Changemaker SHowcase 2023
Check out this year's changemaker teams! You can watch a video recap of the Changemaker Showcase here, where our teams presented their finished projects and the impact they made.
Learn about each team and their projects below!
Our Changemakers
Help the Children of Ghana is a project aimed at helping the students of Nbanaayili Junior High. Because the northern region of Ghana receives less funding than other regions, schools like Nbanaayili lack the resources needed for a successful education. So, I decided to create this project in the hopes of raising $700, which I would use to buy materials for the students. Also, I would create a letter-writing system where students from my school would write letters of encouragement to the students of Nbanaayili. By doing this, those who need the motivation to continue school would be motivated to do so.
​
LEAF Education is a project designed to provide online environmental education for teenagers in disadvantaged communities around the world. LEAF Education is a project that aims to reduce the lack of education covering environmental issues by providing free online education to teenagers as part of these types of communities. The LEAF education project’s curriculum will be focused on the needs of the specific target countries (Ghana and Jamaica), meaning, the course will approach environmental issues globally but will also put focus in the local environmental contexts based on the principle of thinking globally is acting locally.
​
Social media has shone a light on the negative aspects of the carriage industry with the use of viral videos of horses collapsing on the streets of NYC from exhaustion. I plan to create a brochure that will highlight the cruel practice and hand them out to tourists who are thinking about taking a carriage ride on East 59th Street. In addition, I would give the brochure to hotels who are recommending to their guests to go on a carriage ride, in hopes that they will stop.
Shelter Kits for Local Shelters in Ukraine
​
The war between Russia and Ukraine is one of the most concerning current global events. Russia’s escalation of the conflict has led to the bombing of civilian areas, forcing Ukrainian citizens to seek shelter and safety. These shelters are not equipped with medical resources or necessities and are unprepared to care for the sick, elderly, and injured for hours at a time. Our project would provide emergency shelter kits to shelters in Irpin, Ukraine, which was under occupation and suffered 70% destruction. For civilians in local shelters, providing emergency medical resources and necessities could mean the difference between life and death.
​
Our neighborhoods are built on top of a fragile environment. Streams run between our houses. Lakes are surrounded by roads. Most people do not think where their waste might end up, they have little or no knowledge of the effect that our urban waste has on the life of our beautiful streams. Our salmon, trout and bird life are directly damaged by this and our team thought of how they could possibly change this behavior. Clear stencils that show where the drains flow are needed. This will help people to pause and not throw their waste on the ground.
​
The Little Lamp project is about donating wheelchairs, conducting a workshop about repairing wheelchairs and fixing broken ones for people in different communities that could still be usable if mended. This is due to the fact that there is a tremendous need for wheelchairs and for people who can fix them in my home country Eswatini. It is very important to me that I carry out the Little Lamp project because I will be giving back to people in my country. With the little I have, I will spread the light; hence the name- Little Lamp.
.jpeg)
​
Comforce is a Raspberry Pi-based device, which is a hardware- and software-based solution. It uses two machine learning models - a linear and a logistic regression model. Along with the data that it receives from the moisture, pH, NPK, and temperature sensors, the device is able to determine the quality and maturity of compost. Then, it returns an intuitive quality score which is a numeric value between 0 and 100, and the maturity stage, which is either mesophilic, thermophilic, or cured. Comforce also provides a prescription to improve the quality of compost if its quality score falls below a certain threshold.
​
Our world has turned into a hostile environment where tensions are rising and conversations are turning into arguments. This is a huge problem because it causes a great divide between the two political parties in our nation, and weakens our democracy as a whole. We want to reach middle schoolers and teach them how to have civil discourse. Our plan is to go to our local middle school and do a lesson plan on how to have pleasant conversations about difficult topics. We request $195 for bracelets to reinforce our message and instructional materials.
The Faroe Islands for Human Rights
As a student myself, I found that it is difficult to find Faroese educational material on human rights. This language barrier makes it harder to relate to and get young people engaged in human rights issues on the Faroe Islands. My project is therefore to make a small book, where the 30 human rights articles are explained to make sure that all students from grades 8 and 9 on the Faroe Islands get the opportunity to learn more in-depth (and in their mother tongue, Faroese) about human rights and human rights issues on the Faroe Islands.
In our project, we would like to protect the medicinal trees in our community in Bamenda, Cameroon, which are currently facing extinction due to deforestation and bush burning. We will plant 500 trees and distribute them around our community. We will also educate community members about the value of medicinal trees. By planting these trees, we will provide homes for animals that rely on them for a habitat, fight climate change, and offer health benefits to the community.
.jpg)
ADDITIONAL PROJECTS BY CATEGORY
HUman Rights
My project is an online anthology of written work by queer middle and high school students. With book bans mainly targeting books with LGBTQ content, and attacks on queer people on the rise in America, I hope that this website can encourage queer students to share their stories and feel represented in literature that they create. I hope that I will be able to create a safe space for people so that they can feel more comfortable with who they are.
My project is focused on creating an environment in which LGBTQ students, specifically middle schoolers and high schoolers, are able to learn about the community and can feel comfortable enough to explore their own feelings and emotions. I would like to create this environment on a website centered around the LGBTQ community. It would explore the different sexualities and gender identities in a way that can’t be done in schools. This would be in combination with a tab where kids could anonymously submit their own stories. The end result would be a space where kids know they’re not alone.
Hi, my name is Charlotte Brodbeck. Over the past few months, I've been studying sex trafficking within the United States, specifically focusing on child sexual exploitation. The first part of my project focuses on teaching human trafficking prevention lessons based on a curriculum created by The Prevention Project. The second aspect of my project is creating a movie night either at my school or a local theater within my community. This movie night would showcase the 2007 documentary Very Young Girls. I am seeking a budget of $300 for the lessons and another $100 for the screening cost of the documentary.
​
Opioid overdoses are quickly becoming one of the leading causes of death in America as fentanyl and other dangerous opioids are becoming more widespread. My project aims to increase the accessibility of Narcan, the drug that almost instantly reverses the effects of an overdose, in schools. For my project I will 1) advocate to the NYS Dept. of Education and Dept. of Health for a policy that requires all school districts to carry Narcan and 2) connect NYS high schools with the Opioid Overdose Prevention program, which supplies NYS schools with free Narcan doses.
Our school has in its mission the goal of an accessible and equal education for all. The reality of achieving this is momentous. Our school has achieved a sliding scale model for tuition but we have not managed to achieve transportation for students. The ideal is still worth striving for and part of the solution is highlighting to our community what our school wishes to be. Through the accessible art form of a mural, our team wants to highlight the image of what our school represents, a safe and welcoming place, striving for greater diversity and equality.
Due to the continuous bullying encountered daily especially by the young (that is children in our community), my team thought of helping the situation by creating awareness. This problem is greatly affecting the young in our community as:
-It is making studies difficult.
-It is a limiting factor in the social and interaction skills of the children.
-It is causing loss of self-esteem of the victims.
-It might grow to a dangerous or complex form in the future which may be difficult to then remedy.
-It can affect the children when grown up in their homes as they might bring in their experiences into their home. This will not only affect their spouse but their children and even those around them. My team aims at creating awareness of bullying through platforms such as schools and radio stations in our community.
Education
​
Education is an innate right- one which opens many opportunities. In Kenya, education is especially important in breaking the cycle of poverty present in many parts of the country. Children should learn inside properly built schools, with technology, teaching staff, and other learning materials. This is why I am partnering with Crossing Thresholds- an organization which works to build schools such as this- in order to raise money to provide scholarship funds for children in Kenya who cannot otherwise afford public school tuition. I want to raise $2,000 for this by hosting a volleyball tournament at a local park.
​
57% of college students say intimate partner violence difficult to identify and 58% say they don’t know how to help someone who’s experiencing it. I plan to educate high school students about physical and mental abuse in toxic relationships. My lesson plan will educate students how to identify the warning signs of a toxic partner and teach them how to help a peer in a difficult situation. I am requesting funding to print informational brochures about toxic relationships, a professional website domain to post my lesson plans, and bracelets and stickers to spread the message.
​
With a lack of access to and information about contraception, low-income women are more likely to succumb to an accidental pregnancy, pushing them even further into poverty. To ameliorate this, I decided to focus on providing women and shelters in my community with a concise list of local preventative health clinics, along with additional information about contraceptives and services offered. I plan on creating a website to make the information more accessible to these women, and I hope that with time and your help, I will be able to expand this resource beyond just my county.
​
For my project, I am going to spread awareness of the issue of animal testing. I am going to hang up posters around my school and set up tables throughout lunch in the hallway. At the table, I will bring my hamster to persuade people to donate.
POverty
​
Empower through Plant Power’s aim is to promote education on gardening, education on healthy food preparation, and education on healthy food assistance for youth in food-insecure communities. This initiative aims to give elementary schools lessons on gardening and give children free gardening kits. With every 7 dollars donated for gardening kits, a child learns about critical food concepts and develops a deeper understanding of agricultural practices. Help us educate youth today. Please consider donating.
​
Our project aims to provide resources for mothers in low-socioeconomic areas within Westchester County because a lack of resources during pregnancy can result in preterm birth/death of the fetus. We will utilize a Baby Mobile-owned car to transport the necessary materials needed for these mothers, along with a educational pamphlet on preterm birth signs, symptoms, and healthy habits for the mother. We plan on spending a total of $415, which includes $70 to print educational pamphlets, $100 for diapers, $50 for baby wipes, $50 for pacifiers, $35 for baby bibs, $70 for bottles, and $40 for baby hygiene.
​
We want to create a more sustainable way of living for homeless people in New York City. We want to do this by helping out with preexisting fundraising and spreading the word around our school district using flyers and posters. We think this will be very beneficial because it is very easy for people to bring in donations and we are going to motivate people to donate by speaking to kids in our school and the elementary school. As we know homelessness is a very talked-about subject we think the path we are taking with our project isn't very common. We think it's original as we are trying to shine a light on the unfairness people that work multiple jobs face.
​
A shocking 21 percent of residents in Westchester County are food insecure. This project aims to help those in need of food assistance in Westchester county and spread education and awareness to those who could help with the issue. The food truck we are creating will address the issue of hunger in a uniquely impactful way, by making struggling families' day just a little bit better. We will create a successful food drive in our high school, that we can take to various towns in Westchester county and hand out nonperishable vegan food to those who can not afford it.
​
New York has the highest inequality of any state, and Westchester has the highest of any county in the state. The richest and those in poverty live so close together, but the rich often are oblivious and blind to the problems going on, so they oppose solutions to the problem like affordable housing. My solution is to produce a documentary on this inequality and hold a screening event with community members to raise awareness. I am asking for $200 for camera equipment and to promote my film on social media.
​
Despite its beautiful landscape, about 30% of the population in Costa Rica is said to be living in poverty, ultimately creating the problem of homes with inadequate income for household needs. Through testing my prototypes on my peers, I found that there was a huge lack of education on this issue. So, for my solution, I plan to pair up with a Spanish class in the middle school and create a lesson plan to educate the kids on this issue. The second part of the lesson involves making bracelets that we can sell to raise funds for Costa Rican Families.
​
Hunger is a global problem, and is seen in kindergartens and schools of impoverished regions in Tavush, Armenia. Given that families of low economic backgrounds are unable to provide enough nutrition for their children, this may lead to low performance, decreased concentration, and poor health among said students. Hence, Dili-Spouts aims to break this cycle by cultivating and supporting a culture of self-sustaining nutrition cycles at schools and kindergartens. By building rooftop gardens, implementing a combined sustainability, cultivation, and nutrition curriculum, and carrying out workshops, we aim to help these kids in need. Help us make a change, help us sprout!
thank you to our sponsors
