Fernando David Jaramillo Cevallos
Age 26 – Ecuador
I was born in a rural town close to Quito, Ecuador´s capital. Being raised there, I learned how to survive with only necessities, and to value the most important assets we humans have -relationships. Luckily for me, my family put education as a priority and I got accepted in one of the best schools in Ecuador. Because of my poor and rural background, I chose to study economics in order to disentangle what development really means from a multidimensional perspective. I had the chance to get a master’s degree in economics in The Netherlands last year, and I am currently working on a second master’s degree in development economics in Ecuador. I have a dream (goal) of a united world, and I have worked since I was a little child for that purpose – from the moment I prevented a fight when we used to play soccer in my neighborhood, to the moment I helped organized the “Peace Feast” where we gathered 1500 people in the “Middle of the World” monument to show the world how each of us can help this purpose.