Saudi youth among Global Changemakers

JEDDAH: Sixty young activists between the ages of 16 and 19 — including an 18-year-old Saudi student — have been selected to participate in the British Council’s Global Changemakers project.

The youths, who are from 40 countries including Afghanistan and Burma, will represent the voice of their generation when they meet at the Guildford Forum near London from Jan. 18 to 24 to discuss the challenges that their communities face regarding issues such as climate change, education, intercultural conflict and the devastating impact of poverty.

Six of the youths will then go on to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, at the end of January, where they — for the third year in a row — will share a platform with world leaders as the youngest delegates. Representing Saudi Arabia is Joud Kashgari, a political science and economics student at the American Univ-ersity in Cairo (AUC). Kashgari is involved with the Model United Nations Environmental Program, which helps raise awareness about environmental issues and launch environment-friendly projects around the Cairo area and the AUC campus. He is also attached to Student Action for Refugees, which helps teach mostly Cairo-based refugees English and Arabic.

All the participating youths are active in projects ranging from community work and environmental campaigns to education initiatives.

“Young people have great potential in being involved in community development. Participating in this program and getting to know new cultures will help me get new ideas for the way forward in my country,” said a 16-year-old Iraqi participant. “I work in my school to raise awareness for Amnesty International. What keeps me going is the realization that I am contributing to the unity of this world,” said another participant from Sweden, also 16, who returned from China a year ago. The young Changemakers will take part in a week of workshops, discussions and training on topics such as communication and media skills in Guildford.

On their return to their home countries, they will continue to be supported by the British Council in the community action programs that they work on with their peers. Speaking about the six panelists, Don Tapscott, the author of Wikinomics, said, “I’m feeling positively uplifted. It’s a panel of six kids who were selected by the British Council. The panelists were extraordinary. These six were all natural leaders and, as activists for social change, all educated, connected and multilingual. As far as I’m concerned, these are the most important people attending Davos.”

Martin Davidson, chief executive of the British Council, said, “Young people around the world are making amazing personal contributions in politics, in climate change, in social activities.”

He added, “We, and the World Economic Forum, want to give them an opportunity to challenge the worlds’ leaders on a range of issues. The youth of the world are not passive recipients of education or passive consumers; they want to take responsibility into their own hands. The issues discussed at Davos are global issues that concern them as much as the world leaders.”