OBAMA's newest

 

Happy Earth Month! Many of our Obama Foundation program participants and alum are using their expertise to protect and preserve the environment and make their communities more eco-friendly.  In honor of Earth Week, we’d like to share a few of their stories. Take a moment to learn about their inspiring work below, and check out Obama.org where we post even more interviews, profiles, and updates.  –The Obama Foundation     Mustika Wijaya   Mustika Wijaya is a 2022-2023 Obama Scholar at Columbia University who started a community-owned solar pump system in Indonesia to help all residents, especially those in rural areas, access clean water.  Mustika witnessed first-hand the hardships of having to travel 3-4 hours to access clean water, so during her senior year at the University of Illinois she founded Solar Chapter, which harnesses renewable solar energy to provide clean water and open pathways of educational opportunities for women and children across 10 villages in Indonesia. Learn more about Mustika’s work and her involvement with the Obama Scholars program here.     Ornella Cosomati   Ornella Cosomati is a 2023 Obama Foundation Europe Leader who is working to transform sustainability policies across the continent.  Ornella’s passion for sustainability stems from her childhood in Southern Italy, where her community experienced crises from the lack of waste collection. While in college, she helped establish the Students’ European Network for Sustainable Development, a non-profit aimed at sharing sustainability best practices across universities. Now, she leads Microsoft’s EU sustainability policy engagement on circular economy and corporate sustainability reporting. Read the full profile to learn more about Orella’s story and the connections she’s made through the Obama Leaders program.     Angela Barranco   Angela Barranco is an Obama administration alum and the Executive Director of North America at Climate Group, a non-profit organization whose mission is to drive climate action fast in partnership with public and private sector leaders around the world. Angela trained as a conservation biologist and while studying the human impact on plants and animals, climate change became a core issue for her. She took this perspective to make a difference in the White House and beyond.  Read the full interview here to learn more about Angela’s experience in the Obama Administration and how it shaped her future career.     Sejong Youn   Sejong Youn, a 2023 Obama Foundation Asia-Pacific Leader, is an environmental lawyer and co-founder and director of Plan 1.5, a non-profit organization that advocates for better and stronger climate policies in Korea. Plan 1.5 aims to limit the global average temperature rise within 1.5℃, finds weak points and flaws of existing government regulations, and proposes policies for areas that are not being properly addressed. To hear more about Sejong’s goals for his work and his experience with the Leaders program, read the rest of our profile.     Joseph Nguthiru   Joseph Nguthiru, a 2023 Obama Foundation Africa Leader, was inspired to tackle the issue of water hyacinth, the world’s most problematic aquatic weed, after a dense mat of the weed stranded him and his friends in a boat on Kenya’s Lake Naivasha for hours. Today, Joseph is the founder of HyaPak Ecotech Limited (HyaPak), a Kenyan-based start-up that is transforming the water hyacinth plant into biodegradable alternatives for single-use plastic products. Learn more about Joseph’s journey to creating HyaPak and the accolades they’ve earned since in the full profile on our website.       Donate to empower rising leaders bringing hope to their communities. DONATE