Olivia Owen, founder of education charity EduHaitian

In 2010, Olivia travelled to Haiti to contribute to relief efforts in the wake of the country’s devastating earthquake. Having fallen in love with the country, she founded EduHaitian, a charity that matches children with sponsors who pay for their education. She was recently named one of 25 fellows in the London hub of Sandbox - a global organisation which supports extraordinary young achievers under 30.

"My fundraising work has been a huge highlight of the last few years. Some events include: black tie balls, cycling the length of the UK, speaking tours of primary schools, privately hosted events and army assault courses. I have done all sorts to enable the children in our programme to receive the gift of an education and I love finding new and challenging ways to inspire people to raise money. In total I have raised something in the region of £25,000, and that is set to increase dramatically as we are re-launching our programme.

Working in the field for two years taught me a lot, but I needed to understand how the world works. After coming to visit Goldsmiths and meeting the tutors, I knew this was the place I wanted to study. I could see they valued my experience and appreciated I had been on a different path to others and wasn’t your typical academic. It was a good decision and studying at Goldsmiths has been absolutely wonderful. The best thing is the way the academic teaching staff encourage you to think for yourself about issues and value all opinions. Another huge benefit I feel is the multi-diversity among the students, it brings a whole other dimension to political debates. To me, this is a true representation of how the world actually is: diverse. A classroom at Goldsmiths reflects time spent in the field in Haiti."