First Prize at Zonta Award

Congratulations to Kiara, Grade 12 student (2021-22), who is a winner of the Zonta ‘Young Women in Public Affairs’ Prize.

During the last academic year, a number of Grade 12 students applied for the Young Women in Public Affairs Award organised by the Munich branch of Zonta. The Award is given to “young women who demonstrate leadership skills and a commitment to public service and civic causes.” The Zonta Award aims to encourage young women to participate in public affairs by recognising their commitment to volunteering, being of service to others, showing leadership skills and to be aware of empowering women worldwide through such CAS related activities. 

The application process involves students to comment on:

  • Their leadership and volunteering experiences
  • Knowledge and understanding of other countries and cultures – International Awareness
  • Knowledge, understanding and ideas on the empowerment of women

 

Kiara received her award at a special event held at the Ratskeller in June 2022 where she also received high praise from the Zonta Committee. Apart from Kiara’s involvement in a wide range of CAS (Creativity, Activity, Service) related activities including helping to run the Berg Refugee Initiative at MIS, and being an active member of Girls for the Cure organisation at her previous school in Montreal that helped to raise fund to aid research in Breast Cancer, she also participated in a trip to both Tanzania and Ecuador with the “Me to We” Group where she said: “I learnt about the importance of teamwork on the project, and developed awareness and humility as I met the children who have not been as privileged as I was growing up.”  

Kiara finished off her application with this comment: “To break out of the cycle of female dependency on a partner to survive in society, supportive resources must be present and accessible. The young girls I met in Tanzania and Ecuador were not able to attend school, needing to stay home and look after various family responsibilities due to lack of family income. Therefore, government and global community organisations must focus on young girls education, and finance programs which provide employment opportunities and skills to reduce inequalities.”

MIS should be very proud of Kiara’s achievement. As one of her referees said: “ She is an extremely deserving and remarkable student in and out of the classroom - well-rounded, talented, multi-lingual, intelligent, hard-working, and compassionate – all great skills for leadership. She is able to speak frankly about the difficult issues in the world without becoming cynical, rather, she is all the more inspired to work to improve things.” [Kirti Joshi, Zonta Advisor-MIS]