Global Citizenship at its Best

On Sunday 6 September, Meeraal Zaheer, a Year 13 student at St Christopher’s Senior School, Isa Town, proudly became the first student in the world to be presented with a United World School’s Gold Global Citizenship Award. Having already dedicated much of her time to local communities and causes, Meeraal was inspired to create a portfolio for this Award after hearing about the wonderful work carried out by St Christopher’s Junior School and UWS in raising funds to build their very own UWS School in Cambodia. In June 2015, after eight months of hard work, Meeraal had one more challenge to complete: raising funds for the Senior School’s new initiative, namely the re-building of a school, flattened by the devastating earthquake in Gurase, Nepal. This of course she did, with the help of her friend Yasmeen Jassim. On the last day of term, they made a presentation to St Christopher’s Senior School about the struggles and challenges faced by school children in Nepal; they also organised a Mufti Day, collecting BD300 towards building materials in Nepal. Meeraal has shown her leadership potential by taking on her own fundraising initiatives and sharing them with her local community. She has also demonstrated her willingness to learn about Global values by understanding how St Christopher’s puts global values into practice both here and abroad. Meeraals’s portfolio ranges from designing and helping to build doggy wheelchairs, working with Special Family Support here in Bahrain and leading a Think Pink initiative to working with ex Guns and Roses guitarist Ron Thal at the Royal Institute of Autism.