‘Impact Sourcing’ is a recruitment practice which provides opportunities for disadvantaged or underrepresented communities such as refugees, single parents, long-term unemployed, people with disabilities and people with no qualifications or experience. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to attend the OYW 2023 summit and to meet my new fantastic colleagues. Listening to so many incredible speeches, I’ve learnt SO MUCH from this experience and will now focus on developing action plans that will blossom out of these encounters.

A program to support and promote beekeeping amongst staff, including the installation of bee hotels and our own branded honey and biproducts for current and prospective clients and staff. I was able to discuss this project with many other ambassadors and speakers at the OYW Summit. Their interest, kind words of encouragement and willingness to support our project further confirmed to me that we can inspire change and have a positive impact on the future. This is no longer a project, but a cause!

Women’s Up is an educational program to empower young women and build supportive communities to help them pursue careers and gain financial independence. At OYW we heard what the speakers had to say on Social Impact Movements, with the Queen Rania of Jordan inspiring us to collaborate for impact, always act and help others around us, but most importantly to stand up and speak in the name of love for humanity.  Throughout the Summit we got to experience hope, being bold is always the answer and thinking big for others is the key to change.

Development of an existing social and environmental program framework partnering with local governments and communities to establish self-sustaining farming projects to positively impact the livelihood of the community and environment. OYW Summit helped to amplify what is happening around the world, how the youth and organizations can be a part of it, and what we can achieve if we put our hands and minds together. Hearing from people's experience, stories, hardships, challenges, and successes truly fuels one's passion and hope for a better world.

My initiative reduces plastic bag waste by turning it into plarn (plastic yarn!) and crocheting the plarn into useful everyday objects such as bags, baskets and wallets. In partnership with volunteers and local community groups my project aims to promote relaxing, fun crocheting circles, with the items made being donated to people in need. One thing I will take away from Project Change and OYW is to think big, but start small - building your efforts layer by layer can help you to stay focused on a bigger goal, while celebrating small achievements. Promoting change can seem like an impossible task, but no mountain is too high to climb if you do it one step at a time.

My Project Change initiative is to develop a solution that will capture and repurpose waste heat from our server rooms and reuse this in our facilities, helping us to reduce our carbon footprint. OYW was without exaggeration life changing. The speakers were all impassioned and informed, and suggested tangible actions we as young leaders can take. The young leaders who spoke about their projects were inspiring. The summit drove home one simple message for me - we must do more.

A global marketplace for small, local sustainable businesses, giving staff the opportunity to sell or buy more green and lessen their carbon impact. My project helps people make a sustainable lifestyle shift while supporting livelihoods of indigenous communities and the planet. The OYW Summit helped stress the need for sustainable action across the world, and the Sustainability marketplace is a step in that direction. I’m proud to see the project launch and hear from vendors involved of their passion for advocacy, helping the planet or supporting women and indigenous groups, they are all truly commendable!