Sisterhood of Readers – Ahaana Subberwal (17 YEARS)
- bey0ndM@gz!ne
- August 12, 2020
- Covid Stories, Default, People-Perspective
- 0 Comments
Ahaana is a rising senior at Hong Kong International School and has been a Girl Scout for 9 yrs. For her freshmen research paper, Ahaana chose to research a subject she is very passionate about, which is improving English speaking and comprehension for girls in India. This experience provoked her to go deeper into the issue, and she realised she needed to do something physically to help out students in India. During the last few months while schools closed down in Hong Kong Ahaana decided to combine her passion for girl’s education with her Girl Scouts’ Gold Award project. The project needed to be measurable, sustainable, and attainable, and one that would find a solution to the relevant problem. The “Sisterhood of Readers” was thus born.
To start with, Ahaana chose to work with the students of the Salwan Public Schools in Delhi, since she was familiar with them, having visited the school multiple times with her grandfather. The school immediately showed interest in the “Sisterhood of Readers” project knowing their students would be able to gain exposure to different cultures, authors and reading. This enterprising 17-year old had many plans for the project. Unfortunately, due to the COVID 19 restrictions and the lockdown in India, she couldn’t go through with all her plans. She decided instead to make the most of the resources available and conduct Zoom sessions with celebrated authors and the students of Salwan. She has also collected and donated 200 books to the schools in India and has another 200 waiting to go once international flights open up.
Apart from online readings, Ahaana also prepares fun and interactive worksheets for the students to further help them with reading and comprehension. The “Sisterhood of Readers” started their project with one Salwan School and will now be setting up book clubs in all their branches. As this young girl with a big heart says “My goal is to help bridge the gap in the existing education system by helping these young girls learn a second language. I plan to do this by promoting reading and creating book clubs”.
