Sarah Jameel (18) will attend the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, Switzerland in January 2010. Jameel, who leads campaigns on healthcare, is one of six people selected to attend the high-level event from over 1,200 young applicants from around the world. The five others come from Japan, Iraq, Canada, Botswana and Portugal.

The six Davos participants were chosen by 60 of their peers to attend the World Economic Forum Meeting at the Global Changemakers' Global Youth Summit, which took place in the UK at the end of November 2009.

The 60 young people, who came from 44 countries, gathered outside London for a week of intense workshops, lectures and skills training to enhance their community activism and help shape their call to action to world leaders.

The Global Youth Summit is part of the British Council's pioneering Global Changemakers' initiative.
Global Changemakers is a global network of a select group of young who have a significant track record as social entrepreneurs, social activists and volunteers (ages 16-25).

They meet to share ideas and best practices, and work individually and together on projects that directly impact the lives of those in their local communities. In addition, each year, a select group of Global Changemakers is chosen to participate in high-level political and economic events, to act as advocates and to raise decision-makers' awareness of key issues on the global agenda.

Sarah Jameel, a former student at Bishops College, Colombo, is sitting for her A'Levels at the Colombo International School (CIS). Sarah is passionate about Public Health and believes that affordable and reliable healthcare is a basic need and right in a truly sustainable society. Three years ago, she led a project working towards eliminating extreme poverty by conducting a paediatric health camp and awareness programme in underprivileged schools in the slums of Colombo. Medicines, donated to Sarah, were distributed free of charge.

The project won her the Global Teen Leader award by the We Are Family Foundation and enabled her to attend the Just Peace Summit in New York in 2008. In 2006, she co-ordinated a Cancer Hospital project, donating medicines to the children affected by cancer, which literally brought smiles to all their faces. Before that, in the aftermath of the tsunami, she conducted fundraisers in Colombo for hospitals in the east of Sri Lanka.

Currently, she is working on "Kick The Butt" a project that she founded, which is a unique Anti-Teen Smoking Campaign, based on a T-shirt campaign aimed at changing the mindset of smoking teens in Sri Lanka.

The proceeds of the merchandise will be used towards the donation of equipment to the lung cancer wing of the Sri Lanka Cancer Hospital. Founded for the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos in 2007, Global Changemakers have partnered with, and participated in, World Economic Forum events (in Davos, Sharm-el-Sheikh, and Cape Town), the Clinton Global Initiative, the Global Humanitarian Forum and the G20. Individual supporters include HM Queen Rania Al-Abdullah of Jordan, President Bill Clinton, and the actress Emma Thompson.

The Rt. Hon. Gordon Brown serves as Patron of Global Changemakers. For more information about British Council's Global Changemaker Project, please visit http://www.global-changemakers.net/