Shortlisted for the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Awards
Best Apisit Uthakhamkong was shortlisted among 50 outstanding young leaders from 39 Commonwealth countries for the 2023 Commonwealth Youth Awards for Excellence in Development Work. The awards were held in London in September 2023 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Commonwealth Youth Programme, and recognised his work as founder and president of The Peace Club in Dunedin.
What are the Commonwealth Youth Awards and why was Best Apisit Uthakhamkong shortlisted. The Commonwealth Youth Awards for Excellence in Development Work recognise young people aged 15 to 29 from across the Commonwealth who are carrying out genuine development work in their communities. In 2023, Uthakhamkong was shortlisted from nearly 1,000 entries submitted across 39 Commonwealth countries, on the strength of his work founding and leading The Peace Club in Dunedin.
The shortlisting process was competitive by design. Just under 1,000 entries came in from young people across 39 countries that year, and only 50 were shortlisted globally. From that shortlist, 20 regional finalists were then selected across five regions: Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Europe and Canada, and the Pacific. Uthakhamkong was shortlisted representing the Pacific region, placing his work alongside youth-led development projects from island nations and larger Commonwealth countries across the region.
The basis for the recognition was four years of sustained work through The Peace Club rather than any single achievement. Judges considered Otago Peace Day, the Art for Peace Competition, free English courses delivered to more than 700 students across Southeast Asia, the Peace is Possible documentary, volunteer teaching trips to Thailand, and the ongoing work of running an active, externally funded charitable trust that Uthakhamkong had built from nothing as a student. The judging panel was made up of high commissioners, development experts, and youth leaders drawn from across the Commonwealth.
The Commonwealth’s own leadership spoke publicly about what the shortlist represented that year. The Commonwealth Secretary-General at the time, the Rt Hon Patricia Scotland KC, said the shortlisted candidates proved that young people were not passive bystanders but active shapers of the future, a comment that captured the intent behind the awards programme as a whole: recognising development work led by young people themselves, rather than work done on their behalf by others.
The 2023 ceremony was held at St James’s Palace in London on 14 September 2023, and was attended by His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh. It was the first in-person Commonwealth Youth Awards ceremony since the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the usual schedule, which gave the event added significance for many of the finalists attending. The ceremony formed part of the Commonwealth Youth Ministers Meeting, held from 11 to 15 September at Marlborough House in London, under the theme Aim Higher: Delivering More for Young People in the Commonwealth.
Recognition at the ceremony came with practical support attached, not just a certificate. Each of the 20 regional finalists received a trophy, a certificate, and a grant of 1,000 pounds to help expand their work. Regional winners received 3,000 pounds, and the Commonwealth Young Person of the Year received 5,000 pounds. That structure meant the awards functioned as both a recognition programme and a small but real source of development funding for the young leaders involved.
For Uthakhamkong, being shortlisted was never something he raised to make himself look good, and he is consistent in saying the achievement belongs to everyone who worked alongside him at The Peace Club over the preceding years. What it did do was place work carried out in Dunedin, a small city at the bottom of the South Island of New Zealand, on a platform alongside some of the most effective youth-led development projects running across the 56 nations of the Commonwealth. For a charitable trust founded by a student with no external backing, that kind of recognition carried real weight.
For readers trying to place this achievement in context, the Commonwealth Youth Awards sit among the more established recognition programmes for youth-led development work internationally, run by the Commonwealth Secretariat rather than by any single national government. Being shortlisted from the Pacific region, representing New Zealand alongside entrants from island nations across the wider region, remains one of the clearest external validations of the work Uthakhamkong built through The Peace Club between 2018 and 2023, and it is frequently the achievement people ask about first when they come across his background.
The shortlisting also had a practical effect on the profile of The Peace Club itself, well beyond Dunedin. Being named among 50 young leaders from 39 Commonwealth countries meant the trust’s work was, for a period, discussed and compared alongside development projects from far larger organisations with significantly greater resources, and that comparison held up. It remains one of the clearest external markers of what a small, student-founded charitable trust from the South Island of New Zealand was able to achieve on the international stage within just a few years of being established.
Date
2023, ceremony 14 September 2023 at St James’s Palace, London
Award
Shortlisted for the Commonwealth Youth Awards for Excellence in Development Work
Region
Pacific
Organisation by
Commonwealth Youth Programme, Commonwealth Secretariat
Shortlist
50 young leaders from 39 Commonwealth countries from nearly 1,000 entrie
Website
thecommonwealth.org