One Young World was proud to launch the Rebuilding Communities Fund with the support of close partner, the Brandtech Group, at the 2022 Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity last month.
In 2020, we distributed $450,000 to 39 young leaders supporting their communities during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, to deal with the wide-ranging immediate consequences.
Today, societies around the world are working hard to recover from the long-term impacts and exacerbated socio-economic challenges. The Rebuilding Communities Fund is designed to direct funds to the young leaders best positioned to tackle the issues facing young people who are disproportionately experiencing these issues.
Following a generous donation of $100,000, Brandtech Group employees were invited to vote for the four One Young World Ambassadors who will each receive $25,000 as the inaugural cohort of grant recipients. The vote took place via an innovative, blockchain voting mechanism to ensure transparency.
Projects were selected from a shortlist of highly impactful initiatives tackling three core issues facing young people in the current climate: educational divide, pressures on mental wellbeing, and employment opportunities. The voters were encouraged to prioritise initiatives with an impressive track record of helping vulnerable communities in these areas.
The four chosen Ambassadors were invited to the Cannes Lions Festival, where they participated as keynote speakers at the launch event hosted by the Brandtech Group.
At the event, each Ambassador pitched their initiative to an audience of senior marketing executives, in turn receiving guidance on how to scale their enterprises and grow their reach. Mentors in the audience included industry-leading marketers such as Mark D'Arcy, the former Chief Creative Officer at Meta, and Michelle Vincent, the CEO at Mofilm.
One Young World is continuing to pursue donations for this Fund to guarantee more impactful young leaders have the resources to drive action and tackle the most pressing issues facing young people around the world.
Grant Recipients
Seeds of Fortune
Seeds of Fortune is a scholarship and EdTech platform to help teen girls of colour obtain an affordable college education. This is in response to the disproportionate impact on Black and Hispanic communities arising from the struggle to access affordable college and financial education information.
It is investing in its Scholars programme, run in partnership with Yale Women in Economics. This initiative identifies 30 young women of colour across the USA to participate in a 10-month programme that provides financial education and college preparation through the lens of racial justice.
Brighter Tomorrow
Brighter Tomorrow has developed the first offline-based education platform that teaches students to read and write in both Pashto and Dari through unsupervised game learning. The application provides high-quality education but focuses also on creating a safe space for their mental wellbeing, empowering females and providing an escape for Afghan children from the surrounding conflict.
The fund will increase Brighter Tomorrow's capacity to educate girls on the ground in Afghanistan, including three new provincial hot spot centres that distribute its applications to facilitate literacy education within the homes through informal learning.
Veteran Hub
The conflict in Ukraine has caused extensive damage, displacement, and death among the population. Veteran Hub is an innovative non-profit that provides holistic support to veterans of this war and their families. Since the invasion in 2022, the team has scaled up the work with the increased urgency for their intervention.
Through its active trust line, families report heightened levels of anxiety due to the active type of war activity, trouble sleeping, uncertainty in the future and loneliness, due to the sudden and prolonged separation from their loved ones. The organisation is working tirelessly to ensure all the necessary wellbeing, legal, and general support is provided to the spouses and children of active service members.
Origen Learning Fund
Origen Learning Fund works to reduce school dropouts in indigenous communities across LATAM by designing education programs and working personally with teachers and students in rural schools. Due to COVID-19, they have developed the first offline learning app called O-lab, adapted for indigenous students who have the lowest education levels worldwide.
The organisation is training local teachers and working with corporations and employees to create interactive tailor-made content on STEAM, employment and entrepreneurship, and with funding will scale up projects in Mexico, Peru, and the USA, impacting over 15,000 beneficiaries.