This week, as the summer heat inches up across the northern hemishphere, we’re hosting our youngest guest yet on the podcast. Augusta Barlow is a 14-year old change agent. Born and raised in Maryland in the United States, with family roots in Cape Verde, she believes in assistance through advocacy and service through sharing. She recently completed her freshman year at Northwestern High School, a public comprehensive and magnet school in Hyattsville, Maryland known for its rigorous Center for the Visual and Performing Arts (CVPA) program. This year, in addition to starting high school she took on another new challenge as one of 12 participants globally in The Kuda Vana Partnership International’s, Youth Advocacy Voice Amplifiers-YAVA group which kicked off it’s inaugural cohort in October of 2025. YAVA is KVPI's youth program, where students learn to advocate for the mission and amplify it responsibly online. This cohort is running a capstone project driven by a set of interviews plus a coordinated push to grow the organization's reach the right way. In a why the where teaser, when her mother, friend to the podcast and colleague of our guest in Episode 93, Sef Ashiagbor, suggested she join YAVA so she could use her new Instagram account to help people, she agreed wholeheartedly. When not in school or doing work for YAVA, Augusta enjoys theater, movies, cooking and baking.

Where to find YAVA?
@ KVPI
On Instagram
On TikTok
On YouTube
On GoFundMe

What’s Augusta reading?
None of This Is True by Lisa Jewell

…watching?
The Knives Out Trilogy

…listening to?
Lyn Lapid Music

Other topics of interest:
What is KVPI? Kuda Vana Partnership International is a US nonprofit supporting family-based care for vulnerable children in Zimbabwe, working to strengthen families and communities so fewer children become vulnerable in the first place. Full picture and the Theory of Change: kudavana.org.
Take a culinary tour of Cape Verdean Cuisine

As you'll hear in the beginning of the episode, with the recent devastating floods that happened across Accra on June 28th-29th, conversations like this with young people challenging themselves to action and understanding around issues outside of themselves and their comfort zones, give us hope that the future is in good hands. For information on how you can assist those in need here in Accra visit the following:

Joy FM
Direct Aid

Special Guest: Augusta Barlow.