Young men and women around the world are advocating for the right of all children to have access to a quality education.

Ojonwa Deborah Miachi and Frits Brouwer, two such advocates, were invited by Julia Gillard, Board Chair of the Global Partnership for Education to observe the board meeting in Washington, DC in December 2014.

We had the opportunity to sit down with them and ask them how they are working to make an impact in education and what young people’s unique perspective is in this conversation.

Despite their different backgrounds, Ojonwa and Frits are both concerned by the inequity of access to quality education not only in their home countries of Nigeria and the Netherlands, but also around the globe.

Here’s what they had to say:

More about our advocates

Frits Brouwer, 21, The Netherlands

Frits is currently pursuing a degree in International Relations at Leiden University, The Netherlands. He is the Dutch Youth Representative to UNESCO. In this capacity he focuses on education, global citizenship, intangible heritage, and social cohesion and intercultural dialogue. Frits believes young Dutch people always regard education as one of the top priorities their country should have and that young people are aware of the value of education in ways that older people might not always be able to fully understand.

Ojonwa Deborah Miachi, 22, Nigeria

Ojonwa is the Policy/Advocacy Advisor for Connected Development (CODE), whose mission is to improve access to information and empower local communities in Africa. CODE runs an Education Budget Tracker - a model for tracking, monitoring and reporting budget implementation in Nigeria and throughout Africa by government and international organizations. Ojonwa is a National Youth Advocate with the United Nations Millennium Campaign in Nigeria where she generates awareness and mobilizes youth around post-2015 priorities including quality education, equity and girls’ education to sustainable development.