Devanshi Ranjan , 21-year-old student of Delhi University’s Lady Shri Ram College, is among the 400 people who have won the coveted Diana Award for advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals, globally. 

Devanshi, who is a final year student at LSR, has been working to help underprivileged children, especially girls, with their studies amid the COVID-19 pandemic with NGO Ladli Foundation Trust. 

The award, which has been established in the memory of the Princess of Wales, Diana, is given to people in the age group of 9-25.  

The Diana Award is considered the “highest accolade” for a young person. It is a recognition of their social action or humanitarian efforts and is given by the charity of the same name, supported by her sons, the Duke of Cambridge and the Duke of Sussex.

The LSR student during the pandemic taught over 1,000 children in Delhi slums and also distributed books, stationery items, and other resource material.

“My work centered around the COVID-19 pandemic relief work. A number of surveys and reports showed an increase in the number of drop-outs in schools, especially the female students, as availing education online was not affordable for all,” she told news agency PTI. 

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She added, “I worked with NGO Ladli Trust and under its programme ”Pathanshala” conducted workshops and educated students from slums and villages.”

“I found out that I will be honoured with the Diana Award on May 5. I was extremely elated but couldn’t share the news with anyone except for my immediate family till the commencement of the virtual ceremony on June 28,” Devanshi Ranjan told news agency PTI.

Other recipients of the Diana Award include 18-year-old Aditya Dubey, who started an initiative that led to the planting of over 100,000 trees. Aditya Mukarji of Delhi, who started the ‘#RefuseIfYouCannotReuse’ campaign to switch to eco-friendly alternatives to single-use plastics, has also received the award. Sixteen-year-old Ashug Guijala got the award for his ‘Fuel a Dream’ project that aims at minimising the impact of the digital divide on education caused by the pandemic.

Mahira Jain, 17, founded ‘FunWagon’, which aims to increase access to social science subjects in India while Kochi’s Nirvaan John Rao, 11, received the award for helping migrants. Shourya Kadam, 15, received the award for his work on climate awareness and activism while 15-year-old Himanshu Rao Kalvakuntla founded ‘Shoma’, which supports communities by installing food processing units for producing unadulterated food.

Sixteen-year-old Shiv Kampani got the award for developing a smart gas leak and fire detector, and a 3D simulation game ‘Fire Escape’ that has been adopted by the ‘Fire and Security Association of India’.

Kavya Gupta, 17, has established the Bhavishya Foundation, members of which have planted over 3,000 saplings and educated more than 2,000 students to address the complex challenges of our times.