We are thrilled to announce the 2017 Kectil Colleague inaugural class! We are blessed to have a wonderfully diverse group, with 282 representatives from 32 countries! We are also proud that the group is 41% women! The participants span four continents!

The Kectil Colleagues are primarily college students (62%), with good participation also from graduate students (7%) and professional youth (13%). We are also happy to see that 18% of the youth are currently in the last year of high school!

The Kectil Colleagues also have a broad range of interests for career paths. We hope this will enrich the conversation with a broad variety of viewpoints, as society needs talented youth in each of these careers to function at its peak.

Common themes expressed by many of the Kectil Colleagues are challenges caused by poverty, lack of resources, cultural impediments and lack of women empowerment and enablement in society. Others list as challenges a failure of effective and moral leadership and corruption in society as well as a lack of role models to learn from. We hope to provide forums for positive dialogue on these topics.

On a positive note, we also heard from many Kectil Colleagues that they think they can help shape the future of their communities for the better and are eager to contribute to do so. These Kectil Colleagues are willing to become potential and then actual youth leaders. We look forward to an inspirational year.