A 22-year-old Latvian is among winners of a YouthActionNet award for leading social change. Aksels Ribenis, a member of the Latvian Medical Students Association, received the USD 500 award for his work in educating the public about the risk of cancer and heart disease, the nonprofit Baltimore, Md.-based International Youth Foundation announced.

His work involves organizing medical students to travel to various Latvian cities to offer free medical screening and education.

A total of 15 awards were made from 200 applications from 53 countries.

YouthActionNet, a joint project of the youth federation and telecommunication company Nokia, began the awards competition in January and plans to continue the program on a semi-annual basis. Further information about the program is available from the YouthActionNet Web site.