Six Nigerian changemakers have been announced among the 50 finalists for the 2024 Global Student Prize from over 11,000 applications and nominations from 176 countries.
They are Clinton Okechukwu (environmental changemaker), Jennifer Obiorah (environmental changemaker), Joel Mordi (equality and justice changemaker), Karimot Odebode (education changemaker), Peace Bello (health and wellbeing changemaker), and Roseline Adewuyi (equality and justice changemaker).
The US$100,000 Global Student Prize, now in its fourth year, is organised by the Varkey Foundation and Chegg Inc. The prize seeks to highlight the efforts of extraordinary students worldwide who are making a real impact on learning, the lives of their peers, and society.
According to the organisers, the criteria for application include academic achievement, impact on your peers, making a difference in your community and beyond, overcoming the odds, creativity and innovation, and fostering global citizens.
The prize is open to all students at least 16 years old and enrolled in an academic institution or training and skills program. Part-time students, as well as students enrolled in online courses, are also eligible for the prize.
“The prize is open to students in every kind of school and subject to local laws in every country in the world,” the organisers added.
On the organisation’s website, the organisers stated that the finalists for this year have significantly influenced their communities and beyond, spanning from environmental stewardship to social justice, healthcare, education, youth empowerment, and poverty alleviation.
“Selected from across the globe, these remarkable students are true champions of positive change. Explore their incredible achievements and initiatives and join us in celebrating their successes,” they said.
Clinton Okechukwu, Jennifer Obiorah, Joel Mordi, Karimot Odebode, Peace Bello, and Roseline Adewuyi, given their academic, social, and humanitarian exploits in Nigeria and outside the country, were selected for the prize.
Their profiles and success stories are not only on par with other finalists from other countries but also set a stellar example for younger Nigerian changemakers coming behind them.
Clinton Okechukwu, in his third year as an optometry student, joined the Retina Initiative, a non-profit focused on eradicating avoidable blindness. He maintained a first-class grade point average at the University of Benin, earning recognition as the best student in his department.
In his community, Okechukwu’s involvement with the Retina Initiative prompted various health campaigns, including awareness on sickle cell retinopathy and diabetes retinopathy, and the provision of free visual screenings and eye care kits to schools.
He founded The I-CARE Campaign, offering free cataract surgeries and eye health education to prevent avoidable blindness and helping over 6,000 people across many states.
Jennifer Obiorah — a Don Lavoie Fellow at George Mason University — through her organisation, TeamUpcyclers, empowers marginalised communities by transforming waste into wealth, training thousands of people, and funding start-ups in the recycling businesses. Her projects span Anambra State and the Karonmajiji IDP camp in Abuja.
Her dedication to giving back to society is rooted in a strong desire to make a difference. Her guiding principle is the daily question: “If I don’t help people, what did I gain?”
Obiorah combats period poverty by teaching students to make reusable sanitary pads from textile waste, promoting sustainable agriculture, and educating IDPs on renewable energy.
Joel Mordi is a Princess Diana Legacy Award recipient, a published poet, and a global development student at the University of York. In 2015, he founded the Mordi Ibe Foundation (MIF).
Despite a diagnosis of dyslexia, PTSD, anxiety, and depression, Mordi excelled academically, winning full scholarships at the University of East London and Oxford University.
Mordi’s advocacy spans LGBTQ+ rights, refugee education, and youth engagement. Having been bullied as a student, he created an anti-bullying policy in Delta State to combat the menace.
Karimot Odebode, with a law degree from Obafemi Awolowo University and over five years of experience in advocacy, has pursued a master’s degree in education policy and analysis at Harvard University. At Harvard, she has worked as a consultant for the Ministry of Education in Nigeria to address the out-of-school children crisis.
Odebode founded the Black Girl’s Dream Initiative to promote education, youth leadership, and gender equality. Through her organisation, she has impacted over 1,117 students in 55 schools by teaching public speaking, critical thinking, and debate.
A published poet, she uses her art to advocate for social change and has spoken at high-level meetings organised by development organisations. At the 2022 Transforming Education Summit, introduced by Malala, she delivered the Youth Declaration on behalf of 500,000 young people.
Peace Bello’s foundations are rooted in the value of education, instilled by his missionary parents. He was the best graduating student in his department (Chemical Engineering) at Obafemi Awolowo University, with a CGPA of 4.82/5.00.
In 2021, Bello led his team, Chemotronix, in an AI for Energy hackathon, developing a solution for real-time emission monitoring, which gained attention from energy firms and the government. His startup’s success led to involvement in the IRENA NewGen Energy and New Energy Nexus Accelerator Programmes.
Bello has been involved in committees like the Planet Positive 2030 Committees and the UN SDG7 Youth Constituency, providing a Nigerian and African perspective on sustainability, and participated in the United Nations Economic and Social Committee Youth Forum, collaborating on solutions for sustainable development goals.
Roseline Adewuyi graduated with a first-class degree in French from the Obafemi Awolowo University as the best student in her department and the best female graduating student in her faculty. She achieved a distinction in her Master’s degree at the University of Ibadan.
Facing discrimination in school ignited her passion for gender advocacy, leading her to pursue a PhD in French Literature with a specialty in women, gender, and s3xuality studies at Purdue University. At Purdue, she received awards, including Student of the Year and the Boilermaker Change Award.
Adewuyi’s commitment to gender equality extends to her home country, Nigeria, where she addresses gender stereotypes in education via the Roseline Initiative, organising academic seminars, outreach programmes, and competitions to help students unlearn gender stereotypes.
Furthermore, she partners with organisations to provide resources to secondary school students and involves boys in her advocacy projects, with these efforts impacting over 6,000 young girls in Nigeria.
In April 2024, Adewuyi was featured in a United Nations publication ‘Breaking Gender Barriers through Education’. In 2022, she became the first female president of the Nigerian Students Association at Purdue University, where she led mentorship and mental health programmes.
The organisers revealed that the announcement of the top 10 finalists and the winner of the prize will take place later in the year. They further revealed that the winner of the prize will be chosen by the prominent Global Student Prize Academy made up of educational experts, commentators, journalists, public officials, tech entrepreneurs, company directors, and philanthropists from around the world.
They added that the Global Student Prize Academy will then select the winner, through a secure online voting system, subject to additional screening, background, and reference checks.
“The whole process will be monitored by PricewaterhouseCoopers (or such other firm as VF selects that is of a similar reputation in the charity sector in the UK) to ensure transparency,” they added.
Previous winners of the Global Student Prize are Nhial Deng (2023, South Sudanese), for empowering over 20,000 refugees in the Kakuma refugee camp in Kenya through peacebuilding, education, and entrepreneurship programmes, as well as creating a safe space for young people to heal from their trauma; Igor Klymenko (2022, Ukraine), for raising awareness of and solving global landmine problem by developing the ‘Quadcopter Mines Detector’; and Jeremiah Thoronka (2021, Sierra Leone) for inventing a device that uses kinetic energy from traffic and pedestrians to generate clean power.
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