Young UWL Ambassadors represent Young United World Leaders at their high school, college or university for one academic year. They bring the counsel of those who have governed within reach of their classmates, open the Young World Parliament to their campus, and build something that will still be standing after they graduate.
Status: proposed. This programme is in preparation and its founding class has not been appointed. Its terms are set out as they are intended to operate, and the Young World Parliament remains a simulation until it is formally constituted. The application form below is a preview and sends nothing.
An ambassador learns a place closely, speaks truthfully for those who sent them, and leaves relations stronger than they were found. This post asks the same of you, on your campus.
United World Leaders brings together 24 former Presidents and Prime Ministers from 23 nations. Young United World Leaders exists so that those who will inherit their work can begin learning it now. To a sixteen-year-old in a school corridor, though, an institution remains an abstraction until someone they know makes it real. That person is the Ambassador.
The post goes to one student on each campus, by appointment, for one academic year. It carries real duties, a kept record and a line of report to the Ambassadors’ Desk. It is no honour for grades or titles: we appoint people who have already started something, and ask them to start something larger.
The test of an Ambassador comes after they leave. It is a chapter whose members know why it exists, a project whose results can be counted, and a successor ready to take up the post.
They are the same on every campus, and they are written to be carried alongside a full course of study.
Present your Commission to your head of school or dean, then become the person on campus whom students, teachers and clubs can ask. Say plainly what Young UWL is, what it is not, and how to join it.
Hold a Campus Forum each term. Gather people to question a leader of the UWL network in a live session, or invite those who disagree to argue a hard question in good faith.
Take a Motion before the Young World Parliament and run it on campus: the argument, the amendment, the recorded vote. Send the result to the Clerk, and bring classmates onto the Roll as Delegates.
Found or steward a chapter, and give it one project that answers a real need close to home. Fifteen committed members will do more than two hundred names on a list, so recruit accordingly.
Introduce Young UWL to student government, Model UN, debate societies and willing faculty. Work across a border with your twin post, an Ambassador on a campus in another country.
File a short report each term: what was done, whom it reached, what did not work. At the close of the year, hand the post to a successor with the record intact.
United World Leaders counts initiatives launched, collaborations created, opportunities developed and lives improved, not meetings held. Its Ambassadors keep the same accounts.
A high school and a university differ in what they permit and what they offer. The duties stay the same. The way you carry them out changes.
You serve under your school’s own rules, with a faculty sponsor and the knowledge of your principal from the first day.
You have more freedom and more to build with: departments that want speakers, student bodies to work beside, and a city full of possible partners.
Every Ambassador is appointed by a numbered Commission. Your first act in the post is to present it in person to your head of school or dean, who countersigns it as received.
The ceremony is small and its purpose is practical. Your school knows who you are and what you intend, it has heard so from you first, and you have made your first formal call on an institution before you have held your first meeting.
The Commission is entered in the record of the Corps. Anyone you show it to may confirm its number with the Ambassadors’ Desk.
Be it known that [Name of the Ambassador], a student of [School, college or university], having affirmed the Leadership Pledge, is appointed Young United World Leaders Ambassador to that campus for the academic year [20XX–XX], there to represent the programme faithfully, to serve its members, and to report truthfully on the work done.
Titles in Young UWL reflect responsibility, and recognition follows service. We state exactly what is assured and what must be earned, because you will be relying on it.
United World Leaders and its partners may offer scholarships, fellowships, internships, exchanges and travel support as they become available. We will name each one when it is funded, and not before.
Founding Ambassadors will find this programme unfinished, and that is the opportunity. Your reports will rewrite the Toolkit for those who follow, and you will carry the designation of Founding Ambassador for good.
Terms differ from one hemisphere to the other, so the year is told in stages rather than months.
Complete the Induction with your class, confirm your faculty sponsor and present your Commission.
Hold your first open meeting and first Forum. Find the need your flagship initiative will answer, and agree with your team how you will measure it.
Hold your first Campus Sitting, from argument to recorded Division. File your first report and compare notes with your twin post.
Carry the initiative through to results, and hold a second Forum and a second Sitting. If your campus has produced a Motion of its own, help it find its five co-sponsors.
File your final report, name your successor and prepare them for the opening of the next year. Then receive your Certificate and Letter of Service.
A guide to a strong year rather than a quota. A small school with nine devoted members who changed something has done the job.
The first campus is the first rung of the Young UWL leadership ladder. Each rung brings more people to serve, and each is reached by record rather than by seniority.
One campus, one year.
A further year, training new Ambassadors alongside your own.
Several campuses working together, and a City Council to form.
Connecting cities and supporting chapters that are struggling.
Representing Young UWL in your country, on the path to the Global Youth Advisory Board.
Titles are illustrative and may evolve with the programme. Appointments rest with United World Leaders and carry no permanent right to a position.
Once you hold this post, people will take your word for the Institution’s. These limits, drawn from the Young UWL Participation Agreement, protect them and protect you.
A young person should not have to choose between an opportunity and a safe one. These conditions apply to every Ambassador under 18, and no one in the programme may waive them.
Schools may contact the Ambassadors’ Desk before any student applies, through the United World Leaders contact page. A named safeguarding officer will receive any concern, from anyone, once the programme opens.
Appointment is competitive, and it is decided by what you have done and what you would do next.
Open to students at any high school, college or university, including community colleges, vocational schools and homeschool networks.
Tell us what you have started and what you would do first.
One teacher, professor or community leader speaks for your record.
A short video call with the Desk, with a parent or sponsor welcome.
Your appointment is confirmed, and the Induction begins.
No. It is a volunteer post, with no salary, stipend or commission, and no reward for the number of people you recruit. Nothing you are asked to do should cost you money. If a plan would, speak to the Ambassadors’ Desk before you commit to it.
Plan on two to three hours a week at a high school and three to five at a college or university, rising around a Forum or Sitting. Examinations come first. Tell the Desk when they are near, and the work can wait.
Please do. The post exists for this. Most chapters begin as a conversation among a few friends, and the Induction will show you how to turn one into a first meeting.
Join their team. Every Ambassador needs one, and successors are usually drawn from it. A large university with several faculties or sites may hold more than one post, at the discretion of the Desk.
It will read well if what it records is true. The Letter of Service states what you did in specifics, and the Desk will answer any admissions officer or employer who asks. We make no promise about what they decide.
A Delegate sits in the Young World Parliament. A liaison speaks for an organization that has joined Young UWL. An Ambassador represents Young UWL to a whole campus. One person may hold more than one of these roles.
Tell the Desk early and hand over to your team. Illness, family and a heavy term are ordinary parts of a life, and leaving a post responsibly is itself a form of leadership.
Every campus has someone who has already started. We are looking for them.