“ASHK gave me the confidence and the freedom to express myself and my thoughts about many issues worldwide, and to have global awareness in order to be a holistic person,” she said.  “ASHK offers a wide variety of ECAs and clubs allowing students to explore their passions and establish strong leadership skills.”

Not only does Himani stand out as a star student academically, but the ethnic Indian born in Singapore later moved to Hong Kong also plays an active role on the school’s EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion) committee which helps develop policies within the school to ensure students are in a warm, safe and inclusive environment. 

Furthermore, Himani has also been instrumental in getting the entire school community to take part in important community charity events such as the annual Terry Fox run to raise money for cancer research, as well as the annual Box of Hope charity project to provide educational gifts to underprivileged children in Asia at Christmas time. 

Given her active contributions and passion, it’s not hard to see why she was nominated by her peers for the award.

“She has involved herself in leadership opportunities, service projects, she’s visible around the school, she takes action, and she isn’t a passive student,” Ms. Amanda Shepherd, Secondary Principal & IBDP Coordinator at ASHK said. 

As Himani embarks on the highly competitive Take the World Forward Fellowship programme, she will be working with mentors at Harvard and MIT on a project called “Improving STEM Education Access for Disadvantaged Students”. She is excited about the opportunity as this project could really bring substantive change to the education and life opportunities for students in India. Himani also plans to develop a scheme from this project and bring it to ASHK, allowing other students to help make a positive change in the world as well.

From the school’s perspective, they are  proud of Himani’s achievements, and for taking part in this programme. It simply reaffirms and gives voice to what the school has always been trying to do. 

“One of the things that we like about the EARCOS  award is it  really matches our mission statement  where we strive to educate students to be responsible global citizens,” said Shepherd. “We don’t just educate for academics, but we want to educate the whole child, holistic education is important.” 

Implementing a rigorous American and international programme at ASHK, students in Grade 11 and 12 study the International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme (IBDP) which develops independent learning, critical thinking and encourages students to be global citizens through service learning. 

Himani agrees that aspects of the IBDP at ASHK  was one of the many contributing factors to her winning the award. 

“The IB Learner Profile allowed me to recognise common humanity and shared guardianship of the world, it also allowed me to display the qualities of ensuring everyone in my community feels cared for and I could demonstrate global awareness by keeping up with many modern issues,” she said. 

Of course, while the school played a big part in Himani’s successes, her own personal experiences has also shaped the way she sees the world, and it’s her learnings that she wants to share with the world the most. 

“If you fall, you just have to learn to get back up, it’s cliché but if you’ve gone through it yourself you will know how it feels, so if you feel passionate about something, lean on that, and use that as your one inspiration to want to do better,” she said.