Presented by the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative in partnership with UWC International, Young Aurora is open to all UWC schools and colleges and, since 2018, the African Leadership Academy. Its mission is to encourage, support, and showcase student-driven projects which address concrete humanitarian issues and offer solutions through innovative and sustainable approaches.

Since 2017, Young Aurora has provided student teams from the participating schools with the opportunity to enter a project proposal that aims to tackle a humanitarian issue affecting a community in the vicinity of their school. All proposals are evaluated according to their level of creativity, sustainability, quality of research and potential for impact. One winning team each year is provided with a financial grant to fund the further development of their project.

Young Aurora has helped a huge number of student projects create a lasting impact in their school communities. From supporting refugees to preventing the sexual abuse of children, and from reducing biowaste to protecting coral reefs - you can read about the winning and runner-up projects over the years at the bottom of this page.

UWC thanks the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative for their continued support of UWC students in their initiatives for meaningful change - helping them to put gratitude into action. 

Young Aurora 2023-2024 

Emerging victorious in this year’s Young Aurora award, students from UWC Changshu China impressed this year’s judges with their "Enlightenment" project, which uses a needs-based curriculum to empower rural young people.

The three finalists from Pearson College UWC, UWC Changshu China and UWC Mahindra College showed remarkable creativity and dedication in addressing their identified local issues. The winning team from UWC Changshu China will now receive 10,000 USD to develop their project, so that it can create long-term impact in the school’s surrounding community.

Past Young Aurora Projects