Daily Times

Three young Pakistani students were presented with Queen’s Young Leaders Awards on Tuesday. They were honored with the awards at Buckingham Palace in a merry ceremony.

Hassan Mujtaba Zaidi, Mahnoor Syed, and Haroon Yasin are the three young Pakistanis who have managed to receive the accolades and made Pakistan proud.

The award is given to the people who are using their skills and playing their role in making the society a better place to live. It is presented to people who are working towards a better change. It acknowledges people between the ages of 18-29 across the commonwealth.

Mahnoor’s aim is to help the impoverished class of her society. She is running a start-up called, ‘Spread the Word’. The start up began when she collaborated with seven schools to hold workshops on sensitive issues like, bullying, child abuse, mental and physical health. The start-up now consists of 300 members.

Harron Yasin is working on yet another commendable social issue. He has collaborated with an organization ‘Khuwaja Sira Support’ and is collecting funds to organize a vocational training for 50 Khuwaja Siras.

Mujataba Zaidi is working on providing education to unprivileged children. He is the founder of Orenda, and he teaches the national curriculum to the children through a digital education model.

Zaidi considers art as strong means of education and uses it to teach the marginalized community. He is the creator of ‘Discovering New Artists (DNA)’, which provides free art training as well as primary and secondary education to the impoverished class.

To fund these projects, the money is raised through ‘Art for Change’ initiative. This initiative is a national art competition which focuses on bringing people closer from both, the privileged and unprivileged class.

The newlywed royal couple, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle were present at the ceremony and greeted the guests. They also addressed the young leaders at the reception and bestowed them with Medal for Outstanding Contributions.

“You are the future leaders who will need to pick up the baton on issues such as climate change, food security, equality and access to education, and improving the lives of the most vulnerable people in our communities,” said Prince Harry.

Meghan wore a white Prada dress, while Prince Harry wore a dark suit. The couple talked to the “future leaders” in a friendly manner.

Prince William and Prince Harry launched ‘Queen’s Young Leaders Awards’ back in 2014 and this is its fourth and final edition. The winners get a chance of meeting Prince Harry. They are also given a package which includes, training, mentoring, networking, and one week residential programme is UK, where they receive their awards from Queen Elizabeth.

The ceremony was attended by David Beckham and John Major who is the former Prime Minister of UK.