Benjamin Bocio Richardson is known as a humanitarian, but there is more to talk about this 26-year-old dentist and model who is breaking social stigma and serving people in need through a charity he co-founded with his family called “FUMEBO.” He already made history by becoming the second Dominican to take the stage as speaker at the One Young World Summit to address the plenary “How innovation can solve economic inequality?” in conjunction with world leaders. Last year, he became the first Dominican to receive the Diana Award, named after Diana the Princess of Wales, which is the most prestigious accolade a young person up to 25 years old can receive for their humanitarian work. Recently, he received the National Youth Award granted by the Dominican Government.

Benjamin started to help low-income communities before he turned 10 years of age. At the age of 16, he relinquished a promising modeling career to pursue traditional education as Dentist. Later, he was inspired with the core values of the United Nations and learned about the Sustainable Development Goals. The SDGs are targeted goals that need to be achieved by a specific date to make the world a better place for everyone. Every goal focuses on eradicating the world’s most pressing issues.

He is currently deepening his education at the Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine. More than 10 years ago, Benjamin involved his humanitarian work with Oral and Maxillofacial surgery successfully helping thousands of people in the Dominican Republic, so in the future he hopes to specialize in the area to continue building a better world for all.

The recognized dentist, and activist with a striking and exotic handsomeness exclusively tells to GRAZIA USA his opinion on why the beauty industry is changing and how the fashion industry can improve the world. Benjamin shared that he was bullied when he was younger for being skinny and tall, but he learned to appreciate his attributes and still can’t believe that what people used to criticized him the most, are the characteristics that the men’s beauty and fashion industry values the most.

“I am very happy that we are living in a new era where all kind of beauties and races are accepted. The beauty industry has long been criticized for only working with skinny models, and It’s great that today we are evolving into a more inclusive fashion industry,” he says. “This openness did not happen before because, instead of challenging the industry, those who wanted to be part of the game, were simply trying to adapt their body into a metabolic complexion and a beauty standard that did not come naturally to them,” he explains.

“There are people who still believes that all models deprive themselves of eating, and that’s not true. For instance, I have a fast metabolism and I am skinny by nature, and just like me there are hundreds of healthy people with a fast metabolism working in the industry,” he notes. “I genuinely believe that we were the kind of healthy people that the industry really wanted to work with, but a wrong message was captured because a beauty standard was innocently established and that created an obsession to obtain it at all costs and as an avant-garde society that is what we are trying to change since no one should try to look like anyone else,” he adds.

“For a long time, society has misunderstood the power that the fashion industry can have to positively impact humanity. Fashion and beauty are followed massively; therefore, I want to invite everyone in the industry (models, designers, production companies, photographers, makeup artists, etc.) to choose a social cause and work on it with passion and persistence. Innovation is DNA for development and from every industry something positive can be done, the fashion industry can be used as a platform to rethink the traditional approaches to persistent global problems,” he claims.