Ahmed Jomaa is a 19-year-old, born in Kairouan,Tunisia and recently moved to Germany to persue his higher Education. Since almost 3 years, he has been working hard on improving himself and the people around him. Also, he is a Tunisian Leader, passionate about entrepreneurship, learning languages, sports, self-improvement and watching TED Talks.

Mr. Ahmed’s journey started when he along with his friends managed to organize an international youth-empowering conference in an underprivileged city. As a reward, he was personally recruited to found and be the ´´President of JCI Kairouan Juniors 2015´´, a junior chapter (for youth under 18) of Junior Chamber International in his local city where he built endless soft-skills. Recently, being influenced by JCI´s entrepreneurial spirit, he with the help of a friend, made a Study Abroad Agency. After few meetings and a short internship, they opened and lead a local franchise of this agency and managed to help many of the peers (high school graduates) to study in abroad like people currently do. He also serves as a VP charged of external relations in JSCK -a new-born association.

How do you motivae the youths living in developing world for the better future?

Youth there are “Pessimistic”: They're always nagging about the circumstances. But, they never do something about it. They're brought up in a way that made them passive. They don't even have the courage to talk for themselves or express their thoughts and ideas. I don't know whether it’s something innate or something they learnt in their families or schools. So, in order to motivate them and let them aspire for a better future, we have to:

Organize Only-for-youth conferences that illustrate the unknown success stories of Youth from their very same circumstances. We need them to know that there are people -just like them- who won national or international awards, who got scholarships, who founded their organizations, who launched their businesses. We have to let them question themselves subconsciously. “Why not me !”- “I have what it takes”- “I’m really better than him or her”. I really don't need to have a strong educational background to be in this or to do that until they feel the urge to do that idea that has always crossed their minds. Then, they move subconsciously to the “HOW TO!!!”:

Expose them to the international opportunities and help them along the way to participate. Exposure is not enough. People there don't really believe in themselves. They don´t even make the time to write an application because they're not good enough to win it.That´s what they actually think.That´s why ,in order to push them forward,and in order to add efficiency to our work as OYAOP Team, we need to provide mentors and organize workshops teaching youth how to write competitive applications.