“It is our responsibility to enable every young person to make to learn and learn to make,” says David Sengeh, Global Minimum (GMin) founder. He considers himself lucky to have survived the war in Sierra Leone, and go onto study at Harvard and MIT. Now a biomechatronics researcher in the MIT Media Lab, Senegh develops cutting edge prosthetics for amputees such as the many Sierra Leoneans who lost limbs during the civil war.

Senegh felt he could do more to uplift communities back home, and so he founded GMin. It works with people aged 13-18 years to find solutions to their communities’ problems. Students are invited to workshops where they are provided with tools and resources, meet expert mentors, and gain access to networks to tackle the most pressing issues in their lives. It was started in Sierra Leone, but is now also being rolled out in Kenya and South Africa.

GMin can boast many successes – such as teen Adama Fofanah’s efforts to sanitise her community’s water supplies in response the 2012 cholera outbreak. Walls were built around the communal wells so animals couldn’t contaminate their drinking water, and the water was treated with chlorine to minimise sickness. A simple but effective, lifesaving solution.

Claire is London-residing British-South African actress and freelance writer for the Huffington Post and Ideas Tap magazine.