Donald Trump’s return to the American presidency, fueled in part by a rightward electoral swing among young men, has fueled an epistemic crisis among those who’ve long believed that the kids would act as vanguard for a more progressive, more tolerant future. It was a belated yet necessary moment of recognition: The young people of the 2020s have been shaped by far different, often darker societal developments and forces than those which inspired the Obama era’s millennials.
Still, even if the blanket “young and woke” narratives were always a touch reductive, the ensuing overcorrection is perhaps even more so. The youths of today are perceived, globally, as little more than screen-addled doomers. Robbed of formative schooling and social experiences during the pandemic, unwilling to play outside or protest on the streets, hooked on Roblox and TikTok and Twitch instead of sex and alcohol, finding meaning from looksmaxxers and tradwives on YouTube, incapable of reading an entire book or watching an entire movie, unable to hold basic face-to-face conversations or get an A without ChatGPT’s help—the pundits have perhaps never been so alarmed about Kids These Days.
Undoubtedly, there are shifts in how our newest generations interact with the world. But one thing hasn’t changed: that there are still countless activists, from Gen Z or Gen Alpha and even beyond, who are engaged and fighting to make a difference. The black pilled myopia of professional commentators might come as a surprise to the teens, college students, and twentysomethings who are overthrowing their dictatorial governments, advocating for basic rights, ensuring they can leave a healthier and freer and cleaner Earth for those still to come afterward. They know the work hasn’t ended; it’s only beginning. Here are 30 young activists who are changing the world, from middle schoolers to PhD candidates, from pro-LGBTQ+ voices to those still rallying for Gaza.
Greta Thunberg
Age: 23
Social handle: https://x.com/GretaThunberg
Before graduating high school in 2023, Greta Thunberg was already something of an unofficial world leader. Her Friday school strikes, in protest of global inaction around climate change, rippled from her native Sweden and inspired millions of schoolkids to follow suit. Her international excursions, taken by boat instead of plane, saw her confront older politicians to their faces. Her “freedom flotillas,” dispatched to the Gaza Strip and Cuba, have been taken up by those newly awakened to their humanitarian crises. A regular protester since she was 15, Thunberg has an influence every politician dreams of.
Nila Ibrahimi
Age: 18
Social handle: https://www.instagram.com/ibrahimi_nila/
A member of Afghanistan’s Hazara minority, Nila Ibrahimi has been agitating against her country’s sexist policies since she was 14. When the pre-Taliban government forbade teenage girls from singing in public, Ibrahimi recorded a viral performance of “Boro Bakhair Ba Maktab” (“Go to School”) and inspired other Afghan girls to share their own songs on social media. She fled her homeland when the Taliban took over but never forgot the girls still there: Ibrahimi still publicizes their stories and has even helped some of them emigrate.
Sarah Kittoe
Age: 13
Social handle: https://www.instagram.com/sarahkittoebooks/
According to UNESCO, the global average youth literacy rate is at an all-time high, just above 90 percent. The remaining 10 percent, however, still encompasses tens of millions of illiterate children worldwide—and Sarah Kittoe isn’t forgetting about them. The 13-year-old Brit, already a prolific children’s author, donates all her royalties to libraries, book clubs, and homeless charities in the U.K. and Ghana. Alongside her sister, she also runs a nonprofit, the SMKittoe Foundation, to provide and tailor educational opportunities for underprivileged communities.
Elise Joshi
Age: 23
Social handle: https://www.tiktok.com/@elisejoshi
Elise Joshi’s public career is meant to counter the notion that young people don’t care about what’s going on around them. As a member of the Sunrise Movement, she brought climate change to the social media fore; as executive director of Gen-Z for Change, she spearheaded digital campaigns to break down complex political issues across TikTok and Instagram; as campus program director for More Perfect Union, she’s aiming to get college students more interested in the plights of their working-class peers. The concrete impact: a more visible pathway from digital expression to on-the-ground organizing.
Keanu Arpels-Josiah
Age: 20
Social handle: https://x.com/keanuaj
At first, Keanu Arpels-Josiah was one of the many high schoolers galvanized by Greta Thunberg’s climate strikes, becoming an organizer with New York City’s Fridays for Future branch. Now, he’s a sophomore at Swarthmore, roping his fellow climate-concerned students into a broader movement that’s also protested the carnage in Gaza, helped make “affordability” the new political buzzword, and turned out voters to elect NYC’s first Muslim and millennial mayor, Zohran Mamdani. Led by Thunberg and Arpels-Josiah, climate protesters have come to interact with many broader political movements.
Ahmad Nisar
Age: 22
Social handle: n/a
An Australia-based expat from Taliban-led Afghanistan, the twentysomething Ahmad Nisar became a youth public health advocate as a teenager, noticing how basic mental health services were out of reach for many poorer Afghans. In 2022 he founded Changemaker, a digital organization that connects psychiatrists around the country and expands patient access to virtual counseling services. Established after decades of internal warfare, Changemaker especially prioritizes treatment for women and survivors of communal violence.
Maryam Iqbal
Age: 21
Social handle: n/a
Doxxed, arrested, evicted from student housing, and suspended from Barnard College, Maryam Iqbal was one of the many Gaza solidarity activists at Columbia University who were targeted by outside groups and school administrators over their encampment protests. For Iqbal the backlash has been relentless: After returning from her suspension, Barnard remained a hostile campus, with school affiliates allegedly making deepfakes of Iqbal and sending her death threats. Iqbal now maintains a smaller internet presence, but she hasn’t stopped speaking out on behalf of Palestinians.
Ella Keidar Greenberg
Age: 19
Social handle: n/a
At 18, Ella Keidar Greenberg registered her objection to Israel’s draft and was imprisoned for it, forced to survive in a solo cell without her gender-affirming medication. Greenberg wasn’t a stranger to activism: She also joined the protests against Benjamin Netanyahu’s weakening of the judicial system, and agitated against the Israeli military’s discriminatory treatment of LGBTQ+ Palestinians. But her draft refusal placed her among a rare, prominent class of Israeli dissenters.
Palestine Youth Movement
Age: 18–25
Social handle: https://www.instagram.com/palestinianyouthmovement/
When Israel began ramping up its bombardment of the Gaza Strip, in retaliation for Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks, the Palestinian Arab diaspora felt the emergency most acutely and was quickest to kick off the youth-led protests that sparked such early controversy. A year and a half of marching, speaking, and agitation eventually yielded a major victory: a commitment from the Danish shipping giant Maersk to stop servicing companies that operate in illegal West Bank settlements. Threats from politicians aren’t stopping PYM from expanding their remit, as they rally against the U.S. military campaigns in Venezuela and Iran.
Rebekah Bruesehoff
Age: 19
Social handle: https://www.instagram.com/therealrebekah/
Rebekah Bruesehoff was 10 when she became an accidental spokesperson for gender-nonconforming kids. The sign she carried at a New Jersey protest (“I'm the scary transgender person the media warned you about”) went viral during the first Trump administration, which moved early in the term to roll back civil rights protections for trans children. Since that moment, Bruesehoff has helped pass trans-inclusive laws in New Jersey and talked about her experiences as a young athlete on national TV. Now in college and dealing with a second Trump term, Breusehoff is still organizing rallies for trans rights and partnering with rights groups like the ACLU and Human Rights Campaign.
Libby Gonzales
Age: 15
Social handle: n/a
At 13 years old, Libby Gonzales helped organize the 2023 Trans Youth Prom, the first-ever event where trans and nonbinary kids around the country could dress up and dance on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol. Gonzales had known she was transgender since she was 6, and she first earned attention for testifying against Texas’ bathroom bill in 2017. The Lone Star State has since passed some of the most extreme anti-trans laws in the country, but Gonzales is still anchored in her home state, and still organizes events for trans youth in Dallas.
Dylan Brandt
Age: 20
Social handle: n/a
Dylan Brandt, a trans boy from small-town Arkansas, joined three other families in suing to overturn the state’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors, the first that had ever passed in the country. Their suit notched a legal victory in federal court, temporarily overturning the ban in 2023. Unfortunately, the impact of the Supreme Court’s far-reaching Skirmetti decision—which claims gender-care bans are not unconstitutional—forced an appeals court to reinstate the ban last year.
Violet Affleck
Age: 20
Social handle: n/a
After she turned 18, the once-publicity-shy daughter of Jennifer Garner and Ben Affleck became an internationally recognized public health activist. Having suffered from an aggravating “post-viral” condition just before the COVID-19 pandemic, Violet Affleck now speaks out everywhere, whether in front of L.A. County officials, on Yale University’s campus, or at the United Nations, on behalf of public health precautions (face masks, air filters, at-home infection tests) that can protect vulnerable children from chronic disorders like long COVID.
Gavin Bendross
Age: 24
Social handle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavin-bendross-562264311/
As a Florida A&M student, Gavin Bendross got involved with Everytown’s gun-safety campaigns through the nonprofit’s Young Black Changemakers summit, eventually establishing a Students Demand Action chapter at his school. A Class of 2024 grad, Bendross is still doing the same work he helmed as a student: organizing shooting survivors and gun-violence-prevention advocates while lobbying Florida’s government against its efforts to scrap even basic gun regulations.
Lee Gordon
Age: 21
Social handle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lee-gordon-4b35a5206/
A Black trans feminist from Nashville, Lee Gordon got their start with several social justice groups in the South. Upon enrolling at Harvard in 2023, they helped to organize the Trans+ Community Celebration, the largest trans-student conference in the world, and has continued to advocate for the interests of Black, LGBTQ+, and trans Americans around the country, fighting for their free expression in the face of censorship and political hostility.
Bayly Hoehne
Age: 18
Social handle: https://x.com/HoehneBayly
In the all-important purple state of North Carolina, young voters can make a big difference if they turn out. Bayly Hoehne, a UNC–Chapel Hill student and chief of staff for the youth-centered organization Voters of Tomorrow, has done that kind of organizing ever since she was a high schooler working on local Democratic campaigns during the Biden years. These days, she’s still educating North Carolinians on their voting rights via social media videos and op-eds and mobilizing young folks in protests and marches against the current administration.
Dev Karan
Age: 17
Social handle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dev-karan05/
Potable water supply in rural India is not always assured, especially as agriculture and heavy industry drain and poison villagers’ ponds. Dev Karan, a 17-year-old from Uttar Pradesh, works to develop tech-based solutions to local water woes through his organizations: Pondora, which provides low-cost water-quality monitors to remote villages, and EchoShield, a project to assist farmers with assessing crop health and limiting use of harmful pesticides. Karan is now expanding his agricultural research to Nairobi, Kenya, as an intern at the city’s International Potato Center.
Rena Kawasaki
Age: 20
Social handle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rena-kawasaki-316201287/
At the age of 14, Rena Kawasaki founded Earth Guardians Japan, an organization that virtually connects schoolchildren with elected lawmakers in order to bring youth concerns into the political sphere. Now 20 years old, Kawasaki still designs technical systems that help everyday people keep in touch with their political representatives, while also petitioning Japanese government bodies to pass online safety laws and reduce kids’ exposure to cyberbullies.
Anya Khera
Age: 18
Social handle: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anyakhera/
She’s a high school senior on the verge of graduation, but she’s also a lawmaker. As a member of the legislative body for the town of Wellesley, Massachusetts, Anya Khera is one of the youngest elected officials in the country, having won her second bid for office after her first town run, in 2024, failed. Khera has a passion for increasing youth political participation and representation at all levels, something she argues could be achieved by lowering the voting age to 16 for local elections.
Rosie Couture
Age: 21
Social handle: https://www.instagram.com/rosieecouture/
The long-obstructed fight to add the Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution has never ended. While Joe Biden was president, Harvard student Rosie Couture led a public campaign with her organization, Feminist Generation, to finally enshrine explicit protections for women and LGBTQ+ Americans in the law of the land. The ERA is once again out of reach for a while, thanks to the new president. But Couture has continued to battle against sexism at a micro scale—most prominently by posting a video from Larry Summers’ Harvard class, publicizing his halfhearted response to the revelation of his gross emails with Jeffrey Epstein, that finally got the man to resign altogether.
The Gen Z Nepal Protesters
Ages: 14–29
Social handle: n/a
Nepalese Zoomers, already sick of Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli’s infamously corrupt government, finally had it when the administration enacted an all-out social media ban, shuttering many platforms where the people of Nepal shed light upon Oli’s wealth-flaunting and familial favoritism. Using VPNs to coordinate in a common Discord server, youth protesters soon rose up en masse against the Oli regime, facing down fatal police attacks in response. The international outrage spurred the government's resignation, along with the election of a millennial prime minister, ex-rapper Balendra Shah.
School-walkout ICE protesters
Ages: 6–18
Social handle: n/a
Among the most heartbreaking accounts of ICE’s brutality: stories of immigrant kids detained by agents at their high schools, in the middle of class time, right in front of their friends. Who, in turn, have organized walkouts across the country to demand those students be returned home, and for ICE to stay off school property. Some districts have suspended these kids, while others are retaliating against their parents for encouraging the walkouts. That hasn’t stopped the tactic from persisting, and spreading.
Ella Ward
Age: 22
Social handle: n/a
For all the U.K.’s professed commitment to free speech rights, it has been unusually harsh on climate-action groups like Just Stop Oil, known for disruptive public tactics like throwing soup on Van Gogh exhibits. Ella Ward, an environmentalist from Leeds, has become the face of this repression: sentenced to 18 months in prison for merely planning to disrupt gas-guzzling air traffic by gluing themselves to a Manchester Airport taxiway, given probationary conditions that prohibit her from associating freely with friends, tagged and monitored with a curfew at her parents’ house. Still, none of it is stopping her from speaking out about the climate crisis.
Tanjina Tammim Hapsa
Age: 20
Social handle: https://www.facebook.com/tanjinatammim.hapsa/
When Bangladesh’s students rose up against President Sheikh Hasina’s dictatorial rule in 2024, there was a lot going against them. Hasina had been in power for decades, having just been reelected in a corrupted process; she maintained the neighboring Indian government; her police forces were unafraid to use tear gas and heavy machinery to stamp out dissent, sometimes fatally. Nevertheless, led by protest coordinator Tanjina Tammim Hapsa, the students persisted and forced Hasina to resign and flee the country. There’s a new government now, one that’s working on constitutional amendments and referenda to restore Bangladesh’s democracy. And that’s thanks to the movement Hapsa led.
Brigitta Maria Andrea Gunawan
Age: 21
Social handle: https://www.instagram.com/tata_andrea28/
Brigitta Maria Andrea Gunawan hasn’t forgotten about the coral reefs. Even as climate change, acidification, and pollution ravage these oceanic ecosystems, Gunawan has led a charge within her native Indonesia to educate her fellow citizens on how these natural wonders affect everybody, and why they need to be protected. She’s gone on to found orgs like 30x30 Indonesia, to advocate for marine protection and preservation, and Diverseas, to provide virtual educational resources for more Indonesians to learn about and explore the vast waters right off their coasts.
Jacob Baluyot
Age: 20
Social handle: https://www.facebook.com/jacobbbaluyot/
The Philippines’ constitution mandates freedom of the press, yet that basic democratic right has long remained elusive within the nation. Ask Jacob Baluyot, an associate editor for the Polytechnic University of the Philippines’ official student newspaper, who was subpoenaed by Filipino police for covering September’s massive anti-corruption protests—and accused of fomenting the ensuing clashes with the cops. Baluyot has remained defiant against this legal intimidation, even as the feds file cases against him and investigate his paper. Because someone has to make sure the government lives up to its promises.
Aminata Savané
Age: 25
Social handle: https://www.instagram.com/mlle_sy/
It’s one thing to own a smartphone; it’s another to know how to make the best use of it. Cellphone adoption and connection within Côte d’Ivoire are at all-time highs, but many of the country’s less-privileged populations—women and girls, people with disablities—often don’t take advantage of the tech, as they’ve often never been informed of the opportunities. That’s Aminata Savané’s job as vice president of Centre Marée de Lumière: running a “Women’s Digital Tour” that trains hundreds of Ivorians in digital-literacy skills and sets them up to run their own businesses or become social media influencers.
Eva Lighthiser
Age: 20
Social handle: https://www.instagram.com/evalighthiser/
What do you do when you’re a teen who feels their entire future is being foreclosed, thanks to the climate crisis, and no one’s doing anything to solve it? You can make like Eva Lighthiser and bring those negligent authorities to court. In 2020, she joined 15 other Montanan kids in suing their coal-dusted home state, successfully arguing it had failed to live up to the local constitution’s promise of a “clean and healthful environment.” Lighthiser then sued the Trump administration last year over its attacks on renewable energy. That case was tossed, but the judge pointed out she had a sound argument for legally defining climate change as a “children’s health emergency.” Expect another court filing soon.
Ibanomonde Ngema
Age: 23
Social handle: https://www.tiktok.com/@ibanomonde/
Ibanomonde Ngema only found out she’d been living her whole life with HIV at the age of 7. As she grew into her 20s, the South African creator gained a following on TikTok by showing off her daily life and routines, helping to destigmatize the global perception of people with HIV/AIDS:telling stories of her treatments, answering questions from her commenters, and debunking stereotypes. As cuts to PEPFAR and aid programs threaten to reverse global progress in treating HIV/AIDS, perspectives like Ngema’s remain all the more important.
Student Workers of Columbia
Ages: 18–26
Social handle: https://x.com/SW_Columbia
Represented by United Auto Workers, the Student Workers of Columbia union includes more than 3,000 members from the school’s graduate and undergraduate classes. Having faced down Columbia University management in a fraught 2021–22 contract negotiation round that fueled a series of strikes, the union is rising up once again, demanding better wages and health care—and holding a successful strike authorization vote in early March. Serving as a prominent example for myriad other college unions also taking to the picket lines, the SWC-UAW’s forthcoming actions will once again influence the future of student labor in America.
