for personal disaster risk preparedness. Her recent work focused on the human impacts of Hurricane Dorian and the COVID-19 pandemic on Mental Health.
Victor A. Lopez-Carmen
United States
Bio
Victor A. Lopez-Carmen, MPH, is a Dakota and Yaqui writer, Indigenous health advocate, and current student at Harvard Medical School. He is a Co-Founder of Translations for Our Nations, translating accurate COVID-19 information into over 40 Indigenous languages from over 20 countries. Over the past decade, he has advocated for Indigenous youth health and climate action across the UN system as the former Co-Chair of the UN Global Indigenous Youth Caucus.
His writing and commentary have been featured across major media networks like ABC News, the UN News Centre, and the BBC, and in 2022, he became the first documented Native American to make the Forbes 30 under 30 list in the Healthcare category.
Currently, he is a climate justice, representation, and healthcare contributor for Forbes Magazine.
Ivana Feldfeber
Argentina
Bio
Ivana Feldfeber is the co-founder and Executive Directress of the first Gender Data Observatory in Latin America, "DataGénero." She is part of the Feminist AI network for Latin America, and she was a team leader at the Center of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Policy (CAIDP), where she worked on analysing different AI policies in her region.
In 2022, Ivana and her team were selected by A+ Alliance to research AI tools for Criminal Courts working with gender-based violence data in Argentina and Mexico.
Kolfinna Tómasdóttir (she/her)
Iceland
Bio
Kolfinna is a Senior Adviser at the Icelandic Centre for Research and a Co-Founder and Director at AiXist – Consortium for AI & Existential Risks.
Kolfinna holds an MA in International Law and the Settlement of Disputes from the UN Mandated University for Peace in Costa Rica and a diploma in Global Leadership from the UPEACE Centre for Executive Education. She also holds a Mag. Jur. and BA in Law from the University of Iceland, along with a diploma in Middle-Eastern Studies.
Kolfinna was the first editor and founder of Helga Law Journal, the first Icelandic journal focused solely on International Law and a former board member of Young Professional Women in Iceland.
Talita Honorato-Rzeszewicz (she/her)
Poland
Bio
Talita holds a medical degree from the Federal University of São Paulo (Brazil) and obtained her PhD in clinical epidemiology from the University of Groningen (The Netherlands). With a rich background in medical research across various academic institutions, she completed the Global Research Training Scholars Program at Harvard Medical School, focusing on research initiatives aimed at enhancing racial diversity within clinical trials. Furthermore, she was granted a Fellowship for the Leadership Development to Advance Equity in Health Care Program from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Talita contributed her expertise to Pfizer's task force, where she monitored the safety of COVID-19 vaccines across Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Presently, she serves as a Global Grants Officer, dedicating her efforts to advancing diversity among clinical trial participants, devising strategies to mitigate health disparities, addressing scientific gaps related to gender or underserved populations, enhancing healthcare systems via capacity building, promoting health equity, and bolstering healthcare access for marginalised communities.
Matai Muon
South Sudan
Bio
Through his work at Tedi Africa, a non-profit social venture committed to providing capacity-building programmes to the underprivileged, Matai led and co-managed three programmes meant to empower refugee women and youth in entrepreneurship and business incubation.
Matai has also consulted with a wide range of international development institutions on refugee issues, including the World Bank, where he contributed to a number of youth development projects.
Tanya Afu (she/her)
Solomon Islands
Bio
Tanya Afu is Secretary for the Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change. She is also employed by the Solomon Islands Climate Action Network (SICAN) as the Monitoring, Evaluation, Research and Learning Officer. Through her work with SICAN, she provides an avenue to amplify the voices of marginalised communities on the issues around climate change.
Her work offers capacity-building training to strengthen the capacity of marginalised people to be resilient against the impacts of climate change.
Shadi Rouhshahbaz
Iran
Bio
Shadi holds a double-joint master’s degree in Inter-Mediterranean Migration and mediation, which has aided her skills in legal consultancy, communication, advocacy & project management. Shadi’s previous work includes Peace and Security Programme Analyst for UN Women, which involved supporting the coordination of the Women, Peace, and Security Focal Points and Network through supporting the secretariat in correspondences, event organisation, and collaboration with 93 Member States and 6 Regional Organisations.
Noor Azizah (she/her)
Myanmar (Burma)
Bio
Noor has been living in Australia since 2003, having fled the Genocide of Rohingya people in the Rakhine state of Myanmar. She has a BA in Education and an MA in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Sydney. She was named one of YAIA’s 2022 Young Women to Watch in International Affairs.
She has been the Australian Delegate for the Young Pacific Leaders Conference 2023 and a Refugee Delegate at the United Nations in Geneva at The Global Refugee Forum, as well as being involved in many other Global events.
Lloyd Jose Nunag (he/him)
Philippines
Bio
Lloyd is a dedicated Nurse with an MSc Public Health from the prestigious London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, as well as an MSc in Management Global Affairs, earned as a Schwarzman Scholar at Tsinghua University.
His expertise lies at the dynamic junction of Global Health, AI, advocacy, and policy. With a rich background in leading international programs across twenty nations, he notably represented the youth at the historic United Nations High-Level Meeting on Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in 2019. Currently, Lloyd contributes to an AI medical device startup dedicated to assisting clinicians in detecting and characterising polyps during endoscopic procedures.
Fatou Senghore (she/her)
Gambia
Bio
Fatou is a professional in Cyber Security with vast experience in the Digital Technology industry. Fatou holds an MSc in Cyber Security Engineering from the University of Warwick. She is a Chevening Scholar, a Grace Hopper for Women in Computing Scholar, a Barack Obama Young African Leadership Award recipient, and an Internet Governance Youth Ambassadors Fellow.
Fatou is the co-founder of WiSTEM making her a strong advocate for Women in STEM where she has established Mentorship Programs to help young Women and girls pursue Careers in STEM.
She is the co-founder and Vice President of the Gambia Information Security Community (GAMCON), a civil society that promotes cyber security education among young people.
Yuhan Zheng
China
Bio
Yuhan Zheng is currently pursuing her PhD in Geography at the National University of Ireland, focusing on the global governance of climate change and energy transition, specifically examining how energy innovation disproportionately empowers the local community.
She just ended her internship with the UNFCCC secretariat in the Intergovernmental Support and Collective Progress Division, coordinating the workstreams on the Global Stocktake under the Paris Agreement. Now, she serves as the Asian region focal point at the SDG7 Youth Constituency, part of the Local Pathway Fellowship at the UN Sustainable Development Solution Network.
She’s launching a project on ‘Deciphering the Potential of Nature-Based Solutions to Tackle Climate Extremes and Shape Future Land Use, Indigenous Empowerment, and Energy Transition’. She’s in the expert group at UNECE in both the Sustainable Energy and Transport (climate change impact assessment on inland transport) Division.
Zheng’s professional focus includes urban sustainability and resilience assessment. Her research has resulted in numerous publications and conference presentations (see her personal website: https://sites.google.com/view/yuhan-zheng/homepage).
Prachi Shevgaokar
India
Bio
Prachi is a Climate Entrepreneur and the founder of Cool The Globe - an app and a movement for climate action with users from 110+ countries. Prachi is the first Indian citizen to be appointed to the advisory board of Climate Leadership Coalition, alongside the former Prime Minister of Finland.
She was selected by the Ministry of Environment, UNICEF & UNDP to represent India at COP27 climate summit in Egypt, where she received COP27 Young Scholar Award from the Hon. Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav.
The Global Youth Security Council was designed and is managed in collaboration with the InterAction Council