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Outstanding Young Global Leader Awards
October 5, 2005


YES!  received grants from two anonymous donors that enabled them to acknowledge six young global leaders of extraordinary vision, insight and dedication with a gift of USD $2,500 each. The 2005 recipients were:

Kimmie Weeks, 23, grew up in the midst of Liberia’s brutal civil war of 1989-1997, and at age 13 founded the Children’s Disarmament campaign, which lobbied for the disarmament of 20,000 Liberian child soldiers.  In 1998, Kimmie broke the story of children being used as soldiers by the Liberian military to the world press.  After government troops sought to assassinate him, the 17-year-old boy found political asylum in the United States.  Weeks’ courage helped to bring about the disarmament of over 20,000 children involved in the war, and generated global attention.  Kimmie is founder of Voice of the Children, Children’s Bureau of Information, is an advisor to UNICEF’s Learning Tree Initiative, and is director of Youth Action International.  He used his YES! grant award to assist him in his first return to Liberia, and visit with his mother, since the war.

Coumba Toure, 31, is coordinator of the Youth Leadership Program at the Institute for Popular Education in Mali.  Coumba works for women’s empowerment through popular education, has facilitated hundreds of educational workshops, and is a writer currently managing a publishing house for children’s books.  She speaks regularly at college campuses and conferences internationally, and also works with the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement to organize exchanges between African-American youth from the Southern United States and African youth from throughout West Africa.  She has facilitated six week-long YES! Jams on three continents, and she is using the grant to support the work of activists in Mali fighting for fair trade and against the introduction of genetically modify cotton.

Evon Peter, 27, is co-founder of Native Movement, an organization that supports young indigenous leaders worldwide to find their voice and join forces on behalf of indigenous cultural preservation and self-determination. Elected chief of the Neetsaii Gwich’in tribe of Arctic Village, AK, at the age of 24, Evon is a dedicated advocate for indigenous people’s rights and responsibilities.  He is a YES! World Jam facilitator and he is currently co-organizing a Flagstaff Local Jam in Arizona.  He is using the grant to help build Native Movement as a social and political force connecting and mobilizing Indigenous peoples for cultural and environmental preservation.

Shilpa Jain, 27, is a learning activist with Shikshantar, a peoples' movement based in Udaipur, India. Shilpa has conducted research, written books and articles and facilitated numerous workshops on creative expression, organic living, and diverse paths of learning and unlearning. She is a 4-time YES! World Jam and Leveraging Privilege Jam facilitator, and she is using this grant to help coordinate an intergenerational gathering to explore how to live in deeper alignment with our values, to challenge the institutions and systems which threaten life on all levels, and to regenerate and nurture diverse worlds of learning and living.

Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams, 35, is founder of urbanPEACE, a national, spirit-centered initiative with a mission to inform, incite and empower peacemaking in urban environments using self-awareness and community-making practices to bridge spirit and social transformation. Angel received the Stone Circles Fellowship for Spiritual Activism and is a leading voice in that burgeoning movement. She is a co-convener with YES! and others of the Power and Privilege for the People (P3) program. Angel is spiritual director of New Dharma Meditation Center, and this grant helped secure the space for the center's Oakland, CA, location.

Malika Sanders, 31, is president of the 21st Century Youth Leadership Movement, an organization that helps youth (primarily in the African-American community) become skilled community leaders, empowering themselves and their communities for positive change.  Malika is one of the most visible civil rights movement leaders of her generation, and has been a recipient of the Reebok Human Rights Award.  She and her mother, renowned civil rights attorney Faya Rose Toure (Alabama’s first black female judge), were recognized as heroes of the month in the April 2005 issue of Glamour magazine.  Malika is a Leveraging Privilege for Social Change Jam facilitator and is on the African Diaspora Jam and P3 Jam organizing teams.  This grant helped Malika have the time to focus in her own community of Selma, and to spend time nurturing her family and relationships.

Congratulations to the Outstanding Young Global Leader Award recipients!