Working on international education, each day we discuss policies, programs and partnerships that affect the lives and well being of children and youth. What we hear less frequently is how young people themselves are taking the quality of their education, and that of their peers and friends, into their own hands. Over the past two days youth leaders, including 18 of the Global Education First Initiative Youth Advocacy Group members, spoke alongside other education experts at the Global Education Skills Forum in Dubai, UAE.

For the Global Partnership for Education, creating mechanisms for young people to be actively engaged in education systems in a meaningful way is essential. What follows are the stories of five young people who represent a growing movement of youth working to improve education in their own countries and on the global stage. 

Salathiel, Burundi

Born in Burundi during that country’s civil war, Salathiel Ntakirutimana lost both his parents before he was five. Living in a refugee camp, Salathiel had no access to education in the camp.

Rallying together other children who were also being denied an education, Salathiel formed the Association of Burundian Orphans, which lobbied the Ministry of Education to change enrollment policies and raised money from local businesses to cover the school fees of approximately 260 children orphaned by the conflict. Today Salathiel is a student at Harvard University and continues to help transform the education system in his country through Youth Globe, an organization that provides entrepreneurship training to Burundian youth, which make up more than half of the country’s population.

Ashwini, India

Ashwini Angadi was born in poor, rural India, an inherent disadvantage in a country where approximately 870,000 primary-school aged girls are out of school. Ashwini was also born blind. She has said “my parents cried about my disability, but it helped me to grow strong and think strong.” Ashwini used the education she received, a right that few children with disabilities see materialized, to provide inclusive education for other children in her community. She travels to rural areas in India and talks to the families of children similar to herself. She discusses the importance of education for fostering independence in children with disabilities.

Through her work with Youth Voices and Leonard Chesire Disabilities, Ashwini creates more inclusive schools and communities. She advocates for teacher training on how to meet the needs of children and youth with disabilities at all levels of society, and recently successfully lobbied government leaders to pass the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Person’s with a Disability as a law in India.

Luiz, Brazil

In parts of the Marajo Island in the Amazon, one of the most marginalized communities in Brazil, children have to travel over two hours by boat to and from the only school in the area. Youth leader Luiz Guedes is working to bring corporations and the government together to increase access to school for these children.

In 2012, Luiz and the community leader spoke with the mayor of the town to inquire about building another school closer to the village. The mayor said he lacked the funds to build a school, but if Luiz could build the structure, the government would provide the teachers. Working with the community, they designed a business plan for the school and Luiz spoke with corporate leaders in the country about the resources needed. In July 2013, Imagine Uma Escola opened in Marajo Island providing education to over 200 students, only 60 of whom had been in school before.

Aminata, Sierra Leone

Nineteen-year-old Aminata Palmer works in her country to ensure the needs and opinions of young people are reflected in policies and programs that affect them through the Children’s Forum Network of Sierra Leone. She is working to make sure more girls have the opportunity to go to school. According to the recently released Education For All Global Monitoring Report, the poorest girls in Sub-Saharan Africa won’t universally finish lower secondary school until 2111.

She also lobbied the Ministry of Education to raise the quota for the number of girls who get scholarships to university to encourage them attend higher education. Aminata, also an ambassador for Plan International’s “Because I am a Girl” Campaign, recently said “even if it takes forever, I will continue to fight for girls.”

Gaoshan, China

As a high school senior in Yichang City, China, Junjian Gaoshan reflected on the quality of education he was receiving. With the change to an exam-oriented education system in his village music, arts and physical education programs were removed from the curricula. Gaoshan encouraged his classmates to take their education into their own hands.

To fill the learning gap, Gaoshan organized peer-to-peer workshops where youth with skills in music, arts and sports taught their peers after school. The fruits of their advocacy were realized when the school leadership agreed four months later to reinstate the courses into the official curriculum.