International Youth Day 2023 Celebration

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As a career diplomat, I have spent my entire professional life in public service, combining national duties with assignments received from various international communities. I had the privilege to serve as Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Hungary to the United Nations and as Head of Mission to Greece and the United Arab Emirates.

In various government service posts for my home country, I was responsible for security policy, multilateral diplomacy and human rights cooperation.

During my tenure in New York, I was honoured to be a co-chair of the intergovernmental process (Open Working Group of the General Assembly on Sustainable Development Goals) tasked with producing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals at its heart.
I am grateful for the experience gained as Vice-President of the General Assembly at its sixty-sixth session.

As Director (State Secretary) of the Office of the President of Hungary, I had the duty and privilege to work alongside the President of the Republic in discharging his functions as a member of the High-level Panel on Water, co-convened by the Secretary-General and the President of the World Bank Group. I performed a similar role in the framework of the Water and Climate Leaders panel, co-convened by the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization and the President of UN-Water.

I am a founding member of the Hungarian Scientific Panel on Climate Change and a permanent invitee to the Presidential Committee on Sustainable Development at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the National Council on Sustainable Development at the Hungarian National Assembly.

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Since joining the Diplomatic Corps in 1994 Ambassador Frazier has served in various positions within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs as well as in Maltese embassies in Washington, Rome, London and Brussels. She represented Malta in the International Maritime Organization and also played a key role in the organisation of 2005 CHOGM held in Malta.

For six years she held the post of Director for Defence Matters within the Office of the Prime Minister. Here she was responsible for a wide range of International defence and security issues, Malta’s involvement in crises management operations overseas, advised and supported the Prime Minister in the management and direction of the Armed Forces of Malta and acted as the civilian oversight of the AFM.

Ambassador Frazier and her team consolidated Malta’s response to the Arab Spring and most particularly the crises in Libya. Her Directorate created the Humanitarian Hub in Malta which proved one of the most important contributions of Malta to the Libyan crises. She was praised for her direction on this strategy by a number of world leaders who applauded her for her “twenty-four hour availability and can do attitude to solving problems” which was attributed as being the driving force behind Malta’s success in supporting the UN Resolutions on Libya.

Ambassador Frazier was selected as a “Woman Inspiring Europe 2013” by the European Institute for Gender Equality and has been awarded the honour of Knight in the National Order of Merit by the French Government

She served as Ambassador for Immigration and later A/Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She served as Ambassador of Malta to Belgium, Luxembourg and NATO and is currently Malta’s Ambassador to Italy with accreditation also to San Marino,the FAO and related UN bodies.

Frazier volunteered with the Red Cross, the Mentor Foundation and the NSPCC and has practiced Judo for over 30 years, most of which time as a member of the Malta National Team.

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Maher Nasser has over 35 years of work experience in the United Nations System during which he has worked in Gaza, Jerusalem, Amman, Vienna, Cairo, Dubai and New York. He is currently the Director of Outreach in the United Nations Department of Global Communications. In his current position, he leads the Department’s engagement with civil society, academia, sports / football and the creative community, including the advertising industry. Subsequent to his designation February 2019, by the United Nations Secretary-General, he served as Commissioner-General for United Nations at Expo 2020 in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

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Daniel is President & CEO of AFS Intercultural Programs. Under Daniel’s leadership, the 100+-year-old organization has developed a transformative new global strategy focused on three mission-driven impact goals: developing active global citizens, globalizing schools and other institutions and expanding access to intercultural education to young people in underserved communities.

Before joining AFS in 2016, Daniel served as Deputy Vice President for International Partnerships at the Institute of International Education (IIE) where he provided strategic leadership for many groundbreaking IIE initiatives. Daniel led the launch of Generation Study Abroad, which mobilized 700 international partner organizations to help double the number of U.S. students who study abroad. Under his leadership, partners pledged more than $185 million to support study abroad. He was also responsible for all the activities of IIE’s network of 1,500 member institutions, IIE’s Center for International Partnerships in Higher Education, and the strategic communications team.

Prior to joining IIE, Daniel worked as Producer and Director of Product Development at the tech start-up iAgora.com, an online community for young internationals who live, work and study abroad. Daniel has a B.A. in International Relations from the George Washington University (USA) and holds a Master’s degree in European Studies from the London School of Economics (UK).

He serves on the Board of Directors of the Friendship Ambassadors Foundation and the Advisory Council of Diversity Abroad.

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Wendy Kopp is CEO and Co-founder of Teach For All, a global network of independent organizations working to develop collective leadership to ensure all children have the opportunity to fulfill their potential. Prior to launching Teach For All in 2007, Wendy founded and led Teach For America – which has proven to be an unparalleled source of long-term leadership for expanding opportunity for children in the United States – for 24 years. Wendy led the development of Teach For All to be responsive to the initiative of social entrepreneurs around the world who were determined to adapt this approach in their own countries. Wendy is the author of A Chance to Make History: What Works and What Doesn’t in Providing an Excellent Education for All (2011), One Day, All Children: The Unlikely Triumph of Teach For America and What I Learned Along the Way (2000). She holds honorary doctorate degrees from 15 universities and is the recipient of numerous awards including the WISE Prize for Education (2021), the Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship (2008), and the Schwab Foundation’s Outstanding Social Entrepreneur Award (2003). Wendy holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and resides in New York City with her husband and their four children. Follow Wendy on Facebook and Twitter.

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Assistant Director-General for the Social and Human Sciences of UNESCO, Gabriela Ramos' agenda includes the achievement of social inclusion and gender equality, advancing youth development; promotion of values through sports; anti-racism and antidiscriminatory agenda and ethics of artificial intelligence. Prior to this position, Ms. Ramos served as the Chief of Staff and Sherpa to the G20/G7/APEC in the OECD, contributing to the global agenda as well as leading the OECD's New Approaches to Economic Challenges, Inclusive Growth Initiative, Gender Strategy and the work on well-being and children. In 2019, she launched the Business for Inclusive Growth (B4IG) platform, bringing together 40 major multinational companies committed to reducing inequalities. Previously, she was Director of the OECD Office in Mexico and Latin America and a member of the Mexican foreign service.

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Hana Sahatqija is a Youth Engagement Specialist. In her capacity she plays a key leadership role in introducing meaningful youth engagement practices in governance, programmatic initiatives, and rollout of GenU at the country level. She brings a decade of international development experience, having worked in many capacities at the nexus of social innovation, youth engagement, and youth entrepreneurship, including as Innovation Specialist, Chief of Adolescent Development, Innovation Lab Lead etc. Her work has ranged from community based, to national, and then global level, focusing on human-centred design programming with young people, globally scaling up social entrepreneurship programming for youth and developing youth engagement and social innovation curricula used in 50+ countries. She brings in a multifaceted perspective having worked for UNICEF, UNDP, World Bank, bilaterals and academia. Having been a young refugee and war survivor herself, Hana’s constantly working to co-create programs that help marginalized adolescents with adverse experiences reach their full potential, such as co-creating UPSHIFT, the Youth Challenge, Podium etc. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from Rochester Institute of Technology, a Master’s degree in International Development Policy from Georgetown University and an Advanced Project Management certificate from Stanford University. She is from Kosovo.

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Amira Nassim, a native of Palestine and Finland, is a Migration Policy Officer at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) Office to the United Nations. Within the Sustainable Development Unit, she specializes in gender and women’s empowerment, youth, and multiple high-level UN coordination bodies. Additionally, Amira is the focal point for inter-agency collaboration on youth in the Inter-Agency Network on Youth Development (IANYD). With an extensive experience in the multilateral world spanning over a decade, her expertise extends from grassroots initiatives to the UN system.

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Amanda Nesheiwat currently works as the Deputy Director of Sustainability and Community Outreach for Hudson County Improvement Authority in New Jersey. She is a community organizer and is passionate about sustainable development and implementing local solutions to climate change.  Amanda is a United Nations Representative for the Foundation for Post Conflict Development and was trained by Al Gore and his team to effectively present information about climate change as a Climate Reality Leader. She currently is an Adjunct Professor at Ramapo College teaching a course called World Sustainability. Amanda is a recipient of the 2014 United Nations ATOP Peace Award for her work in raising awareness about environmental issues and was chosen as one of the top 50 Most Influential People of Hudson County, NJ. She has also received the North Jersey Young Environmental Innovator Award and was “Woman of the Year” in Hudson County, NJ in 2018. Amanda has a Tedx talk about her work titled “How I Became a Change Agent”. She has a Master of Science in Sustainability Management from Stevens Institute of Technology in Hoboken, New Jersey.

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Noel Ifeanyi Alumona, Founder & CEO of Boys Champions, is a leading global voice in engaging men and boys in advancing gender equality and positive masculinities. Noel is an internationally recognized young leader driving systems change in education, gender equality, working across youth development, education of children with disabilities, and state and federal policy to improve outcomes for youth and families. He has a proven track record of developing programs on healthy masculinities and male allyship, mobilizing cross-sector partnerships and lived-expertise to drive effective innovation at the local, state, and federal levels to solve both entrenched and emergent challenges. He enjoys building new systems, innovations and solutions from ground up.

As an accomplished international social development expert, Noel holds a Master’s in Education with a focus on special education, trauma and disabilities, as well as expertise in teaching DEIA and trauma programming. His interests include promoting trauma-informed communities and schools, and ending gender-based violence, with a commitment to achieving equity for all. Noel is dedicated to providing necessary support and resources to enable young men to become part of the process of ending gender-based violence globally.

After watching his mother raped by a gang of three armed young boys and losing his mother to death from complications resulting from the incident, Noel founded Boys Champions 20 years later to ensure that more women do not fall victims of violence. Noel received the AFS Award for Young Global Citizens at the 2022 AFS Youth Assembly.

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Ali is a youth development professional who brings with him over 14 years of experience as a human rights advocate and a youth mobilizing force. He has worked with numerous multilateral organizations in various capacities and has developed programs on youth and gender. He founded the International Youth Conference in 2019, since then engaging youth from the global south. In his role with United Nations Population Activity (UNFPA), he engaged with a group of university students to present youth mobilization programs to various targeted communities.

Ali is currently serving as the Consultant for United Nations Affairs at AFS Intercultural Programs and a Civil Society Representative to the United Nations Department of Global Communications and previously served as Co-Chair to Youth Representative Steering Committee, UN Department of Global Communications and Co-Chair for youth planning sub-committee for 68th United Nations Civil Society Conference in 2019. 

Ali holds a Graduate Degree in International Affairs and PhD Candidate of Political Science conducting his research in “Youth Engagement in Politics.” He can be reached out on twitter at @smalimustafa.