Grace Owojori is advocating for vaccination through her awareness project “Vaccinate A Child”.  As a public health researcher, and having witnessed firsthand the burden of vaccine-preventable diseases among children through her work in primary healthcare facilities in Nigeria, Grace is now advancing immunization coverage for vulnerable children by engaging their caregivers and community health workers.

"Students go through anxiety due to prevailing uncertainty, which scars them for life. They forget the art of living; they forget what being happy feels like”, Mansi told us. She felt an instant connection to her peers. They were all in the same boat, but the taboo surrounding mental health kept them from sharing their stories.

In her attempt to find out the root cause of deforestation in her country, Yande realized that the lack of adequate information to the general public about the effects of cutting down trees on climate change is the main reason behind deforestation. Armed with this knowledge, Yande embarked on her changemaking journey aiming to change the attitude of people towards cutting down trees without re-planting them. 

Anna is a Kyiv native who is passionate about leveraging education to build meaningful connections. Growing up, she had the chance to travel to high school in the United States. That experience was transformative. She shared her education with people from diverse backgrounds and understood the power of learning in cross-cultural environments. For Anna, speaking fluent English was a doorway to connecting with opportunities worldwide. 

As a medical student at Lagos State University College of Medicine, Oluwananumi has always had a penchant for global health. As part of his studies, Oluwananumi assisted doctors in his university’s Gastroenterology Clinic. There, he noticed that a significant number of patients were diagnosed with Hepatitis B. Hepatitis is widespread in Nigeria - in 2018, the government found that 8.1% of the population is infected with the virus. That’s approximately 19 million people [1]. Despite global efforts to curb infection and death rates in Nigeria, the virus has remained common throughout the country and in Oluwananumi’s hometown in Ikeja, Lagos. Faced with this situation, he was determined to figure out why Hepatitis B transmission was not slowing down.

Called to action, Ishaan gathered his team and started curating ideas on how to support the Tibetan market. Ishaan and his team developed “Paradigm Shift”, a project that provides digital and financial literacy skills to the business owners in the market. The digital and financial literacy skills included training on online payments, e-commerce and bank schemes for businesses. They began reaching out to vendors and trying to convince them to join the program. However, building rapport, especially with limited chances to interact in person proved to be quite challenging. 

Kimberly grew up in Aragarças, Brasil. She loved to read from a young age but noticed that reading was not as accessible to others. She grew interested in finding out why and discovered that the issue is not just about access to libraries or books, but also about language and reading skills. Many of her peers did not enjoy reading because they did not have the language skills that allow them to read in their native Portuguese. Yet their language skills are not improving because they do not read or have access to books. Upon researching the problem, she realized that the problem isn’t just access to books. Rather, it's circular. Some of her peers haven’t developed her level of language skills in their native Portuguese, so they don’t find joy in reading. But because they don’t read or can’t access books, they don’t develop language skills. It seemed like a chicken and egg situation and an idea started to form in her head. 

According to UNICEF, 49 percent of girls in Sudan are missing out on secondary education. As of 2019, a total of three million children have been left out of Sudan’s education system, half of them being girls. The enrollment rate for girls in secondary school is lower than that of boys, and there is also a significant gap in literacy between boys and girls.

Zahra is an advocate for the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) from Sudan who’s passionate about reducing the gender gap in her country. With the help of Peace First, she launched Impact Sudan, an initiative to encourage and empower high school girls to continue their education and inspire them to be future leaders. 

Raziya grew up in a small village in Rampur, Palpa, Nepal. She got her period when she was 13 years old and recalls the experience as terrifying as she had no idea what was happening to her body. The fear was compounded by a sense of alienation and shame. Raziya felt that it was not appropriate for her to talk about what’s happening even to her mother, so she resorted to using old dirty rags as a substitute for sanitary napkins. 

Every year, siblings Anya and Karsen help their Taiwanese-American grandparents vote. Even before Anya turned 18, she would run through her grandparents' ballots, research every candidate, and impartially explain their priorities and policy positions in Chinese. Over time, Anya and Karsen realized that it is difficult and time-consuming to find information on all candidates, especially those in school board and city council elections. It can sometimes take hours to compile information on candidates, which is time that many Americans don't have.