United States

• Divine and his teammates, Deandra, Jamaal and Fernando, created Team Revolution, a youth center that provides recreation and leadership opportunities for teens in Brooklyn. Most recently, Divine has been named by Polo Jeans as one of 21 men and women who are “redefining volunteerism.” This year, Team Revolution performed in a post-game Super Bowl concert.

• Jessica, Rachel and Ngiste launched Kids Who K.A.R.E: Kids Autism Research Effort, to raise money for autism research and publish a series of illustrated educational children’s books about mental disabilities, which they distribute to local schools and libraries. They have also designed a kid-friendly website to dispel stereotypes about young people with autism.

• Determined to change the attitude that space exploration is not for girls, Becca decided to launch No Boundaries, a space camp that exposes girls to math and science. The camp features fun science-related experiments and crafts geared toward young children. The camp includes Astrotots, for young girls; Mad Female Scientist, geared towards learning about experiments; and Love Bugs, designed to teach children about beneficial bugs.

• Students United for Racial Equity, started by Nina, has created a syllabus-based 14-session seminar on race issues for high school students, demonstrated first in five California schools as a pilot for national replication.

India

Name: Natasha Kewalramani
Venture Name: ‘Aeena’
Venture description: Natasha plans to work with the unregistered student voters, emphasizing on their ‘Right to Vote’. Using films and relevant campus spaces, she wants to see each and every eligible youth registered on the ‘Electoral Roll’ as a Registered Voter. She believes that electing the right government will have a direct impact on the way the people live their lives. She would like to see each youth of today aware of the political dialogue in India. Increasing awareness among the citizens -and simultaneously urging the citizens to voice their opinions is the basic outline of her project.

Name: Ashok Rathod
Venture Name: ‘Magic-Star.’
Venture Description: Ashok Rathod, wants to build an activity group in his community where young people can share their problems and express opinions on various issues through their common passion- ‘Football’. As most of the people living in his basti come from difficult backgrounds, he wants to use the sport to create a space for young people to interact with each other and build community spirit.

Name: Sumit Gade
Venture Name: ‘Pragati.’
Venture Description: Summit wishes to work with young kids in hospitals, bringing happiness to their lives through plays and puppet shows. He strongly believes that hospital premises are not conducive to quick recovery. Through entertainment he wants to make sure the kids enjoy their stay in hospitals, take medicine without throwing tantrums and return home smiling.

Name: Geeta Koli.
Venture Name: ‘Girl’s Education.’
Venture Description: The basti(slum) where Geeta comes from believes that it is a waste to educate girls as their destiny is to marry and taking care of the house. Geeta’s mission is to transform this attitude. She believes that educating a girl is equivalent to educating the whole family, thus benefiting all.

Mexico

• Confronted with a lack of nutritional options and jobs for young people, Uriel, Kimberly and Monserrat started JOMEC (Jóvenes Micro Emprendedores de Cocina), a cooking school and catering service to benefit young people and families alike in their neighborhood in Mexico City, Mexico.

• After years of making a name for themselves as artists, Jesús (Méxica) and Juan Carlos (Smiley) decided it was time to teach others. Together, they started RAPEM (Rap Pandillero Estilo Mexicano). Disguised as a school for rap, RAPEM is dedicated to giving young people across Mexico a safe, non-violent outlet to share their experiences, with the hopes of bringing together gangs and across territories and to change society’s perception of gang urban youth.