About the Diana Award
For the third year in a row, One Young World is a proud nominator for The Diana Award. Established in the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Award is given out by the charity of the same name and has the support of both her sons, The Duke of Cambridge and The Duke of Sussex.
Amongst this year's recipients are One Young World Ambassadors Zubair Junjunia, Yi Kang Choo, Aimée Clint, Gulnahar Mahbub Monika, Sara Rajabli and Benjamin Bocio Richardson who have been honoured for going above and beyond in their daily life to create and sustain positive change.
Meet the recipients
Zubair Junjunia
Founder, ZNotes
Students worldwide take the exact same exams and yet, the access to resources, advice and support available to them varies dramatically. To Zubair, this seemed grossly unfair. So he decided to set up a blog to share the resources he created for his own exams, completely free of charge, whilst reiterating the principle that quality education is a right, not a privilege. His high-quality and concise revision notes were discovered by students all over the world and ‘ZNotes’ was born. Today, with hundreds of contributors, ‘ZNotes’ has passed 21 million hits with more than 3 million unique visitors, becoming a go-to resource for students and teachers all around the world.
Yi Kang Choo
Founder, Welfare Taskforce for Malaysian Student Abroad
Choo is the Founder of the Welfare Taskforce for Malaysian Students Abroad. The Taskforce was created to support Malaysian students studying abroad and create a collaborative network. Choo is also the President of The Malaysian Student's Society of Northern Ireland, responsible for setting a brand-new inclusive direction for the society and ensuring the welfare of students was taken care of during the pandemic. Alongside this, Choo is a volunteer counselor for the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and supports young people in the UK on a variety of issues, be that bullying abuse, self-harm, or family relationships.
Aimée Clint
Co-Founder, Books By Stellas CIC
TransferWise 20 Under 20 winner 2019, Co-Founder Books By Stellas CIC, Young Ambassador for Social Enterprise NI, One Young World Ambassador, The Bytes Project Board Member and chair of The Bytes Youth Board, WISE100, Generation Innovation Alumni, Highly commended Young Business Woman of the year NI, seen on BBC World News, Undergrad of Business Management at QUB.
Aimée is passionate about all things social enterprise, creating awareness of Autism and other SEN, taking every opportunity and paving the way for future generations.
Gulnahar Mahbub Monika
Co-Founder, Deshi Ballers | Software Quality Assurance Engineer, Alice Labs
In 2016, Gulnahar was selected for the Bangladesh National Basketball Team. Driven by a desire to provide other women with empowerment through sport, in July 2018 Gulnahar established a trust called Deshi Ballers. Their mission is to develop female youth players in Bangladesh and offer them opportunities to learn and play basketball whilst instilling essential life lessons. In recognition of her work, Gulnahar was invited to the prestigious International Olympic Academy to participate in the 58th international session. Projects they have established include “Surf Excel Car Free Street”, a simple event where children aged between five and twelve are given access to basketball facilities and coaching. They also organised a one-day tournament in celebration of International Women’s Day, in partnership with the Save & Serve Foundation. She is still involved with the women’s national team and is a leading voice in pushing sports as a mechanism for achieving gender equality.
Sara Rajabli
Founder, BUTA Art and Sweets
Sara believes in the power of ideas. At the age of 20, with just £75 in funding, she launched her first social enterprise, ‘BUTA Art & Sweets’, employing women with special needs to make and sell traditional homemade sweets. A year later, Sara launched the ‘Social Business Youth Center’, organising over 100 social business programmes for more than 4,000 young people. She did all this while exceeding expectations about her own abilities as a young woman in business. Throughout the pandemic, Sara has run social entrepreneurship workshops for over 8,000 people in rural Azerbaijan. She also mentors more than 100 young entrepreneurs to start their own social enterprises.
Benjamin Bocio Richardson
Co-Founder & Executive Director, FUMEBO
Known professionally as ‘Dr. Benjamin Bocio’, Benjamin is a dentist who has served thousands of people living in extreme poverty in the Caribbean. This young trailblazer tackles poverty and inequality by distributing sustainable resources to those who need them most. After the 2010 Haiti earthquake, which devastated the island of La Hispaniola when he was just 14, Benjamin decided to take action. He co-founded an NGO, providing access to quality healthcare to underserved communities across the Dominican Republic and Haiti. Over the last 10 years, Benjamin has served more than 90,000 people by providing access to healthcare and other vital resources.
What is the nomination process?
The Diana Award is the longest-running award for young people that is given through a retrospective nomination process only. This is special because young people do not work towards the award, rather they demonstrate their suitability through their actions, without any expectation of reward.
Award recipients have been put forward by adults who know the young people in a professional capacity and recognised their efforts as a positive contribution to society. Through a rigorous nomination process, these nominators had to demonstrate the nominee’s impact in five key areas: Vision, Social Impact, Inspiring Others, Youth Leadership, and Service Journey.
There are 12 Diana Award Judging Panels representing each UK region or nation and a further three panels representing countries outside of the UK. Each panel consist of three judges; one young person, an education or youth work professional, and a business or government representative. The panels have an important main purpose: to determine which nominations from each UK region/nation/country will receive The Diana Award.
Nominations are judged using the Criteria Guide and Scoring Guide which have been created to measure the quality of youth social action.
Tessy Ojo, CEO of The Diana Award, says:
"We congratulate all our new Diana Award recipients from the UK and all over the globe who are changemakers for their generation. We know by receiving this honour they will inspire more young people to get involved in their communities and begin their own journey as active citizens. For over twenty years The Diana Award has valued and invested in young people encouraging them to continue to make positive change in their communities and lives of others."