By Yurem Tatiana Torres Benítez 

Team Leader at Yo le Aplico-Colombia

(Opportunity Center for the

comprehensive citizenship education)

When we think about our future as young people, we almost always hear phrases like “pursue your dreams,” “seek opportunities,” or “achieve your goals.” And of course, it’s true: we need to make our way in an increasingly competitive world. However, we rarely ask ourselves something essential: What would happen if, in addition to seeking opportunities, we decided to be someone else’s opportunity?

I need some solid statistics here. This doesn't mean a lack of talent, it means a lack of access. And that gap isn't closed with speeches alone; it's closed with support networks and young people who understand they can multiply what they receive.

With the Yo le aplicao Foundation, which I founded in 2023, I have learned precisely that. Our purpose is to close the information gaps that limit access to basic, higher, and supplementary education for vulnerable communities and people with limited resources in Colombia, and along with this, to enhance not only their personal growth but also their quality of life.

We have accompanied students, ancestral knowledge holders, people outside the education system (young people and adults with potential), communities and professionals who did not know where to go, who did not know about scholarships, training programs or resources available at the national or local level. The most powerful thing has been to see how, after receiving guidance, these same people end up sharing the information and become ambassadors of opportunities in their own environments.

That's why I say it's not just about "achieving" something for yourself, but about sharing what we learn along the way. When a young woman receives a scholarship and then helps someone else apply, she's changing two lives at the same time. When a young man finds a training opportunity and tells his community about it, he's opening a door that multiplies the benefits. That's the logic of being an opportunity: shifting from an individual vision to a collective one.

Today I want to invite my readers to consider this: just as you seek a scholarship, a job, an internship, or a mentor, you too can be that bridge for someone else. Being an ambassador of opportunity means not keeping what we know to ourselves, but sharing it, multiplying it, and putting it to use for the common good.

Youth is not just a time for competition; it's also a time to build lasting networks and alliances. It's not about waiting for the state or the market to solve everything, but about exercising our civic power through meaningful actions: recommending, guiding, supporting, and motivating.

Ultimately, pursuing opportunities is necessary, but being someone else's opportunity is transformative. And in that transformation lies the key to ensuring that not a single young person is left behind. 

It's also crucial to understand that to create or receive an opportunity, we must prepare ourselves to receive it. Learning opportunities are as broad as they are diverse: they can be a scholarship, an academic exchange, an innovation lab, volunteering, or even a conversation that opens a new perspective on life.

Preparing ourselves means being attentive, training ourselves, strengthening our skills, and being willing to take advantage of these opportunities, since opportunities don't always come wrapped in big announcements; sometimes they appear in everyday life, and only those who are ready manage to turn them into a fundamental piece of social, personal, and collective transformation.