Congratulations to Ananya Jain - Winner of 'Zonta Young Women in Public Affairs' Prize

Congratulations to Ananya Jain, G11 student, who is a winner of the Zonta* ‘Young Women in Public Affairs’ Prize.

The “Young Women in Public Affairs’ (YWPA) prize recognizes exceptional young women between the ages of 16 and 19 who are engaged in social or political causes and have shown personal initiative, sense of responsibility and altruism. The candidates are evaluated based on volunteer experience in their school or association, leadership potential, as well as engagement in advancing the status of women at a local or international level. 

Ananya’s strong commitment and engagement in various ISL activities such as the: Global Issues Network, Business Club, Cooperation Nord Sud, TEDx Club, Model United Nations, and Student Ambassador Programme, seriously impressed the jury, made up of a wide-range of professional women in Luxembourg.

This school year, Ananya spearheaded a project which provided hygiene products to women in precarious situations here in Luxembourg. Ananya stated, ‘I never appreciated the need for female empowerment in Luxembourg, but this project showed me the importance of working with structures that are already in place within a country and of working on a local scale before trying to expand to a global scale. Before undertaking this project, I had tried to organise similar ventures in India and in Swaziland, experiencing setbacks with communication and logistics. However now that I have the experience of this project, I am able to go to India this summer (2020) to volunteer with an NGO focusing on female education’.

Ananya’s teachers had the following to say about her: ‘Ananya is a young woman who ALWAYS acts because she is pulled by an interest, a desire to know and improve, and because she holds herself to high standards for social empowerment and action’ as well as, ‘Ananya is not a student who fits in but a student who stands out. A student who is hungry to learn; a future global shaper who sees a problem and wants to do something about it as opposed to letting the grown-ups solve it’.

Congratulations to Ananya for winning this prize and we wish you the best of luck with your future endeavours.

*Zonta International is an international association of service clubs, created in the United States in 1919. The principal objective is to improve the legal, political, economic, educational, health and professional status of women in society.