At 24, she's already trained 5,000 youth leaders across Latin America

Shirley Santana Herrera grew up in La Romana, Dominican Republic, watching capable kids get locked out of opportunity by an under-resourced education system. She could have accepted that as how things work. Instead, at 24, she's built a platform that's already shifted the trajectory for thousands of them.

Excelsior Academy started as a simple idea: give underserved and first-generation students across Latin America access to leadership training, academic support, and mentorship they wouldn't otherwise find. Five years in, it's served over 5,000 students from 15 countries—Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, and beyond. The completion rate sits at 90%, which matters because it means people stay engaged.

But the real metric is what happens after. Excelsior alumni are four times more likely to secure full-ride scholarships for university than their peers. In the last three years alone, participants have collectively earned at least $250,000 in scholarships. That's not just money—that's the difference between a closed door and an open one.

What sets Excelsior apart is what Shirley calls compound impact. She's noticed something that most education programs miss: when you train a young person with real leadership skills and give them access to opportunity, they don't stop at personal success. They go back to their communities and replicate what they learned. Ninety-five percent of Excelsior alumni go on to launch their own initiatives—youth programs, climate resilience projects, community-driven work. The empowerment doesn't end with them. It spreads.

She's also founded Voces de la Tierra (Voices of the Earth), a climate governance initiative that does something similarly practical: it trains young people to actually participate in environmental policy conversations in their regions. Not as observers. As advocates. It's the kind of work that bridges the gap between what climate goals look like on a global scale and what they need to look like in vulnerable communities on the ground.

The Kofi Annan Foundation has taken notice. So have other institutions that recognize what Shirley's building isn't just a program—it's a movement with staying power, rooted in trust and mission rather than hype.

What's happening next matters less than what's already underway: thousands of young people across Latin America now have the skills, connections, and belief that their leadership actually counts. And they're proving it.