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Discover the individuals shaping a better tomorrow! From tireless human rights advocates to scientific pioneers, these heroes have changed our world through courage, innovation, and unwavering dedication. Join us as we celebrate the remarkable people whose compassion, brilliance, and determination have sparked movements, saved lives, and inspired millions worldwide.
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00:00How many more generations are you willing to sacrifice?
00:05How long will you make girls wait for what you have promised?
00:10Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for 10 21st century figures
00:15from around the world who have made or are trying to make the world a better place.
00:20I said I'd become a donor when I turned 18, and so two days after I turned 18, I made my first donation.
00:2610. Bryan Stevenson
00:29I've argued a bunch of cases before the United States Supreme Court, and each time I go, I stand there in front of the court.
00:37I read what it says about equal justice under law.
00:41In a world full of big talkers, Bryan Stevenson is a man of action.
00:45A civil rights lawyer, he spent decades fighting for those wrongfully convicted, unfairly sentenced, and systemically overlooked.
00:52He founded the Equal Justice Initiative to take on that fight.
00:56Stevenson has argued before the Supreme Court, challenged racial bias and sentencing, and helped save over 130 people from the death penalty.
01:04His work isn't just legal, it's deeply human.
01:07I think it's a flawed logic to say we're going to kill people to show that killing is wrong.
01:12He's dedicated to educating Americans on the legacy of racial injustice through best-selling books, documentaries, and a landmark museum and memorial in Montgomery, Alabama.
01:22Stevenson has devoted his life to reshaping how we understand justice and mercy.
01:26His mission is simple but revolutionary.
01:29Quote,
01:29The other things we are create an opportunity to do things that are restorative, that are rehabilitative, that are redemptive.
01:40Number 9, Kailash Sartyarthi.
01:43Over 200,000 children are reported missing in India. One man is leading a crusade to find as many as he can.
01:51Kailash Sartyarthi didn't just speak out against child slavery, he stormed the doors.
01:56A former engineer, he turned to activism and began a crusade to end child labor, trafficking, and abuse in India.
02:03Sartyarthi has himself helped successful raids liberate children from forced labor.
02:08Nobody talked about trafficking. This phrase was not used.
02:13Because India did not have any law. India still does not have any law against trafficking.
02:18His movement, Bajpan Bacau Andalan, has freed close to 100,000 kids.
02:24That's less of a statistic and more of a revolution.
02:27Sartyarthi doesn't just fight to end child labor, he fights to restore childhood to kids.
02:32His work has built schools, sparked global marches, and reshaped laws.
02:36In 2014, he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with none other than Malala herself.
02:42Where others looked away, Sartyarthi kicked the door down, giving thousands of children a second chance.
02:48My only aim in life is that every child is free to be a child.
02:56Number 8. Dr. Paul Farmer Most doctors treat disease.
03:00Paul Farmer treated the systems that let it spread.
03:04As co-founder of Partners in Health, he delivered cutting-edge care to the world's poorest communities.
03:09He touched millions of lives, advanced global health equity, and fundamentally changed the way health care is delivered in the most impoverished places on Earth.
03:18Countries and communities that had long been written off by the global health establishment received health care for the first time, from Haiti to Rwanda.
03:26He built clinics and trained local staff.
03:28Partners in Health proved that high-quality care is a moral obligation, not a luxury.
03:33Farmer's work wasn't about charity, but equity.
03:36He challenged how medicine is taught, funded, and delivered.
03:40His sudden death in 2022 left a void.
03:42But his radical idea endures.
03:44Geography should never determine who gets to live.
03:47Today, the non-profit he co-founded, Partners in Health, is one of the largest in the world.
03:53In the past year alone, it provided over 2 million women's health check-ups and nearly 3 million outpatient visits to clinics in regions from Africa to Europe and Latin America.
04:03Number 7. Greta Thunberg This is all wrong.
04:08I shouldn't be up here.
04:11I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean.
04:14Skipping school was always the purview of slackers, until a 15-year-old in Sweden made it a call to action.
04:21Greta Thunberg's solitary climate strike outside the Swedish parliament lit a fire that swept across the world.
04:27What do we want?
04:28Climate action!
04:29When do we want it?
04:30Now!
04:31Millions of students joined her, demanding action in the face of environmental collapse.
04:36Armed with facts, fury, and zero patience for empty promises, she stood before presidents, parliaments, and the UN, and called them out.
04:44Her speeches are clipped, unsparing, and impossible to ignore.
04:48Whether you see her as a hero or a thorn in the system's side, one thing is clear.
04:53Greta made climate change personal, urgent, and loud.
04:56What one thing would you like them to take away from this?
05:00What one thing would you like them to do?
05:02Everyone can make a huge difference.
05:05We should not underestimate ourselves.
05:08Number 6.
05:09Tarana Burke
05:09I wanted to pour myself into this moment and tell you why even the possibility of healing or interrupting sexual violence was worth standing and fighting for.
05:20Long before hashtags and headlines, Tarana Burke was helping survivors heal.
05:25A civil rights activist and community organizer, Burke coined the phrase, Me Too, in 2006.
05:31Back then, she was supporting black girls and women who had experienced sexual violence through Just Be Incorporated.
05:38But the progress is the fact that these people can be heard and taken seriously, and that didn't happen even five years ago.
05:47Over a decade later, the two-word phrase exploded into a global reckoning, empowering millions to speak out.
05:53But Burke's work goes deeper than viral moments.
05:56She built support systems, led workshops, and challenged institutions to face their failures.
06:01We also try to teach survivors to not lean into their trauma, but to lean into the joy that they curate in their lives instead.
06:10For her, it was less about celebrity and more about solidarity.
06:14Tarana Burke didn't just launch a movement.
06:16She reminded the world that healing is power, and that saying, Me Too, can be the first step toward justice.
06:24She has been a bulwark of German politics for nearly two decades.
06:29But after 13 years as chancellor and 18 years as the conservative CDU party leader,
06:34Angela Merkel says she's ready to hand over the baton.
06:37In a world of bluster and bombast, Angela Merkel led with restraint, reason, and quiet strength.
06:43As Germany's first female chancellor, she steered Europe's largest economy through one crisis after another.
06:49She faced financial collapse, a refugee emergency, Brexit, a U.S. president determined to cede global leadership, and a pandemic.
06:57Merkel's advocates say it is her skill as a manager that has defined her premiership,
07:02an ability to seek compromise into the wee hours, and present a steady hand at the helm during times of crisis.
07:10Where others chased headlines, Merkel built trust.
07:13She opened Germany's doors to over a million refugees.
07:16She championed science during COVID, and she helped keep the European Union from fracturing.
07:21Though rarely flashy, her leadership reshaped modern Europe, and redefined what power could look like.
07:26Steady, principled, and deeply human.
07:30Merkel didn't just lead Germany, she became the de facto leader of the free world when others fell short.
07:36Number 4. Jose Andres.
07:38I was asking people to keep the restaurants open, to feed people in need.
07:44When disaster strikes, chef Jose Andres and his team don't wait for permission, they just show up with a kitchen.
07:50The celebrated chef-turned-humanitarian has redefined what disaster relief looks like.
07:55His organization, World Central Kitchen, delivers hot meals everywhere, from the sites of natural disasters to war zones.
08:03What was the moment that the idea of the World Central Kitchen first came to you? What was the impetus?
08:08I think the moment began really in the moments of inaction.
08:12Watching what happened in Katrina, when we had thousands of American citizens at the Superdome, and seems nobody was there feeding them.
08:21Earthquakes, wildfires, bombs. If people are hungry, he's there to feed them.
08:26He's fed millions in Puerto Rico, Ukraine, Gaza, Maui, and beyond.
08:31His strike team is so nimble, they often beat governments and big NGOs to the front lines.
08:36Andres proved that food isn't just nourishment. He's there to bring dignity, comfort, and solidarity to those who are suffering.
08:44We are a food nation. We are a humanity of food. Without food, we're nothing.
08:48Number three. James Harrison.
08:50I said I'd become a donor when I turned 18, and so two days after I turned 18, I made a first donation.
08:55It's not often that an average Joe can say they've saved millions of lives.
09:01But that's exactly what James Harrison did. A living cure.
09:04After a life-saving transfusion as a teenager, he vowed to pay it forward.
09:09For over 60 years, he donated blood nearly every week.
09:13But Harrison's wasn't just any blood. It was as close to magic blood as a human can have.
09:19His blood contained a rare antibody used to create a treatment for rhesus incompatibility, a condition that can be fatal to newborns.
09:28His donations helped develop Anti-D, a shot credited with saving over 2 million babies.
09:34Nicknamed the man with the golden arm, Harrison quietly became one of the most impactful donors in medical history.
09:41His family says he passed away at the age of 88, leaving behind a life-saving legacy.
09:46Number 2. Catalin Carrico and Drew Wiseman
09:50We were both completely open-minded. Any data that we didn't understand, and there was a lot of it, we sat down.
09:57We kept doing experiments. We kept getting results. We kept getting excited by the results.
10:03They weren't household names, but their work changed the world.
10:06For years, Catalin Carrico and Drew Wiseman toiled in obscurity, refining a technology most researchers had written off.
10:13mRNA. They had discovered that you could modify mRNA to safely teach the body to fight disease.
10:21It was all an interesting academic exercise until the world faced a once-in-a-century global pandemic.
10:28Katie lit the match, and we spent the rest of our 20-plus years working together, figuring out how to get it to work.
10:39As it turned out, Carrico and Wiseman's research was the key to fighting COVID-19.
10:44Their mRNA research helped churn out vaccines at record speed.
10:48Their research saved millions, drastically cut down lockdown times, and saved the global economy.
10:54Today, their breakthrough is now reshaping treatments for cancer, HIV, and beyond.
11:00I never sit back and rest on laurels. I'm always moving forward. I'm always moving on to the next disease, the next vaccine, the next therapeutic. And that's just the way I think.
11:11Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
11:15Nadia Murad. She escaped ISIS, turning her trauma into global advocacy for women and girls.
11:21I had to do something. I was thinking that if I tell the world my story, they will act and rescue other women and children.
11:30Boyan Slott. At the age of 18, he invented a system to clean the oceans and founded the Ocean Cleanup.
11:37However, I believe the Great Pacific Garbage Patch can completely clean itself in just five years.
11:46Dr. Dennis McWaigge. He treats survivors of sexual violence and advocates worldwide for justice and healing.
11:53With this Nobel Prize for Peace, I call the world to be a witness.
11:59And I encourage you to join us to end this suffering that makes a lot of shame to our common humanity.
12:09Dr. Mona Hanna. She exposed the Flint water crisis and fights to protect children from lead poisoning.
12:15The folks in charge kept saying everything was all right and there was no problems.
12:19I mean, all the moms and the activists and the journalists and the water scientists were being discredited.
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12:40Number one. Malala Youshafzai.
12:43Conflict and violence in countries like Ethiopia, Ukraine, and other countries are keeping girls like Yelizavata out of the classroom.
12:55She spoke up for girls' education in Pakistan.
12:58When the Taliban tried to silence her with a bullet, they only amplified her voice.
13:03Malala Youshafzai not only survived the attack, she became the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate in history.
13:08Through it all, Dr. Reynolds notes of her young patient.
13:11I have never seen Malala cry. Never.
13:14She is incredibly stoical.
13:16In many parts of the world, girls are denied education due to poverty, patriarchy, and extreme violence.
13:22Entire communities are robbed of their potential.
13:25Educated girls are more likely to lift families out of poverty, lead healthier lives, and transform their societies.
13:32From a school bus in Pakistan to the halls of the UN, Malala turned her personal fight into a global movement.
13:38Through the Malala Fund, she's helped open classrooms, change laws, and inspire millions.
13:43Her message is simple. Every girl deserves an education.
13:47When you leave this room today, please ask yourselves, how many more generations are you willing to sacrifice?
13:56How long will you make us wait for what you have promised?
14:02Anyone can change the world.
14:04So who do you think deserves a spot on this list?
14:07Let us know in the comments below.
14:08Harrison's daughter saying in a statement that her father was very proud to have saved so many lives without any cost or pain.
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