On the International Day of Education, we want to celebrate lifelong learning and all social entrepreneurs working hard to create educational opportunities. Throughout the past 6 years, we have been supporting young social entrepreneurs through virtual training and mentoring. Since 2014, we have trained more than 4,500 entrepreneurs, from over 65 countries, and in 2020 we launched our first program in Spanish to provide training to Latin Americans who would otherwise not be able to participate in the Global program in English.
Our community of young entrepreneurs (Y&Y Fellows) leads social businesses tackling the most important challenges of our times. 20% of them focus on providing inclusive and equitable quality education (UN Sustainable Development Goal 4). For example, Y&Y Fellow Lara Pizarro, co-founder of Hexar, works to make education fun and engaging for Argentinian high school students using video games, and Y&Y Fellow Omar Assaf leads the transformation of post-conflict and marginalized zones in Lebanon towards peaceful and prosperous communities through capacity building. Y&Y Fellow Gabriela Delgado works to ensure that teenagers all over Peru receive high-quality sexual education, and Y&Y Fellow Tolulope Owajoba Adeyemo leads She Hacks Africa in Nigeria, a hands-on coding boot camp that aims to build self-confidence in African youths and help them become change agents and technology innovators.
At Yunus & Youth, we are inspired by our innovative Fellows, and it motivates us to ensure we are providing them with the best possible learning tools and frameworks that allow them to keep growing their social businesses and impacting even more people and communities. Our commitment is with young social entrepreneurs who are seeking opportunities to gain new skills, broaden their network and keep expanding their mindset to generate the impact they want to see in the world. “Where you’re born defines the opportunities young people have. Virtual education enables the knowledge exchange beyond frontiers and allows for more equitable opportunities for youth, especially in developing countries. We need to ensure we have the infrastructure and connectivity to ensure education reaches all.”, says Cecilia Chapiro, Yunus & Youth Co-Founder.
We are passionate about working in the education space because our impact is not only related to the Fellows that go through our programs but to those impacted by their amazing social enterprises. As of now, over 260,000 children from around the world have benefited from educational programs led by Y&Y Fellows, leveraging technology in remote cities to do so, and we intend to continue growing and fostering social entrepreneurship all around the world. “Our Alumni Community is working hard towards improving the quality of education all around the world. These young social innovators continue to impress us as they grow their initiatives, and we see it as our duty to support them to help scale their impact.”, says Marcela Lessa, Yunus & Youth Program Director.
We invite you to learn more about the stories of Y&Y Fellows revolutionizing the education field from different perspectives and regions of the world. From Yunus & Youth, we reinforce our commitment to keep working towards creating lifelong learning journeys for those crafting the future of education.
We celebrate all social entrepreneurs working hard to make things happen whilst recognizing that there is still a lot of work to be done!
