“It’s a peculiar profession,” Margareta Wahlström says when asked about her life as a humanitarian aid worker. Wahlström has worked in crisis situations from Vietnam to Cambodia to Afghanistan, and she held high-level positions at both the United Nations and the Swedish Red Cross. Along with a stressful work culture that often rewards a certain workaholic “cowboy” mentality, the “peculiarities” of humanitarian work also mean that women are less likely than men to reach decision-making positions. Thanks in part to Wahlström, that is changing. Her consistent advocacy for gender equity is one reason she was recently awarded The Henry Dunant Medal, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement’s highest honor.

Young people do not fit into “cookie-cutter” stereotypes, says Michelle Chew, IFRC’s newly elected Youth Commission Chair. “Young people are very diverse and only by valuing and accepting all forms of young people can we engage communities properly.” While young people are gaining influence, she says efforts to engage with youth can seem like “box-checking exercises” that end up turning young people away. As someone with experience as a front-line volunteer with Malaysian Red Crescent ambulance crews, she says she’ll do her best to ensure the voices of young, community-based first responders are represented in the strategies, plans and decisions made by IFRC’s Governing Board.

When Bas van Rossum was elected to represent youth on the Governing Board of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), he was the youngest person to have ever served in that role. Now as he steps down as president of IFRC’s Youth Commission, he talks about the challenges ahead. “Young people are perhaps the closest to the front lines,” he says, during a special episode recorded during the IFRC Youth Forum. “So it's really important that we listen to young volunteers and that we give them space to really shape the direction we're heading.”