Ambassador Spotlight: April 2021

Young Professional Women in Iceland (UAK) continued their work towards strengthening the position and future of young women as leaders and members of the economy. On 27th February, UAK hosted their annual conference "From action to impact - be the change", focusing on promoting equal opportunities for all by encouraging women to pursue their goals and dreams. Joining them at the conference were extraordinary women who all shared in having used their work to fight for equality and who have made an impact in their field of work. UAK welcomed more than 100 young women at Harpa Concert Hall, and twice as many attended digitally. It was the first conference held in person in Iceland since Covid-19 pandemic started.

Alongside the Prime Minister of Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, One Young World Ambassadors delivered inspiring talks. Caritta Seppä, the co-founder and COO at Tespack, delivered the second keynote of the conference. It was not until she found herself surrounded by the right people that sparked her passion that she decided to leave her job to follow her dreams and created Tespack with the aim to improve the quality of life for people around the world through mobile energy solutions. Salam Al-Nukta the Founder and CEO of Change Makers spoke about how to face the challenges when becoming an entrepreneur and how to see the opportunities in difficult circumstances.

Brazilian organisation SKF, in partnership with Ambassador-led initiative Refugio 343, hired 2 Venezuelan refugees. This represents a new life opportunity for the new employees and their families, enabling them to move to a new home and finally establish their social economic autonomy in a different country. Not only did they leave Venezuela, but they also had to move from the north of Brazil, Roraima, to São Paulo in the south-east.

To make this happen, beyond simply finding employment, it was necessary to prepare a place for them to live and settle once they arrived in São Paulo. This is when Refugio 343 requested volunteers to help on that mission, and Bianca accepted the challenge to lead the interiorisation of the identified families. With the help of a network of volunteers, donors, and SKF colleagues, it was possible to rent two houses, fully furnish them, raise enough funds for their first month in São Paulo, and organise all bureaucratic demands after they arrived in under a month.

Inès is the founder of GHETT’UP, a grassroots organisation fostering social, economic, and environmental justice in the suburbs of Paris. It is a network of young changemakers working to challenge the predominant narrative around youth in the working-class neighbourhoods, especially those of immigrant descent.

GHETT’UP does so by building capacity, agency, and youth empowerment in the target communities. It also challenges leaders and decision-makers to drive rights and equality for this demographic. Since 2016, more than 5,000 youth have benefited from the organisation's programme.

Inès is also a journalist and directed the web documentary “Nos Daron.ne.s” about what it means to be a child of immigrant parents in France in 2021.

Miloš, who works for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Montenegro, organised and hosted a high-level panel discussion on the Western Balkans at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium. The aim was to bring high-level speakers and to talk about the opportunities, challenges, and other important aspects of the enlargement policy of the EU concerning the Western Balkans.

The discussion focused specifically on Montenegro, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. The team gathered high-level speakers who are stakeholders from politics and academia, including:

• Federica Mogherini - Rector of the College of Europe and former EU High Representative
• Srđan Darmanović - former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Montenegro
• Tonino Picula - Member of the European Parliament
• Ivan Vejvoda - permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna and former Senior Advisor on European integration to the Prime Minister of Serbia Zoran Đinđić

The panellists divulged experiences and expertise with the auditorium of College of Europe students, diplomatic staff, and other external guests.

Qais is the CEO of Youth Sada, an Omani youth organisation that designs and implements knowledge development programmes for young people, and manages social investment projects. The team is working to empower young people with future skills and link them to different labour markets through a wide range of training and youth programmes.

The Foundation's main fields of work include education and cognitive development, building youth capacities, entrepreneurship and innovation, specialised and interactive training, Youth Initiatives Centres, and educational student camps. The team of around 30 young leaders designs, prepares, organises, and implements youth programmes, forums, awareness campaigns, and community competitions. Primary community programmes involve the Youth Echo centre programme for Community Initiatives, a youth business centre that provides joint creative workspaces for the youth of Al Dhahirah Governorate, and works to incubate a group of distinguished youth initiatives at the governorate level. The Reading Family programme is a cultural gathering that seeks to instil a culture of reading in Omani society. This is just a snapshot of the organisation's work, and to date, it has provided more than 50 major programmes in which more than 100,000 youths from the Sultanate of Oman and the neighbouring countries have participated.

Urara Takaseki is the Vice-President of Your School, a non-profit that provides access to education and social connection to children in hospitals. It does so by training medical students with patient communication skills and creating spaces in hospitals for the kids to “escape” to from their secluded rooms.

For training the students, it is also beginning to work with rural schools to generate opportunities for medical students to work with and better understand children. Additionally, the team at Your School works alongside professionals to provide tools for parents and teachers of children with special needs via its YouTube channel. Your School aims to give hope to both the children in need who are directly involved in the projects, as well as future children who will be looked after by the students who have been trained by the organisation’s programmes.

Wandile is Co-Founder of Ubuntu Design Group, an organisation that uses architectural design and financial inclusion problems of low-income communities around the world. On April 1st 2021, he also launched the Anti-Racist Hot Dog after being kicked out of an exclusive membership club, that has a history of policies and practices that discriminate against black people. After being refused to dine, he requested a day pass, and was again declined. In response to this discrimination, Wandile published an article comparing his experience to those of the apartheid regime, and a member of the club replied with the comment “if you don’t feel welcome in our restaurant, why don’t you start your own.”

Wandile took this as motivation to start the Anti-Racist Hot Dog, as a protest against discrimination and to provide an inclusive place for people to buy food on the beach. As a young leader in architecture, Wandile wanted to create something that physically reclaims public space, makes a statement of anti-racism, and is a haven for all people who want to eat or socialise. The act of protest, although effective, has historically been a sacrifice for victims, but Wandile wanted to create a revenue-generating protest that gives back rather than takes away from marginalised communities. On launch day, the team sold out within only 3 hours to a diverse demographic of customers. The institution has launched a new initiative by which customers can buy a hotdog for a homeless person in Durban.