Global Citizen Prize
Recognizing the World's Most
Inspiring Youth Leaders
Christelle is a Rwandan mechanical engineer and social entrepreneur. At 20, she founded Water Access Rwanda to solve the water crisis while also creating employment for young people. The social enterprise unapologetically designs for the bottom of the pyramid, offering simple and affordable solutions to meet the urgent need of 456 million Africans for safe water.
With the award, Water Access Rwanda will transition to scale, improving capacity to reach 30 million people and create 15,000 decent jobs by 2030.
The Global Citizen Prize: Cisco Youth Leadership Award was established by Cisco and Global Citizen to recognize and lift up a young person positively impacting the world, demonstrate the impact that young people are having on achieving the United Nation's Global Goals, and accelerate global problem solving.
The Global Citizen Prize: Cisco Youth Leadership Award honors an individual aged 18-30 who has contributed meaningfully towards the goal of ending extreme poverty. The award includes a US$250,000 prize paid to the organization to which the individual contributes.
Tune in to Global Citizen Prize to find out who wins!
IMPACT
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GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP
TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION
Priya Prakash is a 29-year-old health care entrepreneur working to ensure every child across India can grow up healthy.
She is the Founder and CEO of HealthSetGo, an organization integrating technology and health care to empower parents, doctors, schools, and governments to make data-driven decisions to improve the health and lives of children.
Wawira Njiru is the Founder and Executive Director of Food for Education, an organization working with vulnerable children in Kenyan public schools to improve their lives by providing subsidized, nutritious school lunches. Food for Education has provided over 400,000 school meals, contributing to improved nutrition status, school attendance, and performance.
Her ambition, simplicity of mission, and proof of impact earned Njiru the first-ever Global Citizen Prize: Cisco Youth Leadership Award, awarded at the Global Citizen Festival: Mandela 100, presented and hosted by the Motsepe Foundation, in December 2018.
Cisco and Global Citizen are united in the belief that young people around the world are leading the way to create and implement solutions to achieve the Global Goals, and to accelerate global problem solving. That is why we created the Cisco Youth Leadership Award.