Victoria Rojas

Victoria Rojas is 17 years old and lives in Posadas, Misiones, a province in northern Argentina.  Her parents, both teachers, had to work hard to consolidate their home and family. "It was a busy childhood," says Victoria. Years earlier, her grandfather had had to emigrate from Paraguay to Argentina due to political persecution by the dictatorship in that country. 

This did not stop her from carrying out all kinds of experiments and ventures at home and at school. As she was a shy child, her mother decided to take her to the theatre, which greatly enhanced her expressiveness. When she was only 9 years old, together with a classmate, she started GuVic, whose aim was to create stories for children, promoting reading and values. Later she participated in the Robotics School presenting a project to improve the quality of sleep through a pillow with different functions. 

Whenever a subject catches her attention, Victoria explores it to the best of her ability: at the age of 12, she was part of the Infinito por Descubrir science team, where they developed a research project called "the world in a drop"; their object of study was the ecosystems of local rivers.  

Victoria gave her first speech at the Youth Parliament at the age of 15 and was later selected to participate in the Youth Ambassadors 2022 programme. This is a leadership development initiative focused on civic engagement, organised by the US Embassy, which allows outstanding high school students to travel for three weeks to different cities in the United States.   

She is currently in her fifth year at the St. Arnold Janssen Polytechnic Institute No. 0418 as a Master Builder and is looking for an opportunity to give back to her community. For this reason, and as a result of what she learned during the exchange, she created "INNOVATY" (innovation + "aty" - "team" in Guarani) under the motto 'Nonconformists innovating in community'. "To go beyond words and take action when we identify a problem", Victoria defines the motto. It is a network of young people that seeks to promote transformative agents and whose goals are to lower the barrier of misinformation by democratising access to opportunities. A network with the capacity to use the synergy of contacts and combine it with the energy and innovation of young people. There are 12 volunteers from 7 provinces between 15 and 18 years old, working in 4 areas: welfare, logistics, communication and financing. 

She is now preparing to travel to Dubai to attend the "Change the World Model United Nations" programme in which hundreds of students from all over the world will participate to debate the main issues on the international political agenda. Her entire educational community has become involved in the cause and through various initiatives, they are raising funds for Victoria's trip in October. Since 2021, she has been participating in various Model United Nations events and, together with her classmate, has won first place in the province and three honourable mentions.