Aaron and Kaitlin Tait

Aaron and Kaitlin were born in Auckland and San Francisco respectively. In 2001, an eighteen-year-old Kaitlin went to Santa Clara University in Silicon Valley, and Aaron went to war, serving as a young military officer in Iraq. Shortly after he returned, they met at a nightclub in Spain.

Together Aaron and Kaitlin have travelled to 56 countries, built an orphanage in Kenya, turned around a secondary school for street kids in Tanzania and studied five Masters degrees, one of which is from Cambridge University.

In 2011 Aaron and Kaitlin launched Spark International (now ygap), an organisation that has dramatically improved the lives of 40,000 people living in extreme poverty in Africa and the Pacific. They also set up the award-winning organisation Education Changemakers.

More recently, Kaitlin has dedicated her time to a new program yher which looks at empowering women.

The Taits were the winners of the 2014 FYA Trailblazer Award.