Global Changemakers

Faisal Al-Fuhaid is an eighteen year-old Computer Science major from Kuwait. Faisal has been a team member in the Kuwaiti division of the British Council-sponsored Global Changemakers program since 2009. He is also the founder of Equait, an organization he established to raise awareness of the inequality issues prevalent in his hometown of Kuwait. The main objective of Equait is to promote social equality and human rights through social media and public events. Faisal and the Equait crew are currently filming a documentary that will serve to illustrate these issues through film. In early November 2011, Faisal and a handful of selected Kuwaiti youth got the opportunity to meet with High Royal Highness Prince Charles of Wales and discuss Arab-British relations and the concerns of Kuwaiti youth during a garden party hosted by the British Embassy in honor of His Highness' two-day visit to Kuwait. Faisal has also debated issues surrounding equality, climate change, human trafficking and social entrepreneurship as a delegate in a number of Model United Nations conferences, both locally and internationally, including the 2010 and 2011 PEARL Model United Nations conferences in Kuwait and the 2011 DIAMUN conference in Dubai. Faisal is also a registered delegate at the upcoming London Model United Nations conference taking place in February 2012 and the annual World Model United Nations conference taking place in Vancouver, Canada in March 2012. During his free time, Faisal volunteers as a buddy with the Challengers Division of the Kuwait Little League, a program that works with young, mentally and physically-disabled children by encouraging outdoor activities and teaching basic hand-eye coordination and sports skills. He also volunteers at KACCH, the Kuwait Association for Care of Children in Hospice. In August of 2011, Faisal was one of the sixty young activists and social entrepreneurs chosen from almost 2000 applicants worldwide to attend the 2011 Global Youth Summit in the U.K. from November 13th to 19th. During the summit, the participants exchanged best practices and developing action plans for projects that tackle issues ranging from AIDS/HIV and corruption to education and human rights. As part of the human rights issue group, Faisal and his team members founded Project Femina, a unique initiative that will serve to promote women’s rights and aims to eliminate violence against women. The project is currently active in eight countries spread over four continents. On his activism, Faisal says: "People who use religion, race, gender, sexuality and country of origin as an excuse for belittling their peers or disliking them are just too ignorant to look beyond the surface of who they are. As clichéd as this may sound, I believe that we are created as equals to one another and I harbor great disrespect for people that simply choose to see the world in black or white. We must learn to acknowledge the shades of grey. In this day and age, it is difficult to avoid things like racism, bullying, and discrimination, and I speak of this through first-hand knowledge because I myself was bullied relentlessly growing up. It was a terrible feeling and something needs to be done."

Billionaire- Changemaker in training.