GHVI Founders at the San Diego Live Well Conference and School Summit

On October 22, two seniors of The Bishop's School in La Jolla, California, Allison Moores and Riley Ross, presented at the Live Well Advance Conference and School Summit, hosted by San Diego County Health and Human Services. They were selected as the only youth presenters among regional applicants through a competitive application process for the conference, which brings together local government officials, healthcare professionals, educators, and nonprofit leaders from across the region to share innovative approaches to improving community health.

Allison and Riley represented their nonprofit, the Global HPV Vaccination Initiative (GHVI). Their session, “Peer-to-Peer Education: Youth Voices in HPV Prevention,” explored how student-led education can strengthen communication about the HPV vaccine, which prevents cancers caused by one of the most common viral infections in the world.

The two first developed the idea through The Bishop’s School Social Innovation Competition, where they proposed a model for empowering young people to share credible health information with their peers. That project became GHVI, which now operates in San Diego, Tijuana, and El Salvador. Starting with local partnerships such as Dr. Christopher Miller of The Boys Institute for Growth, who helped distribute their educational materials to families, they later expanded internationally through a collaboration with Dr. Roberto Fogelbach, whose foundation supports vaccine outreach in Latin America.

While presenting in El Salvadoran schools, the girls discovered the power of peer-to-peer messaging firsthand. “When we spoke alongside local teenagers, students stopped fidgeting and leaned in,” Allison and Riley recalled. “They listened differently when the messenger was one of their own.” Their work reached the Ministry of Health of El Salvador, which invited GHVI to expand its educational campaign to 10,000 students. To help meet that goal, they recorded a Spanish-language podcast with a physician that has reached more than 8,000 listeners.

Their program has already helped hundreds of children get vaccinated against HPV, and their Student Ambassador Program continues to train youth to lead health education sessions in their own schools and communities.

Held at the San Diego Convention Center, the Live Well Conference gave Allison and Riley an opportunity to share how a project born at Bishop’s evolved into an international public health initiative. To learn more or to join GHVI’s Student Ambassador Program visit VaccinateAgainstCancer.org

Check out the full presentation here!