Activism of the Year 2000

At age 18, Rianna established the ‘Dominica Dementia Foundation’ – a youth led dementia charity in memory of her grandfather. It is the only dementia-focused charity in the Dominica to this day. Through the foundation, she has supported over 500 older people in care homes and reached over 20,000 people through awareness-raising across the Caribbean region, and has raised over £6,000 for dementia causes. Outside of her charity, Rianna gives talks and workshops on youth entrepreneurship, climate change and gender equality, and is currently working with the Government of Dominica to develop a ‘National Plan for Dementia’ for Dominica.

Sareya Taylor is a 19 year old White Mountain Apache and Navajo student. Sareya’s pronouns are they/them/she/her. Sareya is a poet who focuses on the Indigenous peoples of America and the trauma they may have experienced in their lives. Sareya also brings attention to and counters the stereotypes and misrepresentations of Natives that our society’s media and culture supports. They served as the Inaugural Youth Poet Laureate of Phoenix and currently serve as a member of the International Indigenous Youth Council and a honorary 25 under 25 youth leader.

Like many teens, Shina Novalinga started creating TikToks for fun, but after videos of Shina and her mother Inuit throat singing went viral, Shina realized that she could use her social media platform to share her culture and traditions. Shina has become a social media personality with 4.1 million fans on Tiktok. Traditions like throat singing almost died out among Shina’s mother’s generation, so Shina is helping preserve and share these cultural aspects with a wider community.

In 2017 Sonny, then a low-income first-generation college student at the ‘University of Michigan’, founded ‘Paani’ with other Pakistani-American students to build water wells in Pakistan, one of the countries most affected by lack of secure access to clean water. The group has grown from Sonny and his roommate Arhum selling donuts on campus to fund ‘Paani’s’ first well, to raising over $3.1 million from over 20,000 donors to build over 9,300 water wells that serve more than 732,500 villagers. ‘Paani’ has also donated $500,000 in medical supplies to COVID-19 clinics, distributed over 1 million meals, and built schools for refugees while galvanising thousands of youths globally through community-based awareness.

Vee (Varaidzo) Kativhu is a 23 year old YouTube visionary, education activist and founder of the youth empowerment organisation, Empowered by Vee. She uses her platform to share tips and advice to help underprivileged and underrepresented people from across the world recognise their own academic ability and potential. A graduate of both Oxford and Harvard Universities, Vee has been named a Diana Award Legacy Award Recipient, a United Kingdom Rare Rising Star, a Future Leader and The Vice Chancellor’s Diversity Champion. Recently Vee has published her debut book, ‘Empowered; Live your life with passion and purpose’, a practical and motivational self-help book for young people. She has also taken on roles as a LinkedIn Changemaker, TEDx speaker and BBC Teach presenter, achieving many other accolades in the process. With a following of over 300,000 across her social media channels and her Empowered by Vee community, Vee is an inspiration to anyone who has faced adversity and made it through.

Zahra Al Hilaly is an intersectional feminist, pushing for equitable representation within decision making for marginalised constituencies, including women of colour and migrant and refugee women.Zahra is determined to be heard. A first-generation Australian from a Palestinian and Iraqi family, she advocates for gender equality and sustainable change at local, national and international levels. She helped deliver Christmas Island’s first leadership and advocacy summit for young people, which led to the creation of the Christmas Island Youth Association, encouraging young people to speak out about issues that affect them. Zahra has spoken for Australian youth at the United Nations and is in the UN Women’s 30 for 2030 Network of young gender equality champions. She is a participant of the UN Women’s Generation Equality Youth Task Force, where she aided in drafting of the Global Young Feminist Manifesto and contributed to the pledge of 40 billion dollars for gender equality initiatives by 2026.

In the summer of 2015, during Zain’s family vacation, he met one of his distant uncles for the very first time. He was shocked to learn that his uncle was paralyzed, unable to even use a spoon. Since then, Zain has strived to make robotics rehabilitation more affordable and accessible for paralysed patients. He started his initiative, ExoHeal at the age of 16 and has since helped more than 50 patients have faster rehabilitation and has enabled over 100 patients to feel empowered. In addition, Zain is an avid advocate for mental health, now developing a platform to eliminate loneliness.

Chanel is the Founder of Teach Us Consent, which has collected over 40,000 signatures on their online petition demanding for consent education reform in Australian schools. Currently working closely with the Australian Government at both State and Federal levels, working towards educational reform and pushing for legislation change.

Garvita Gulhati is the Founder of Why Waste?, which promotes water conservation through campaigns, petitions and workshops. Since its launch in 2015, Gulhati estimates Why Waste?'s work has reached 10 million people and more than 500,000 restaurants, and has helped save 6 million liters of water.

Jerome Foster II is a climate justice activist. Every Friday for 58 weeks in a row, Jerome Foster stood near the perimeter of the White House with a sign that read “School strike for climate". He went on to become the youngest ever White House Advisor in history and continues to be a leading voice for BIPOC in activism.

Mayen was born into war, but his mission is peace. At 24 years old, he is a video game developer residing in the United States. Launching his own company, Junub Games, he is using the experiences from his past to create unique experiences in his products: games aimed at peace-building and conflict resolution. He created the first version of Salaam, which means “peace” in Arabic, while still living as a refugee. Now as the CEO of Junub Games, he helps refugees learn to code.

Titouan Bernicot is the Founder of The Coral Gardeners, a conservation project that has planted over 15,700 corals in French Polynesia. From a team of 20 members, they've since created a movement of half a million people across the world on a mission to save coral reefs. Today, they are one of the largest reef restoration programs in the world.