Psychology student Shahira Mohd Afzal and Mechanical Engineering student Indran Kunisilin beamed with confidence and joy as they received their respective awards from YABhg Tun Dr Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali during the prize giving ceremony of the Maybank Foundation - Perdana Leadership Foundation's "Nurturing The Minds of Future Leaders" Essay Competition 2012 held at the Perdana Leadership Foundation in Putrajaya on 18 May 2013.
Divided into essay and blogpost formats, each format comes with two categories - Category A (13 - 17 years old) and Category B (18 - 25 years old) - and each with two choices of topics. The biennial essay competition, carrying the theme of "Responsible Citizenship" managed to attract 529 entries from across the country. Shahira emerged as winner of the Special Mention Prize in Category B. Participants were required to write a 2000-word discourse on one of the two choices of topics provided. Shahira's winning entry entitled "The Impact of the Internet Revolution on Citizen Engagement and Citizen Empowerment in Malaysia" was one of the fifteen shortlisted entries which were awarded prizes.
Indran, whose entry was in blogpost format, also won the Special Mention Prize in Category B. In his entry, he wrote about an organisation he would set up and the cause which he would champion should he be given the funding and resources to establish a brand new youth-based civil society action group to influence public policy on a critical issue affecting youth. Indran shared, "This competition introduces a systematic yet research-based writing style to nurture resourceful future leaders."
"I've been paying attention to this biennial competition since 2006 and I'm truly overwhelmed by winning the Special Mention prize," said the Year Two Trimester Three Shahira who hails from Subang Jaya. "It is my love for languages, politics and writing that motivated me to join it," she continued.
Shahira walked away with RM500 in cash and book vouchers while Indran earned himself RM200 in cash and book vouchers from the competition which was supported by the Ministry of Higher Learning and MPH Group.
Indran receiving his award from Tun Dr Siti Hasmah.
Shahira posing with her award while Tun Dr Siti Hasmah and others looked on.
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