Scholarship winner Makwei Mabioor Deng, 23, plans to return to his Sudanese homeland to practice law.

Two years ago, Makwei Mabioor Deng had never seen a computer or a library full of books. For 16 years he lived in a Sudanese refugee camp after his village was destroyed. But, today he has access to those things and more educational resources he could imagine as a student at George Washington University.

Student activists on campus wanted to help young people from the war-torn region by setting up a scholarship. Makwei was a awarded a scholarship worth more than $200,000 to study at GW. But, the scholarship has one major condition. Makwei must go back and educate his people or pay the money back.

Makwei, 23, plans to fulfill that obligation. He plans on becoming a lawyer and move back to Sudan. “I what to replace battlefield with courtroom, guns and bullets with legal representation, and open confrontation with negotiation around the table.”

Carolina Correa, 19, is the first Latina to win the award.

Carolina Correa is poised beyond her years. When I meet her, she is fresh- faced and enthusiastic. She walks with an entourage for the first time in her life, but it’s well-deserved. The 19-year-old is the Boys & Girls Club Youth of the Year, representing 4.5 million young people in clubs throughout the country.

The fact that she is the first Latina named in the award’s 63-year history, isn’t something that’s lost on her. She came to the States when she was 12 years old from Colombia. Her dad was sick with kidney failure and her mom worked two jobs, so there was no one to take care of her. So, she joined the local Boys & Girls Club, where they taught her English and instilled the importance of education.

Carolina never stopped being active in the club. Over the last seven years, she has dedicated hundreds of hours to tutoring other immigrants. Her award gives her tens of thousands of dollars in scholarship money that allows her to go to college and a platform to speak her mind. “Get involved, get involved, get involved. Always strive to be your best and always believe in yourself because no one else will do it for you,” Carolina says.

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Brittany Marrill founded the Ugandan American Partnership Organization to help Ugandan families.

At first glance, it’s hard to see how a pretty college student from a good home in Georgia and a poor, young mother in a Ugandan village who took in 24 orphans could be connected. But, while Brittany Merrill was studying abroad in Uganda, Sarah Kamara and her children changed the course of Brittany’s life and career. “They taught me about what is meaningful in this world and gave me purpose,” Brittany said of the encounter. “They shook me out of my complacency.”

Seeing the young mother’s need for food and shelter for the children she took in from the village, Brittany started to raise money for a better home for Kamara when she came back to the States. She found a donor to buy them a house. But, she didn’t stop there. She started the non-profit Ugandan American Partnership to help other Ugandan communities.

Four years and about $800,000 in donations after her first encounter with Kamara, Brittany opened The Ranch on Jesus Orphanage in March of this year. It holds the orphans she sought out to help and more. At capacity, 180 orphans can live there. Brittany now splits her time between Uganda and Atlanta, running her organization full-time.

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Felice Gorordo, 26, co-founded Roots of Hope to help foster dialogue between Cubans and Americans.

When Felice Gorordo imagines a “perfect Cuba,” he sees young people able to gather in front of their school and discuss issues openly and freely at workshops, parties, discussions, or performances. Felice would love to see a society where young people can reflect on their hopes and fears and ultimately help each other, looking toward the future.

Felice, 26, is one of the founders of Raices de Esperanza or Roots of Hope. It’s a non-partisan organization that encourages dialogue between young Americans and Cubans. If it were up to Felice, students wouldn’t get kicked out of school because they didn’t sign referendums they don’t agree with, a story he’s heard happen in Cuba time and again.

Felice’s group is working different projects that he hopes will help do just that. A notable one is “Cell Phones 4 Cuba.” Raices de Esperanza basically collect cell phones for people on the island because they normally cost $50-$150 and the average monthly salary is $12-$15. Getting access to that financially out-of-reach gadget, Felice believes, will be a big step toward more invaluable communication.

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Lexi Lehrman, 11, has raised $25,000 for breast cancer research.

I recently wrote about young women tackling breast cancer early on. Never did I imagine there could be a female younger than her 20s thinking and talking about breast cancer prevention or funding. I was wrong.

Lexi Lehrman is 11 years old. For the last few birthdays, she didn’t want presents for herself. She wanted money donated to breast cancer research, something she knew would have more impact than another outfit or gadget.

Even at her young age, she spearheaded a lot of the fundraising. She launched an Art for the Cure campaign, featuring local Miami artists Romero Britto and Ferdie Pacheco. She collaborated with the artists and put her spin on the famous pink ribbon. All of the ideas for the Love Lexi Foundation come with love from Lexi herself (with driving and book-keeping help from the ‘rents). She has raised about $25,000 for breast cancer research, to date.

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Jaclyn Murphy, 14, and her dad started the Friends of Jaclyn Foundation to match ill children with sports teams.

Clad in Wildcat purple, you’d think she was another player . Jaclyn Murphy, 14, is too young to be a player. But, she’s definitely part of the women’s lacrosse team at my alma mater, Northwestern University.

After being diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor, she spoke to the team in Chicago. So moved by her story, they “adopted" her. The relationship was symbiotic. The team gave her hope through her medical treatments and Jaclyn gave the team something to play for. And play, they did. I remember watching Jaclyn rush the field when “her team” won their first national title in 2005. And, the ladies continue to win. Jaclyn has celebrated all five straight national titles with the players.

After seeing how she and the team thrived together, Jaclyn and her dad started The Friends of Jaclyn Foundation. It’s an organization that matches up other kids like Jacyln with sports teams across the country. So far, 100 kids have been matched with 300 teams on a wait list.

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Josh Shipp, 28, dishes out 'advice with attitude' to teens.

Our generation doesn’t have a “Dear Abby,” but we do have a “Hey, Josh.” Josh Shipp offers up “advice with attitude” to Generation Y. He says he reaches the audience too old for “Bob the Builder” and too young for Oprah and Dr. Phil.

In his 28 years, Josh has collected a lot of adventures to draw on for advice. He grew up as a foster kid, dealing with suicidal thoughts, abuse and general teenage angst. He got in trouble in class one day for talking. "When you make your friends laugh they're listening to you. Now, what will you say to them?" Josh remembers his teacher saying to him. “It really struck a nerve with me,” he says.

Josh reached that captive peer audience with a Web site that generated 100,000 emails in the first year. He has written an advice column in CosmoGirl and slings advice on MTV’s TRL. “I want kids to know that it's not about your past but it's about your future. Past challenges don't matter. Those things are part of your story but not your whole story. Life is about attitude and choices,” Josh says of the underlying message to all of his advice.

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Jordan Coleman, 13, funded the documentary 'Say It Loud' to make a positive impact on his community.

Jordan’s friends want to be the next Michael Jordan or rap star. But Jordan wants young African-American boys like him to focus on going to college first. Jordan, 13, used the money he made from being a voice-over actor on the Nickelodeon show “The Backyardigans” to get that message across through a documentary.

The 48-minute documentary is called “Say it Loud,” featuring Ludacris, Rev. Al Sharpton and Newark, New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker. Jordan says, “We wanted kids who are getting good grades, or men who’ve graduated from college to 'say it loud,'" Jordan says about the title of his film. “They need to be proud of what they’ve done and make sure they’re sending that message along with being a good athlete or a musician.”

Jordan is trying to show his peers that school is cool. His favorite interview of the movie was Kobe Bryant. “I never knew that his SAT scores were so high. He had such good scores he could’ve gone to any college he wanted to.”

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Matt Certner, 18, founded the Sports Clinic for Children with Special Needs.

Mikey and Matt were best friends. They vacationed together, they played sports together. But when Mikey was diagnosed with autism, the dynamics changed. “Particularly when he would try to play sports. Either the coaches would be too competitive to let him really participate or the kids would be callus,” Matt Certner says of the impetus for him starting Sports Clinic for Children with Special Needs.

Matt wanted to let kids like Mikey have a chance at an even playing field if they wanted to play sports. Matt started with one clinic in his hometown in New Jersey with volunteers from his high school, but in 2 1/2 years, the non-profit group has expanded to six in the state, helping approximately 100 special needs kids and their families. The kids play soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter and baseball in the spring. Like any other sports clinic, the kids get uniforms and trophies.

Matt, now 18, is going to Duke in the Fall, but plans to continue his work. “People say to me all the time, ‘Matt you got into college already, why are you still doing the clinic?’ I don’t do it for resume status. Ever since I was young I wanted to give back. I love it. I love the kids.”

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Neelanjana Banerjee, 30, is editor of YO! Youth Outlook Media.

I remember sitting in journalism class in college and hearing the professor say, “It’s about giving a voice to the voiceless.” I never forgot it, because it seemed to me to be the purest way to describe the power of the press. Neela Banerjee is putting the idea into action as the editor of YO!

YO! stands for Youth Outlook. It’s a magazine that’s part of a non-profit media group in San Francisco. YO! content is generated mostly by young people who are coming out of “the system”- incarceration, foster care, rehabilitation facilities. “They take cameras into their neighborhoods and show us what their life is like. They are able to show some of the complexity of communities around the bay area that often gets lost in main stream media,” Neela says.

Neela compensates all journalists the same, no matter age or socio-economic background. Sometimes, though, she works with youngsters whose literacy is below par to get them to a point where they can effectively communicate their story. “Everyone one can be the media. Everyone is a journalist. We all have access to the tools to tell stories that happen around us and luckily I’m here to distribute it.”

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