We talk about young people’s potential a lot. Perhaps more than we should. It celebrates what someone might do, while keeping the doing safely somewhere in the future. Look closer, and young people are already building organizations, restoring ecosystems, questioning systems, and creating solutions, often while figuring it out in real time. 

So perhaps we need to change the question. Not: Do young people have what it takes? But: What does it take to see something that matters, decide to do something about it, and keep going when doing something turns out to be much harder than imagining it? 

It is a fitting question for International Youth Day 2026 and its theme, “Different contexts, common aspirations.” Brigitta and Soumya, two Generation17 young women from Asia and the Pacific, come from very different contexts. But both journeys began in much the same way. They saw something that mattered, and they decided not to leave it there. 

Purpose often starts with what you cannot unsee 

For Brigitta, that something was the ocean. A conservation biologist, founder, researcher, and scientific scuba diver, she works through 30x30 Indonesia and Diverseas on biodiversity, ocean literacy, and conservation, including a scholarship helping young women learn to dive, restore reefs, and advocate for the ocean. 

Soumya found her purpose somewhere very different. At 19, while volunteering in Ghana and Haryana, she met girls missing school because of their periods and women navigating menstruation through shame, silence and misinformation. “What stayed with me was not only the scale of the problem, but how preventable it was,” she says. Those experiences eventually led her to co-found Baala, which works to advance menstrual health and sexual and reproductive health. 

Neither story began with a perfectly mapped-out career plan. Sometimes purpose is simply a problem that follows you home. You see something that is not working, and eventually the question becomes difficult to ignore: what can I do about it? 

Starting from scratch is exactly what it sounds like 

Purpose sounds wonderful when we talk about it afterward. In real time, it looks a lot more like work. Starting from scratch means learning, asking for help, hearing no, making mistakes, changing direction, and trying again. 

Brigitta was still in high school when, less than a year after launching 30x30 Indonesia, she got an opportunity to attend the 2022 United Nations Ocean Conference in Lisbon. She spoke about how ocean conservation can protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030. “It gave me exposure to the UN system, conservation careers, mentors, and friends that continue to shape my journey today,” she recalls. 

Sometimes the right opportunity expands what you believe is possible and asks you to rise to it. 

“Ready” is a moving target 

Young people are often expected to collect more experience and confidence before being trusted with real responsibility. There is a problem with that sequence. Experience comes from being allowed to have experiences. 

Confidence, as Soumya points out, is not always a prerequisite for opportunity. Very often, it is the result of it. “When someone believes in you early, gives you room to try, and allows you to learn through doing, it changes more than what you achieve. It changes what you believe is possible for your life.” 

Young people may never feel entirely ready for the work that matters most. They start anyway. Sometimes they fail. Ideally, they fail forward. They learn, adjust, and take the next step. That is not evidence they are unprepared. That is how they become prepared. 

Potential needs somewhere to go 

Of course, courage cannot do everything. It is easy to tell young people to be resilient and take risks. It is much harder to build environments in which those risks are actually possible. 

Brigitta wishes every young person had access to “quality education that shapes their character, sharpens their minds, empowers their dreams, and transforms their passion into a driving force for action.” Soumya wants every young person to “have their voice heard, their ideas taken seriously, and a genuine role in shaping the future of their communities, countries, and planet.” 

Both point towards something bigger. Young people bring agency to the table, but agency needs an enabling environment in which to move. Education, mentorship, resources and networks matter. So do institutions willing to listen, trust young people and hand over genuine responsibility. 

Because young people have more than potential. They have capacity. 

Different contexts. Not-so-different hopes. 

Brigitta talks about a better future and the freedom to pursue dreams. In her words, “Dreams fuelled by passion is a young person’s superpower.” Soumya puts it another way. Young people are already questioning old systems, solving problems and reimagining what the future could look like. “What they need is not permission to lead, but the trust, resources, and opportunities to turn their ideas into lasting impact.” 

Different experiences, but a common human aspiration underneath: to care about something, to be able to do something about it, and for that effort to matter. In the movie The Lion King, Simba is given a simple reminder: “Remember who you are.” We spend so much time asking who young people will become: future leaders, future innovators, future changemakers. Every now and then, perhaps we should remember who they already are. Through initiatives such as Generation17 and the Youth Moonshot for Asia and the Pacific, UNDP is working to create more opportunities and enabling environments that allow young people to turn that sense of purpose into action. 

Thriving does not mean the road becomes easy, or that young people wake up feeling perfectly ready. It means having enough purpose to start, enough courage to continue, and enough opportunity, trust and support for that effort to go somewhere. 

The future will come. Young people are already working on it, across different contexts, with aspirations that are not so different after all.