Younited Graduation 2026 – Thank You For Making it Possible

By Nurit Gery

On Thursday, we celebrated the graduation of an extraordinary cohort — 58 graduates who joined us just before October 2023. They were with us during some of the most challenging years in the history of this country. They helped us get through these difficult times!

What defined the evening was the love in the room.

Hundreds filled the hall — including, for the first time, seven ambassadors!!

For us, the highlight of the evening was the speech delivered by three graduates on behalf of their cohort. We feel their words encapsulate the essence of the Younited community and promise for the future. Enjoy these excerpts:

We built something rare, something people spend their whole lives searching for.

What brought us together wasn’t a shared language, or a shared flag, or even a shared opinion on whether the dining hall rice was acceptable. What brought us together was showing up. For each other. Every single day. In a world that told us our differences were reasons to stay apart, we chose to make them reasons to find out more.

And that means we carry a responsibility now. Not the kind that sits on your shoulders like pressure, but the kind that sits in your chest like purpose. Because if a group as unlikely, diverse, and beautifully chaotic as ours can build real connection, then no one gets to say it’s impossible out there.
We are proof that it is possible.

So wherever we go next, we will remember this: we don’t get to control the world we inherit, but we absolutely get to shape the world we create.
What we built here doesn’t end today. It becomes the way we move through the world. It becomes the quiet, steady proof that connection is stronger than division.

And maybe, years from now, when the world feels heavy or hopeless, we’ll remember Younited, these faces, this moment. And we’ll remember that once, in a small corner of the world, a group of people who were never supposed to understand each other – did!

(Ori and Yousuf from Israel, Anna and Maria from Venezuela and PeeJay from Liberia)

Thank you again for being such an important part of making it happen.

Much love,

Clare and Nurit