When Alex Sheen was in his mid-twenties, he lost his father. If there was one thing he admired about the man, it was how he honored commitments. He kept the promises he made. This is what sparked the “Because I Said I Would” movement. It started with just a couple of notes he handed out […]
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Talia Leman wanted to help the victims of the destructive and deadly Hurricane Katrina. Determined to help as much as possible, the ten year old planned to raise $1 million, which for most would seem a ludicrously ambitious goal, especially for a child her age. Talia managed to rally a children-led movement that reported not […]
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Marian Bechtel, a 21-year-old student at Bryn Mawr College, is a pianist, scientist and anti-war activist. The young woman from Lancaster, Pennsylvania invented an inexpensive, quick and simple minesweeper that detects buried landmines using sound waves. The device is a standard metal detector with high-sensitivity microphones and a seismic detector attached to it. Marian’s […]
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Tabitha Besley, 23, identifies as a queer femme; vegetarian; Taurus with Cancer rising, an Aries moon and lots of planets in the 10th house; and lover of all things polka dot. She is one of 60 young people worldwide—the only New Zealander—to receive the Queen’s Young Leader Award, an accolade for her work to ensure […]
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Alexandra Scott was born healthy in 1996 in Manchester, Connecticut. However, when Alex was nine months old, her mother realized that something was wrong with her little girl and started going to a doctor to seek advice and solutions. When she was four, Alex received a stem cell transplant. At that moment, Alex told her […]
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Most people would not sacrifice the safety and comfort of their lives to venture to a foreign country and help those who are most in need. Kayla Mueller was not like most people. Her heart beat in sync with those of innocent people undergoing the atrocities of unfair wars around the world. She couldn’t bear allowing that […]
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COBURWAS International Youth Organization to Transform Africa (CIYOTA) is a Ugandan-based non-profit started by three refugee youth in secondary school to address the educational problems and other challenges faced by Congolese refugees living in the Kyangwali refugee camp. The nonprofit, launched in 2005, now has over 10,000 members and volunteers from over 40 African countries […]
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Sara Policastro is a freshman at George Washington University, pursuing a degree in Human Services and English. She is also one of the founders of the Student Center for African Research and Resolutions (SCARR). Sara is currently the Director of Operations of this student-led and run think tank that creates innovative solutions for solving some […]
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When Katie Stagliano was just nine in 2008, she came home with a cabbage seedling as a part of a third grade program with Bonnie Plants. She took care of it, watering it, weeding around it, fertilizing it, and it soon grew to an impressive 40 kg. Realizing that this cabbage needed a special home, […]
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Anton Abele is the youngest Member of Parliament (MP) in the world. At the age of 18, he was elected as an MP for Stockholm County in the 2010 general elections. He represents the Moderate Party, which he has stressed, is in a process of renewal, as it is introducing increasing numbers of young people. […]
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How young is too young to be a Member of Parliament (MP)? In 2012, at the tender age of 19, Proscovia Oromait from Uganda became Africa’s youngest MP and the second youngest legislator in the world. Younger than her is only Swedish MP Anton Abele, elected in the Swedish Parliament in 2010 at the age […]
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Youths as young as 14 want the vote. Some of them are making progress. In May, Takoma Park, a progressive community in Maryland, lowered the voting age from 18 to 16 for municipal elections. Though only affecting city elections, the success was, articulated by Jeffery Nadel “in legislative terms, the first big step.” Jeffery Nadel […]
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UPDATE– NIYA’s Activism Continues. View the original article in the second half of this post. Youth involved in NIYA or the National Immigration Youth Alliance continue to fight for what they believe. Claudia Munoz, a 27 year-old member of NIYA, was intentionally arrested two months ago. A young woman who immigrated from Mexico to the […]
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Sixteen-year-old Lisa Peng is taking on the Chinese government, in order to produce the release of her father, Peng Ming, a prominent human rights and democracy activist. Lisa, who is a student at Laurel School in Cleveland, Ohio, last saw her father in 2004. Mr. Peng was travelling to Myanmar when he was imprisoned for life, after […]
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National immigration reform is on the agenda in Washington DC. If passed, reform will likely include tighter border security and a path to citizenship for immigrants who entered the country illegally. Reform was constructed and will be hashed out by congressmen, lobbyists and other breeds of politicians. But, as the bill slowly progresses through the […]
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Brothers John and Mark Lewandowski may soon launch a global health revolution, by inventing a portable, cheap, fast and easy to use device for early malaria diagnosis. Their invention may not only prevent the death of millions who have already contracted the disease, but also lead to a drastic reduction of incidences of malaria. Malaria […]
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Kanhaiya Kumari was born in an Indian prison where he was held until he was six years old. When he was finally released he was placed in a juvenile home. He never stopped thinking of his mother, Vijaya. She was left in prison for a crime she said she never did. But since she couldn’t […]
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In 2012, 9-year-old Martha Payne, a Scottish schoolgirl from Lochgilphead, discovered her passion for writing after publishing a newspaper article on the Titanic’s sinking. Source: Marysmeals.org.uk Looking for a way to write everyday, Martha and her dad created a blog that documented Martha’s school lunches. Martha was coming home hungry because of the poor quality […]
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Hannah Taylor was five years-old when her and her mother drove passed a man eating out of a garbage can in Winnipeg, Canada. Puzzled, Hannah asked her mother why he would do this. She introduced Hannah to the dire reality of homelessness. For the rest of the year, the story of the man troubled Hannah […]
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At the beginning of high school, Joel Mwale, currently 20-year-old, caught dysentery from drinking contaminated water provided by his municipal council during Kenya’s annual dry season. As he was slowly recovering from the illness, he started worrying that this disease would “keep on happening, year in, year out, what if next year the same problem […]
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Dalumuzi Mhlanga is a young Zimbabwean man empowering, mobilizing and inspiring the youth in his country “to work together beyond socioeconomic barriers so that they can lead community development efforts.” Dalumuzi is a student of Politics, Psychology and Sociology at Harvard University, who is currently on an exchange program at the University of Oxford, UK, as […]
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Through hard work and relentless hope, David Boone went from a homeless young man struggling to find a place to sleep at night to a Harvard student. At the age of 14, the native Clevelander and his family lost their family home to gang violence. Since David wouldn’t join the gang, the home became the […]
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A small girl in China is taking on the giant Chinese government because she wants to go to school. Zhan Haite, 15, like most teens, lives where her parents live. So when her parents moved to Shanghai for work, she moved too. But currently in China, unless you are rich, you can’t go to high […]
Read More... SubscribeThe past presidential election was one of excitement and intensity, some of which stemmed from the presidential debates throughout October. The debate of note was the second one- a “town hall” styled debate that took place at Hofstra University on October 16, where, for the first Presidential debate in 20 years, a woman was chosen […]
Read More... SubscribeAt thirteen, a Connecticut middle-school student, Cassandra Lin was upset to find that many people in her community couldn’t afford heating fuel. She was already bothered by the world-wide issue of global warming. Instead of thinking since she is just a kid it isn’t her problem, she made it her problem. And because she didn’t […]
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Things can seem so simple through the eyes of a child. There is no grey, only black and white, right and wrong. It often makes adults, those who “know better,” simply shake their heads. But it’s also why children can surprise us and enlighten us, can accomplish things we wouldn’t have even dreamed of—like, say, […]
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After his 15-year-old bride locked herself in the bedroom on their wedding night and two days later fled to her parents’ home, a 90-year-old Saudi Arabian man has decided to sue her family. The man immediately requested and obtained a divorce from his runaway bride. While insisting that the marriage was legal and correct, the […]
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Manuel Wiechers Banuet is a 24-year-old Mexican entrepreneur, who has co-founded Ilumexico, a non-profit organization providing electricity in rural communities through solar energy and efficient LED lighting. According to Manuel, over 600,000 households lack energy access or have deficient service, due to their geographic and economic conditions. Most of them use “lighting sources that are […]
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Twenty three year-old Juan David Aristizabal Ospina felt increasingly disturbed by the fact that Colombia’s media presented sensationalist information about conflict, violence and corruption. It also transformed drug traffickers and guerillas into heroes, by disproportion-ately focusing on them, while failing to highlight the stories of people bringing positive change for their society that could inspire citizens […]
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Sizwe Nzima, a young South African entrepreneur from Khayelitsha in the Western Cape, has started Iyeza Express, an innovative business that is helping solve overcrowding at public health facilities and the ever increasing number of patients at clinics and hospitals queuing to collect their medication, while also improving the lives of people who rely on […]
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Rosebell Kagumire is a Ugandan multimedia journalist working on peace and conflict issues in the Eastern Africa region. She is the coordinator for Africans At 4 Africa, a network of citizens and activists whose main objectives are to create an Africa where Africans drive the solutions to the continent’s problems and to determine African citizens […]
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Also click here for short video of Young Women fighting back The United States (U.S.) First […]
Read More... Subscribe“Our parents are prepared to suffer under the white man’s rule. They have been living for years under these laws and they have become immune to them. But we strongly refuse to swallow an education that is designed to make us slaves in the country of our birth.” – Soweto Student, 1976 So often our […]
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The modern American attitude is defined by a sense of individualism. Simply work hard and act responsibly, and success will follow; we are the ones in command of our lives. The idea that there are factors out of our control never enters the equation. But in impoverished communities, people’s fates are decided by essentials we take […]
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And to think, it all started with a couple of suitcases. When Lauren Slive first began her dream to improve health care in Ghana in 2007, she was just a 19-year-old girl dragging as many supplies as she could carry through airport customs. But from those humble beginnings sprang Project HEAL, an organization connecting medical […]
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