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Jonathan De Caro is a 4x award winning 17 year old Connecticut born student named a Prudential Emerging Visionary, 2025 Coca-Cola Scholar, Ashoka Young Changemaker, and America's Top 100 Students by Disney.

De Caro has grown up in the small town of Moodus, Connecticut raised by Brazilian immigrants where he attends high school in the city of Hartford at CREC Magnet Schools.

He has worked on various public health, development, and equity projects as founder of One Loan Fund, a public charity for women and children, and as the youngest United Nations Global Goals Ambassador in history.

He plans to enter college in the fall of 2025 where he will study to become a doctor of nursing practice to lead a career on the ground -- bridging gaps in public health and economics.

JONATHAN DE CARO

My Story

MEET JONATHAN

Growing up in Brazil, my family’s home was always just a street corner away from a favela. On our weekly drives to the market, I would peer out of my grandma’s car window and see a world divided—crumbling slums stacked upon each other gave way to pristine mansions with towering fences and glistening fountains. Walls separated millions who couldn't afford healthcare from those who could. It was there, in those stark contrasts, where I became invested in inequality and access to healthcare from a young age.

When my family immigrated to the United States, we settled in Moodus, Connecticut—a rural town that exposed me to a different but equally devastating form of poverty. Here, I saw families forced to choose between paying for prescriptions or putting food on the table. I watched seniors delay critical surgeries because they simply couldn’t afford them. I realized that, whether in the favelas of Brazil or the farmlands of Connecticut, healthcare was a privilege—not a right.

These experiences shaped me. They opened my eyes to the reality that healthcare—especially for those society too often ignores. But more than that, they ignited a fire in me—a relentless drive to challenge this injustice, to fight for those left behind in our healthcare system.

I knew that vulnerable people needed someone to fight for them and that's exactly what I've set out to do.

What I've Done

A DIFFERENCE MAKER

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I haven't waited to create change—I have a history of being a difference-maker in my community.

Returning to Brazil over the summer, I pored over data, studied maps, and, most importantly, spoke with women living in poverty in rural communities. I saw firsthand that their struggles weren’t due to a lack of hard work but rather a deeply flawed and underdeveloped welfare system that kept them trapped. I treated these women like family—calling them, listening to their stories, and welcoming them into my home. Through these connections, I realized how systemic barriers kept them in poverty, left them without healthcare, and made their families more vulnerable to illness. When I returned home, I knew I couldn’t stay silent—I had to take action.

That's when I came up with One Loan Fund, a financial platform that provides microloans to unbanked rural women in Latin America, with the goal of fostering better access to vaccines, healthcare, and sustainable financial security. With a team of 30+ other youth changemakers, we've helped more than 300 women gain access to economic and healthcare resources.

I learned that millions could benefit from my voice and advocacy, which is why I fought to bring my ideas to the United Nations. There, I was appointed the youngest UN Global Goals Ambassador in history. At the UN, I advocated for Latino and Hispanic healthcare needs globally, fighting for a world where more people have access to sustainable healthcare infrastructure and quality care by 2030. I worked alongside UN policymakers and legislators to edit and push forward impactful resolutions.

I didn’t just fight globally—I fought right here at home. After hearing the stories of Latinos in my community who couldn’t access healthcare, I went to my state’s capital to urge legislators to vote against harmful policies that would reduce funding for nurses in underserved areas. But high-level health legislators didn’t necessarily take a teenager seriously when it came to policymaking, dismissing me with the notion that I should “wait until I’m older,” that “someone else will take care of it,” and that “I can’t make change at my young age.”

Regardless, I pushed forward in my mission to make my community healthier. I refused to be complacent. I worked with other youth leaders to launch the first advocacy group of its kind—the Connecticut Public Health Youth Advisory Board—giving young people across the state the opportunity to write letters, testify, and make their voices heard on health policy.

For my work, I was named a Prudential Emerging Visionary, Disney Dreamer, and Coca-Cola Scholar.

My experiences have taught me that so many more people—patients and marginalized communities alike—need my passion and advocacy. As a clinician on the ground, I know I can create an even greater impact.

What I'm Doing Next

INVEST IN IMPACT

My dream is to graduate from Boston College’s nursing program, a Top 10 Nursing program, and become a critical care nurse, in the ICU serving the patients who need me most—underserved Hispanic and Latino communities in urban and rural areas. These communities are often overlooked, their health needs dismissed, and their lives put at risk simply because of where they live or the language they speak. I refuse to let that continue.

With my clinical skills, education, and unwavering passion, I will be more than just a nurse—I will be an advocate, a protector, and a fighter for historically neglected patients in the ICU, where every decision can mean the difference between life and death.

But my mission extends far beyond the bedside. I plan to become an advanced practice doctor of nursing, providing specialized care to those who have long been denied it. Eventually I hope to use my advanced skills to serve as a nurse in the military, using my skills to give back to our country and one day hope to open my own practice that ensures Hispanic and Latino patients—regardless of their financial stituation—receive the high-quality healthcare they deserve.

And I’m not stopping there. I will take my experiences from the frontlines of healthcare to the halls of government, using my voice to push for policies that protect the vulnerable, uplift the forgotten, and reshape healthcare into something truly equitable. Too many decisions about healthcare are made by people who have never had to fight for a patient’s life. I will change that.