The First Youth Advisory Council Cohort

Fardosa Hussein is a documentary photographer and filmmaker based in Somalia whose work ranges from covering humanitarian crises to everyday life in Kenya and Somalia. She is also a mentee at Women Photograph and is Action Against Hunger’s Communications Manager in Somalia.

Giuliana Bryan Alvarez is a Colombian political scientist and community leader who has represented African-descendent and Indigenous Colombian youth across a number of areas. She is currently an ambassador of the One Young World organization, and serves as a project coordinator for youth and community empowerment at Manos Visibles (Visible Hands), a non-profit organization in Colombia.

Jordan Ott, a Native American of the Sac-n-Fox Tribe of Oklahoma, is currently enrolled at Haskell Indian Nations University. Jordan’s vision for the future is to help his community and other youth achieve their goals regardless of their circumstances. Jordan has focused his advocacy in his community on the issues of mental health and is passionate about de-stigmatizing it.

Olja Busbaher immigrated to the U.S. in 1997 with her family as a refugee following the ethnic genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This experience and her multi-cultural background inspired Olja to devote her career to the promotion of education access, refugee rights and gender equality in the U.S. and internationally. She is currently a Grants Associate at the Malala Fund.

Rattana Mai is from Siem Reap, Cambodia, where he faced poverty and struggled to access quality education from a young age. Today, he serves as a Scholarship Project Officer at PEPY Empowering Youth, an organization helping young Cambodians from rural areas to continue their studies so that they can pursue careers, improve their quality of life, and uplift their communities.