Luyando Mutale Katenda is a young Zambian who is passionate about the involvement of young people in governance and sustainable development. In 2008, he was appointed Speaker of the children’s parliament in Zambia through which he participated at a regional youth parliament in South Africa and met the great Nelson Mandela. He was subsequently selected as one of the first four UNICEF child ambassadors in 2008. In 2009, he was selected to attend the Children’s Climate Forum in Copenhagen prior to the COP 15 conference where he was appointed a UNICEF Climate Ambassador, helping to initiate the Zambia children’s climate conference which has trained more than 1000 children across the 10 provinces of Zambia and planted thousands of trees.

Luyando has spoken at several international platforms including TEDxjovem@ibera in Sao Paulo, Brazil at which he was the youngest among 20 speakers. In April 2012, he was invited by the Swedish government to attend the Stockholm +40 partnership forum on sustainable development at which he was a keynote speaker and the youngest delegate. Later that year, he was nominated by UNCEF Zambia to represent Southern Africa at the 3rd Pan-African Forum for Children at the African Union headquarters. In 2014, he also represented Zambia at a commonwealth youth parliament and co–founded an organization called Agents of Change Foundation Zambia that trains Zambian youths in radio skills and creates a platform to discuss and address social challenges like climate change and HIV/AIDS.

Luyando is a proud alumnus of the African Leadership Academy where he was actively involved with the International Relations Council and was a committee Chairperson at the 2016 African Leadership Academy Model African Union (ALAMAU). He is currently a rising sophomore at Michigan State University studying International Relations.