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Meet our new leaders!
Isaac Cudjoe
Dr. Isaac Cudjoe is a community organizer, social entrepreneur, and peace-building devotee with demonstrated success as an active participant and in partnership with domestic and international organizations worldwide. He has used his training from the Young African Leaders Initiative and The African Middle Eastern Leadership fellowship to help communities inspire social change agents to do more and be more for the places they call home.
Dr. Cudjoe has a doctorate in public policy and administration. His dissertation, Discrimination Threats for U.S.-Born Latinx During the Trump Administration, explored whether and how U.S.-born Latinx young adults experienced discrimination during CBP and ICE investigations, arrests, and deportation during the Trump administration. Now, Dr. Cudjoe uses system thinking to work on grassroots, local, and global levels to help communities identify context-specific ways to transform problems in lasting ways.
Working alongside Xochilt and the entire Peace First community, Dr. Cudjoe wants to help empower young changemakers and inspire more people to support youth-led change. He believes that Peace First's commitment to creating a more compassionate, just and peaceful world must also mean serving as a bridge wherein youth expertise and contributions are enthusiastically welcome and supported.
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Xochilt Exué Hernández Leiva
Xochilt Exué Hernández Leiva is a Nicaraguan-Colombian anthropologist, community engager and educator. She is the oldest of two, and as a big sister, she learned at a young age the power of collaboration, collective learning, and the power of making space for others to grow and thrive. As an alumna of the United World Colleges (UWC) movement she, as a teenager, experienced first-hand the power of a global network of young people leading social change in their communities. A strong believer in paying it forward, she then became the chair of the UWC National Committee in Nicaragua, supporting other young Nicaraguans access this leadership and educational opportunity. She is also a former Jack Matthews and Chevening Scholar respectively.
Xochilt has a MPhil in Education from Cambridge University and a Diploma in Peace Studies from UPEACE. She has experience managing programs tackling social issues such as youth activism, education, rural and indigenous development and peacebuilding, at a national and global level. She is also a devoted formal and no-formal educator with experience as a university teacher and as a facilitator of youth leadership programs in Nicaragua, Colombia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Costa Rica and virtually at a global level. She is the Vice-President of the Central American Women’s Fund’s board of directors, a philanthropic fund helping emerging women-led organizations in the central American region access resources andcapacity building opportunities to grow.
Xochilt is excited to join the Peace First community and lead side by side with Dr. Isaac Cudjoe the next phase for the organization in its mission to support and promote youth-led change, which is most needed in current times.
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