The people behind the movement

Raissa Rambocus has never been comfortable with the idea that some people get a say and others just have to
live with the consequences. That discomfort, it turns out, is an excellent foundation for building a civic
movement.

A Politics and International Relations student at UCL, she has contributed to UN consultations,
intergovernmental negotiations, and global roundtables on gender equality and the right to development. She
serves as Specialist for Intergovernmental Affairs at the International Youth Council on Gender Equality, sits
on the Executive Committee of the Commonwealth Youth Peace Ambassadors Network, is a Global Youth
Ambassador with Theirworld, and mentors refugee learners in the UK, because she has always understood that doing important things internationally does not excuse you from showing up for the person right in front of you.

She co-founded MLD because she looked at Mauritius and thought someone needs to build this. Then she
looked around and realised she was already the someone. She is still not waiting.

Juan Didier Pierre once sat in a United Nations negotiating room representing 39 countries while also
being a teenager with law school assignments due that week. He is 21. He is an Expert on the UNFCCC
Article 6.4 Supervisory Body, the youngest on the global roster, a Global SIDS Focal Point for the UN
Major Group for Children and Youth, an IPCC Expert Reviewer, a UN CTCN Gender and Climate
Technology Expert, and a Yale Urban Climate Leadership Fellow. His research has been cited in two UN General Assembly reports. He is ranked second in his law cohort at Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas. If
you are feeling slightly tired reading that, imagine being the person who lived it.

But ask him what he is most proud of and he will not mention any of that. He will talk about three laws he
changed at home: universal school internet access, free menstrual products in every school, and increased
student scholarships. Real things, for real people, in the country he grew up in. He is the recipient of the
King Hamad Youth Empowerment Award, first of 8,000 nominations globally in 2026, the WIN WIN
Gothenburg Sustainability Award for Trailblazing Leadership, and a Global Finalist for the Kofi Annan
NextGen Democracy Prize.

He co-founded MLD because he believed Mauritius deserved better and could not find anyone else
building it fast enough. He is also, somehow, still in his first year of university. Make that make sense.

Sania Bibi Khodabux was the first girl to top Royal College Curepipe, earned a State of Mauritius
Scholarship for the 2025 cohort, performed in Urdu theatre to raise awareness about female education,
starred in a short film at the MFDC Intercollege Competition, and walked into the National Fiscal
Consultation 2026 to present a full scholarship reform proposal on behalf of Mauritian students. In her
own words, she also enjoys reading fiction, watching 2000s shows and movies, and sleeping. She is not
trying to be impressive. She just keeps doing impressive things while also being a completely normal
person who appreciates a good nap.

An incoming law student at the University of Warwick, Sania leads MLD’s International Affairs
Commission with a calm, precise energy that tends to catch people off guard. She is the kind of person
who will do serious policy work with complete competence and then go home and rewatch a comfort
show without a shred of guilt.

She joined MLD because she wanted her work to mean something beyond grades and titles. She stays
because it does.

Tatiana Kattic looked at the fact that Mauritius had never held a Local Conference of Youth and decided
that was simply an oversight she could correct. So she did: With the NSC, she secured MUR 1 million in
funding, formed eight institutional partnerships, mobilised over 150 young climate advocates, and ran the whole thing. Mauritius had its first LCOY because Tatiana decided it would. She was also, at the time,
enrolled in a law degree at Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas, because of course she was.

She went on to co-author the 2024 YOUNGO COP29 World Bank climate finance report, graduate from
the Climate Finance Academy, and complete the FXB Climate Advocate Programme. She leads MLD’s
national affairs with the same energy she brings to everything: thorough, determined, and the kind of
quietly unstoppable that only becomes visible once you look back at everything she has already done.

She treats “it has not been done before” as a reason to start, not a reason to stop. MLD is lucky she thinks
that way.

Nikhil Madhav Sewpal is the person who, ten minutes into any meeting, has already identified the
problem nobody else has named yet. He will wait a few more minutes before saying it, just to make sure.
Then he will say it in one sentence and the whole room will go quiet for a second. He has been part of
MLD’s core team since the beginning, which means he has been there for all of it: the early conversations,
the late submissions, and the moments where the strategy needed to shift and someone needed to see it
clearly enough to say so.

He is a researcher and strategist with a rare ability to hold the big picture and the granular detail in his
head at the same time, and has co-authored major submissions across climate, governance, and
development. As Chairperson of the Strategy and Innovation Commission, his job is to make sure MLD
does not just have ambition but has the architecture to deliver on it.

He does not make a lot of noise about what he does. The work tends to speak for itself.

Emilie Soogund has a habit of becoming the first woman to hold a position and then immediately acting
like that is just Tuesday. First female president of her political party’s Environmental and Ecological
Commission. Youngest ever president of the Rotary Club of Vacoas. Published writer on governance
and public policy. Global Shaper under the World Economic Forum. Best Speaker at a Model United
Nations conference. NGO specialist working on direct community impact. Politics and human rights
student at the University of Mauritius. Class representative for Year One. She is also, somewhere in all of that, just a person who gets genuinely frustrated when institutions move slowly and genuinely excited
when they finally do not.

She is an executive member of a nationally governing political party and an alumna of the National Youth
Parliament, which is where she first caught the bug for all of this. She joined MLD because she wanted to
be part of a movement that actually does something rather than just talks about doing something.

At the Political and Civic Engagement Commission, she is doing her best to make democracy feel like
something worth showing up for. Based on her track record, she will probably succeed.

Shayan is a Mauritian climate law and policy specialist whose work spans international climate negotiations, carbon market governance, and sustainable development law. He is currently completing an LL.B. at Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas and holds credentials from Yale University, the University of Oxford, and the University of Cambridge.

At the international level, Shayan serves as a Gender and Climate Technology Expert under the UN Climate Technology Centre and Network, also served as an IPCC Expert Reviewer for the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities and the Methodology Report on Short-lived Climate Forcers and as UNFCCC Article 6.4 Methodological Expert Panel Public Stakeholder. Nationally, he has provided technical consultation to MARENA on Mauritius’s Renewable Energy Strategic Plan 2025-2030, advised on spatial climate adaptation strategy for the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre’s Port Louis consultation, and contributed to sustainable tourism governance at Le Morne Brabant UNESCO World Heritage Site.

He is an Urban Climate Leadership Fellow at Yale University, Hixon Center for Urban Sustainability and and a Climate Specialist to Mauritius with training under the African Group of Negotiators Experts Support (AGNES) programme and also served as SDG12 Global Thematic Focal Point for Sustainable Construction and Development at the UN Major Group for Children and Youth.  His contributions have been cited in two United Nations General Assembly reports; A/80/172 and A/80/182, informing recommendations on corporate accountability and human rights due diligence in the financial sector.

Shayan is a recipient of the Yale Leadership and Impact Award for the Tropical Forest Landscapes program, the World Bank Max Thabiso Edkins Climate Fellowship (2025), and the Africa Finance Corporation Fellowship (2026).

He is also genuinely fun to be in a meeting with, because he will say the quiet part out loud in the most carefully constructed way possible and suddenly the whole room understands what the actual problem is.

Zakiyyah is a Mauritian human rights and climate law specialist whose work bridges international climate governance, environmental justice, and gender-responsive policy. She is currently completing an LL.B. at Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas and holds credentials from Yale University, the University of Oxford, and the University of Cambridge.

At the international level, Zakiyyah serves serves as a Gender and Climate Technology Expert under the UN Climate Technology Centre and Network, also served as an IPCC Expert Reviewer for the Special Report on Climate Change and Cities and the Methodology Report on Short-lived Climate Forcers and as UNFCCC Article 6.4 Methodological Expert Panel Public Stakeholder. Nationally, Zakiyyah has provided legislative recommendations to the Attorney General’s Office of Mauritius on amendments to the Environment Act 2024, and to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions on whistleblower protection legislation. She also contributed to the UNEP Copenhagen Climate Centre’s Port Louis consultation on nature-based solutions for urban climate adaptation.

She is an Urban Climate Leadership Fellow at Yale University, Hixon Center for Urban Sustainability and a Human Rights Specialist to Mauritius who also served as an Ambassador under the Femme LEX Eco-Technology Justice Fellowship. She also served as SDG12 Global Thematic Focal Point for Sustainable Lifestyle and Education at the UN Major Group for Children and Youth, and contributed as a Subject Matter Expert to the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls, recommending on comparative legal analysis on consent frameworks in international surrogacy arrangements. Her contributions have been cited in two United Nations General Assembly reports; A/80/172 and A/80/182, informing recommendations on corporate accountability and human rights due diligence in the financial sector. 

Zakiyyah is a recipient of the Yale Leadership and Impact Award for the Tropical Forest Landscapes program, Whitworth University Minds and Hearts Scholarship and the AGNES Fellowship Cohort XVII.

She leads MLD’s Research and Development Commission because she understands something fundamental: a movement is only as strong as the arguments it can back up, not the ones it feels strongly about, but the ones that hold up when someone who disagrees reads every footnote and tries to find the hole.

Tanvi is finishing a BSc (Hons) in Biological Sciences at the University of Mauritius, which means she
spends a lot of time thinking about islands, ecosystems, and the specific ways humans have a talent for disrupting both. She wants to turn that into a career in island ecology and conservation, combining
research and teaching, because she is one of those rare people who genuinely loves both finding things
out and explaining them to others. She is also a singer and a social media enthusiast, which makes
complete sense once you know her.

At the Rotaract Club of Phoenix she has helped restore mangrove plantations, install rainwater harvesting
systems, facilitate free breast cancer screenings, and run school stationery donation drives. That is not a
list of things she attended. That is a list of things she helped build. There is a difference, and Tanvi knows
it.

At MLD she leads the Education Commission and supports the National Affairs team, because one role
was apparently not enough. She is, as the saying goes, up and coming. Though based on everything she
has already done, she is more accurately described as already here.

Dylan Ecumoir is a brand strategist, social media educator, guest lecturer at Curtin University, and
national-level slam poetry performer. He is also the person single-handedly responsible for making sure
MLD does not communicate like every other youth organisation that has ever posted a sunrise graphic
with a motivational quote. He has spent years thinking seriously about what communication actually is:
not just information transfer, not just aesthetics, but the craft of making someone feel something true
about something real.

He teaches that at InfluenceUp, lectures on it at Curtin, and performs it on stage in a way that has made
audiences feel things they were not expecting to feel at a poetry event. At MLD he leads public presence
and digital identity, represents the organisation at institutional and public events, and shapes the voice of a movement that has a lot worth saying.

He joined because he wanted his skills to mean something beyond metrics and engagement rates. The
slam poetry background should have told everyone he was serious about that from the start.