“There’s more power in young people than the people in power” says Brighton Mukupa Kaoma a Mandela Washington Fellow and an agent of change. He is a consultant in Environmental Sustainability, Behavior Change Communication, and a designer and facilitator of organizational change. Brighton is also an entrepreneur who co-founded KIDS Radio in Zambia and Agents of Change Foundation Zambia

Brighton is an outstanding youth leader with a number of awards to his name. In 2016, he received the international Presidents Award- the top Global Accolade from World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) for Young Conservation Champions. Nominations are invited via WWF offices around the world and only one person is selected from over 100 WWF offices globally. Brighton was that one person in 2016.

In 2015 he was awarded the Young Leaders Award by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in England. The award recognizes and celebrates exceptional people aged 18-29 who are taking the lead in their communities and using their skills to transform lives. He has since championed Environmental sustainability across the African Continent. Making him the 2017 UNEP Young Champion of the Earth for Africa.

A recent graduate from the University of Zambia, his meritorious Bachelor’s Degree in Environmental Education is part of his journey to understanding the intersections between Environmental Sustainability and Economic Development. A yearning that started way back in his childhood, growing up in the mining town of Kitwe and being faced with the brunt consequences of pollution.

Brighton’s university journey had been more than just going for classes.  Over the course of his college career, Brighton volunteered with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Infact, Brighton’s activist work started in 2010 while he was in High school. As a young boy he was a climate ambassador with UNICEF and then became a trainer of children as Climate Ambassadors with the mandate of implementing environmental friendly projects, including radio talk shows and tree planting events. In 2013-2014 he served as In-Country Coordinator for the Voices of Youth Programs at UNICEF Zambia. During this time he facilitated youth leadership and conservation conferences and co-designed training curricula for about 1,250 child delegates from across Zambia. 

His interest in radio and children took him to the role of Global Youth Ambassador for the UK, US and Cape Town based Children’s Radio Foundation. The Children’s Radio Foundation and its implementing partner Agents of Change Foundation of which he Co-Founded, has five youth radio projects running across Zambia. He is also the Co-founder and current CEO of Zambia’s first ever children’s radio station called KIDS FM Radio in Zambia. Brighton undertook a year-long Organizational Leadership Program at the Institute for Continuing Education at the University of Cambridge

Through the Young African Leaders Initiative Network (YALI), he attended a Civic Leadership Training in 2017 at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware. It was during this time that he met the former President of the United States of America, Barrack Obama. “Someone tapped me on my shoulder and told that someone wanted to meet me but I had to follow them”.  He gladly accepted and Lo and Behold, it was Obama. An overwhelming moment, he says.

The well accomplished Zambian youth is currently serving as an External consultant to Malmo City Council of Sweden under the Malmo-Lusaka Youth for Change project. Brighton has consulted for a number of institutions in Europe and Africa including University of Cambridge Institute of Continuing Education, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), UNICEF Zambia, Germany Cabinet and the Ministry of Community Development in Zambia.