10 young Pakistani leaders win prestigious Diana Award 2022

Ten Pakistani youngsters have made the nation proud after being recognised globally through the Diana Awards this year. These exceptional young boys and girls have brought a positive change in their communities with a long-lasting impact at large scale by inspiring other youngsters. All these awardees are under 25, with the youngest only 18 years of age.

Out of the 10 awardees, six are Pakistani residents, one from Azad and Jammu Kashmir (AJK) while three are overseas Pakistanis. These proud change makers from Pakistan are Iqra Bisma, Ramna Saeed, Faryal Ashfaq, Alizey Khan, Muhammad Amir Khoso and Moazzam Shah Bukhari Syed. Arqam Al-Hadee hails from Azad Jammu Kashmir while Moiz Lakhani, Aiza Abid, and Sikander (Sonny) Khan are overseas Pakistanis.

Iqra Bisma, an 18 years old girl from Islamabad has been awarded for providing mental health support by establishing a “listener’s society”. According to Diana Award Roll of Honour 2022 website, she has played leading roles in more than 15 national and international organisations on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, and conducted more than 100 youth engagement sessions during the pandemic including virtual gatherings, meet-ups, events, workshops, and awareness sessions to promote the positive use of social media.

Iqra told The Express Tribune that she has built a listener's society called ‘talk’ (time attention listening knowing) to listen to those who need mental health support. ‘Talk’ is Pakistan's first listeners’ society providing listening support to people, with over 50 fully-trained listeners serving the community, she added.

Ramna Saeed, a 20 years old young leader from Gujranwala, received Diana Award for her work against sexual harassment. According to Diana Award Roll of Honour 2022 website, she has created safe spaces for girls and women in her community to speak about sexual harassment and bullying they experience on a day-to-day basis.

Ramna told The Express Tribune that, during her brought up, she has seen women suffering under patriarchal oppression inside and outside their homes. “After seeing a documentary on the honour killing of a girl from her city in 2016, I dedicated to pursue a career in media to give a voice to the voiceless,” she added.

Faryal Ashfaq, a 22 years old girl from Lahore, has bagged the Diana Award for fighting against gender-based violence in Pakistan.

“I witnessed harassment growing up, why women did not have the support they needed,” she questioned while talking to The Express Tribune.

According to Diana Award Roll of Honour 2022 website, at just 17 years of age, she established her own NGO, ‘the mirror’ and reached out to survivors of assault, working to give them the confidence to speak out about their experiences and come to terms with how they felt when forced to keep their silence.

Muhammad Amir Khoso, a 22 years old boy hailing from Sukkur, received Diana Award for providing food, water facilities, education and other basic necessities to people living in underprivileged areas of Pakistan.

According to Diana Award Roll of Honour 2022 website, Amir provided food to 700 families during the Covid-19 pandemic, installed water pumps in arid regions, and risked his life during lockdown to provide sewing machines to underprivileged women, enabling them to earn a sustainable livelihood.

Amir told The Express Tribune that he has opened two free schools to provide education, food, books and uniforms for children living in slum areas. “Me and my family faced opposition and serious threats from people who did not want the school built,” he added.

Alizey Khan, a 24 years old girl from Lahore, bagged the Diana Award for combating food poverty. According to the Diana Award Roll of Honour 2022 website, in 2016, Alizey established the ‘Ruhil foundation’ to combat food poverty, delivering 5,500 monthly food parcels and 10,000 meals. She is also helping to provide education to 150 children of sex workers and is an honorary fund-raising director for Begum Inayat Welfare Society, an orphanage which houses 77 children.

Talking to The Express Tribune she said, she realised the multidimensional nature of poverty and felt providing food alone wasn’t enough to break the cycle. “I pivoted to also focus on education and shelter, raising over $150,000, as well as financing 200 weddings, distributing 600 sanitary pads, providing 1,100 blankets in winter, disbursing 1,000 interest-free emergency loans and providing monthly stipends to 25 transgender people and widows,” she added

Moazzam Shah Bukhari Syed, a 24 years old boy from Hyderabad, received Diana Award for providing sustainable education to the children. According to Diana Award Roll of Honour 2022 website, Moazzam has provided early childhood education to over 3,000 children, sent over 1,400 children to schools for sustainable education on scholarships, and has recently opened multiple schools for over 1,500 children in remote villages near the Indo-Pak border.

Talking to The Express Tribune, he said, he was lucky enough to attend an excellent private school, but that all changed when my family experienced a huge financial crisis. “Experiencing the stark difference between the best and the rest of educational opportunities became my inspiration to build a school that would help all children get a good quality education regardless of their financial status,” he added.

Arqam Al-Hadeed, 21 years old young leader from Muzaffarabad, AJK, currently residing in Leeds, England has been recognised for his tireless efforts to unite all races, religions, and cultures.

According to the Diana Award Roll of Honour 2022 website, from only knowing a few words of English, Arqam is now a multi-national and international award-winning speaker and youth leader. As an elected youth MP, he represented over 180,000 young people of Leeds in the House of Commons, speaking passionately to end knife crime.

Arqam was also the British Muslim Award 2019 winner, while his efforts for promoting human rights were awarded by the prime minister of Pakistan.

Moiz Lakhani, 20 years old boy from Karachi, living in Toronto, Canada has bagged the award by empowering women and teaching them self-defence techniques.

According to Diana Award Roll of Honour 2022 website, after winning the ‘Global Impact Challenge’ and award from the representative of the UN Secretary-General, he got seed funding and mentorship to implement ‘Ninja Girls’, a non-profit organisation which empowers women and girls by teaching them self-defence techniques they can use to defend themselves in emergency situations, combatting the issue of sexual/physical abuse.

Moiz has been invited to speak at the World Innovation Summit for Education, and the Youth Assembly on international advocacy and policy development, youth impact, and social entrepreneurship.

Aiza Abid, 23 years old girl from Pakistani-Canadian family, has been awarded for being a life-long advocate for children’s rights. In 2013, she founded her non-profit organisation, ‘Aiza’s Teddybear Foundation’ with a mission to provide physical and emotional support to children in need around the world. It has since grown into a movement that, to date, has repurposed hundreds of thousands of donated items to provide books to help under-resourced youth create their own home-libraries; good quality clothing to low-income and refugee families; toys and crafts to children residing at local homeless shelters; and warm sweaters and backpacks filled with school supplies for students in need globally.

Sikander (Sonny) Khan, an overseas Pakistani youth aged 23, living in the United States, has been awarded Diana Award for providing clean water in most affected areas of Pakistan.

According to Diana Award Roll of Honour 2022 website, in 2017 Sonny, then a low-income first-generation college student at the ‘University of Michigan’, founded ‘Paani’ with other Pakistani-American students to build water wells in Pakistan. The group has grown from Sonny and his roommate Arhum selling donuts on campus to fund ‘Paani’s’ first well, to raising over $3.1 million from over 20,000 donors to build over 9,300 water wells that serve more than 732,500 villagers. ‘Paani’ has also donated $500,000 in medical supplies to Covid-19 clinics, distributed over one million meals, and built schools for refugees while galvanising thousands of youths globally through community-based awareness.

Granted to those dedicated to working with communities, the Diana Award honours young people aged between 9 to 25 who work to improve the lives of others.

The award was established in 1999 and named after the late Princess of Wales, Diana. It is one of the most prestigious awards that a person can be honoured with.