To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Commonwealth Youth Programme (CYP), a special edition of the Commonwealth Youth Awards has spotlighted 50 exceptional young leaders who are committed to solving some of the world’s most difficult challenges and transforming lives in their communities.
Of this number, 20 leading young leaders are now competing for five regional awards, and one of them will become the 2023 Commonwealth Young Person of the Year.
The awards will take place on Thursday, 14 September 2023, at St James’s Palace in London; however, all the youth leaders chosen this year are gamechangers. Ahead of tomorrow’s awards, let’s look at some of the 20 regional finalists before the winners are announced.
Agents of change
Social entrepreneurs like Yi Fei Chen, Co-Founder of Lafiya Nigeria, are taking bold steps to ensure health and wellbeing for women and girls in in Nigeria. The global health non-profit is helping to eliminate maternal mortality through universal access to contraception and has provided more than 5,000 rural women with life-saving contraception.
Climate entrepreneurs like Rebecca Daniel, an award-winning science communicator and Director of The Marine Diaries, has launched two collaborative projects- Plastic Not Fantastic and Marine Ecosystem Diaries. Rebecca, along with over 60 volunteers, has grown an online community of around 50,000 ocean advocates.
One of the key objectives of the Commonwealth Youth Awards is to illustrate the breadth of talent of young people across the 56 member states. Shergaun Roserie, the director of Orbtronics Ltd, was recognised for a social enterprise in Saint Lucia that empowers young people in the areas of digital skills, programming and design. The STEM education program aims to develop the next crop of innovative engineers in the Caribbean.
This year’s edition of the Youth Awards pays homage to the Commonwealth Heads of Government declaring 2023 as the ‘Year of Youth’. It celebrates 50 years of promoting youth-led action for sustainable and peaceful development through the Commonwealth Youth Programme.
Read more about the 20 regional finalists
The twenty regional finalists are:
Africa
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Mawuse Christina Gyisun (Ghana)
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Ghislain Irakoze (Rwanda)
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Deliwe Makata (Malawi)
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Emmanuel Tlemu (Republic of Tanzania)
Asia
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Soumya Dabriwal (India)
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Ahmed Imtiaz Jami (Bangladesh)
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Mathura Kannan (Malaysia)
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Shaiwana Nisar (Pakistan)
Caribbean
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Ché Greenidge (Barbados)
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Maya Kirti Nanan (Trinidad and Tobago)
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Shergaun Roserie (Saint Lucia)
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Akola Thompson (Guyana)
Europe and Canada
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Yi Fei Chen (Canada)
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Rebecca Daniel (United Kingdom)
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Leejoo Hwang (Canada)
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Meihuan Yu (Canada)
Pacific
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Raeed Ali (Fiji)
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Robea Daniel (Vanuatu)
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Nathaniel Diong (Australia)
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Desmond Goru (Papua New Guinea)
Media contact
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Charmaine Wright Head of Media Relations, Communications Division, Commonwealth Secretariat
- +44 20 7747 6242 | E-mail
