By Wendella Davidson

YOUNG Guyanese activist and animator Ms Jubilante Cutting is among 54 young leaders who will participate in the One Young World (OYW) 2019 Summit being held from October 22 to 25, 2019 in London, United Kingdom.

For the 2019 summit, the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust (QCT) offered a scholarship in partnership with One Young World, to connect young leaders driving positive social impact in the Commonwealth with the opportunity to attend the OYW Summit, according to a release from the Queens’s Commonwealth Trust.

OYW received over 5,000 scholarship applications for the scholarship.
The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust exists to champion, fund and connect young leaders who are working hard to change the world.

Using its platform to amplify the voices of young changemakers across the Commonwealth, QCT shares their stories and experiences. QCT also works in partnership with a network of organisations and individuals who share their belief in young people, to offer grants to those leading their own not-for-profit organisations.

The Queen’s Commonwealth Trust has been working with OYW since 2018 and earlier this year the Duchess of Sussex, a One Young World Counsellor, was named vice-president of QCT, with the Duke of Sussex its President. Her Majesty The Queen is Patron of the Charity.
The QCT scholarship in particular sought to support 53 young leaders who are active in one of the following areas: Achieving change through sport; preserving and protecting the environment; creating healthier communities and increasing access to quality education.
In addition to attending the OYW, the scholarship awardees will be provided with hotel accommodation on a shared basis during the summit, catering which includes breakfast, lunch and dinner, transport between the summit accommodation and the Summit venue, hand-outs and support materials and the cost of travel to and from London. The flight to and from London must , however, depart from and return to one and the same international airport.

With a combined population of 2.4 billion, the 53 countries comprising the Commonwealth are home to nearly a third of the world’s population, of which 60 per cent are under 30. From Antigua & Barbuda to Zambia, young people across the Commonwealth are at the forefront of positive change in their communities, countries, and the world at large, the release added.

In 2016, at age 19, Cutting founded the Guyana Animation Network Inc., an organisation that empowers young people with skills in digital media and animation.

The following year, 2017, she was one of four awardees who received the coveted Nelson Mandela-Graça Machel Innovation Awards for 2017 in front of an audience of almost 700 civil society leaders from across the globe. The awards ceremony was held in Fiji.
The Awards, named for human rights icon Nelson Mandela and former First Lady of South Africa and Mozambique, humanitarian Graça Machel, honour remarkable bravery and innovation in creating social change and empowering future generations.