Congratulations to Sanya Nadeem in tenth grade! She has just won the entire Massachusetts Lions Club Youth speech competition to fundraise for a cause that she is very passionate about and has already done some amazing work for. How did she get there?
Here is some background to the cause: In places of high poverty in India, girls face discrimination and not everyone has the same access to education. Because their parents are poor and have to take on migration each season for work (60% undertake casual migration), the education of underprivileged girls is uprooted often, which causes girls to drop out of school. 35% of girls in India drop out of school before high school. The small number of girls that do attend school has now dropped drastically, because they had to help their families with migration work.
Each year, Sanya goes to India and during her visits there she realized the problem that underprivileged girls face with education. Most girls in India have to go to a government school which is usually in terrible shape. In 2020, they didn’t have much digital direction, and, even now, teachers do not show up to school or teach the correct curriculum. Sanya also knew that her parents were associated with the American India Foundation. The foundation is a charity organization that helps all those who are struggling in India and the American India Foundation has made an incredible difference for the underprivileged. Their initiative, Learning and Migration Program (LAMP), raises money for the many underprivileged girls in India. Sanya found that LAMP was very similar to the issue she was learning more about.
She decided to make a difference by combining three things: her love for teaching, the need for summer enrichment in her neighborhood, and the need for girls’ education in India by starting free classes for children online. There were some challenges, however, like coordinating both the teaching initiative and even now the school service initiative. In an interview, Sanya said: “It was very challenging to mitigate the unknown realm of Zoom and Google Meet and especially to ensure that kids were paying attention to the classes.” To overcome this challenge, Sanya made sure that they were learning, but she also mixed in fun games related to the topics that the students were learning such as Hangman and Jeopardy. Sanya also had to create lesson plans for many subjects: English, Math, geography and more. Although communicating with parents, sending emails, and finding homework for classes was a very big responsibility, she was passionate about this cause she continued her hard work. For the last four years, Sanya managed over 150 classes for more than one hundred kids. Over the four years, she covered six subjects in twenty weeks while requesting donations for the American India Foundation’s LAMP initiative. So far Sanya has raised $13,500, which supplies a whole year’s education for 540 underprivileged girls in India!
Sanya started this initiative in 6th grade, but, when she came to Montrose in 9th grade, she realized so many of Montrose’s values closely align with that of her initiative. At Montrose, Sanya learned about the seven corporal works of mercy and noticed that most of the corporal works could be achieved by raising money for her initiative: it feeds the hungry, gives drink to the thirsty, shelters the homeless, clothes the naked, and comforts the sick. It also aligns with respecting everyone’s personal dignity, and the sophomore class theme, Service in Solidarity. At Montrose, the 10th grade has learned a lot about the importance of service in solidarity and learned skills on how to do service.
As the 10th grade class president, Sanya realized that the best way to practice these skills for doing service was to include them as leaders in the school. So, the sophomore class recently started an all-school service initiative, where they are raising money for the education of underprivileged girls’ through a popcorn day (which has passed), bake sale, and “adopt a girls’ education for a year” day! Another challenge that Sanya faced was regarding the school service initiative. Sanya was not sure if the sophomore class would support it or not, so it took a lot of courage to present this. She was passionate about the cause, though, so that helped her to overcome her fears and carry on with it. Despite any fears Sanya had, the 10th grade supported the idea!
To fundraise more money for the cause, Sanya entered the Lions Club Youth Competition. This contest was sponsored by the Massachusetts Lions Club, which is a service club that donates to many different charities and sponsors youth events like the speech competition that Sanya competed in. Contestants had to write a speech on “With which historical figure would you most like to speak?” The requirements were that the speech had to be 5-8 minutes long. Also, a contestant had to memorize the majority of the speech, and state-final contestants could only use notecards to prompt them.
Sanya chose to write a speech about Ida B. Wells, who was an impactful black female American journalist who fought for the rights of black people. She even led the first black women’s suffrage group. Ida B. Wells could be called an “unsung hero,” because while she isn’t too well known, she has influenced so many powerful figures in our society, such as Rosa Parks. Ida B Wells actually refused to give up her train seat for a white man, seventy years before Rosa Parks did a similar and more famous action! She also influenced the 19th amendment and paved the way for so many other inspiring American figures! Many people might not know of her but she has done some very amazing work.
More than 500 people competed across the state for this competition, and Sanya competed in over 5 rounds. The first round was the school level, which she moved on from to the second level: the club level at Medfield. The next two levels were the regional and district competitions. Lastly, Sanya competed in the State Championship and won! This all happened over a period of six months. Sanya also said: “My favorite part was getting to hear from so many other amazing speakers… I heard so many incredible speeches about Harriet Tubman, Marie Curie, and Mary Shelley, people who I knew but I didn’t know the extent of the impact they had made on our world! I also loved the opportunity to speak in front of so many people – at the state finals, there were over 500 people, which was a little intimidating but such an incredible opportunity!” When the speech competition opportunity presented itself, she wasn’t afraid to go after it. Congratulations, Sanya!
Here is some advice from Sanya herself for girls who would like to lead a service initiative as well:
- You miss one hundred percent of the shots that you don’t take. You don’t lose anything if you just try; and even if you don’t succeed, you will have more wisdom for the next time you want to do something.
- Try to identify your passion – what you love doing and what cause you are passionate about – and start small. For Sanya, that was teaching and underprivileged girls’ education in India. For someone else, that might mean they love painting and are passionate about raising money for cancer patients, so they can sell your paintings for a charity that helps cancer patients. The possibilities are endless!
- Sanya’s last piece of advice is to reach out – if you know the charity you want to raise money for, but don’t know how to do it, reach out to the organization’s contact information on their website. They are always looking for young volunteers and will almost certainly have a job for you, and, if not, they will have great advice on how you can create your service project!
Just as Sanya has already contributed so much to this cause we can help as well by participating in their fundraising events. The bake sale and the adopting girls’ education event are coming up soon. It only costs $25 to adopt a girls’ education for the whole year, which is not too much money for us! For the bake sale, treats were $2 each. It would be great to have many people contributing to these life changing events. Keep doing great work, Sanya!
By Eloisa Pap ‘30, Clubs and Classes Editor
