DAIS students at Leadership Summit

On the 2nd of October, Vrinda Das and Ananya Sachdev of Grade 12 participated in a Girls’ Leadership Summit hosted by Roedean School, South Africa. This hosted with and aim to discuss the third sustainable development goal - Good health and wellbeing. The theme of the summit was - Role of leaders in shaping whole human beings with a focus on mental health. Vrinda and Ananya were part of a Youth Leaders in Conversation panel discussion, where 4 young girls from around the world unpacked the quote “Every generation must discover its mission, fulfill it or betray it”. The conversation circled around the 6 Round Square ideals, and the girls discussed the leadership challenges of their generation and how they have found expression in each of their schools.

As part of the panel, Vrinda and Ananya commented on the ‘Environment’ IDEAL, discussing school social environments and how they have adapted to provide adequate mental health support to students in the midst of the Pandemic. They were also asked about the Leadership IDEAL within school environments and the work they could do to improve support to facilitate these issues. To these questions they had insightful answers which discussed the policies within their school, what is working for the students here, how mental health can be given more visibility and what can be improved. They were also asked to comment on the quote ‘there is more in you than you think’ by Kurt Hahn in terms of school leadership and were further able to exemplify the important work they have done in this field within school to facilitate more open conversations on mental health and leadership. Hearing insights from other students from Australia and South Africa was also very enlightening for these two students and gave them a global platform to share best practices and learn more about one another. All in all, through the course of the summit, Ananya and Vrinda were able to learn a lot more about women in leadership, mental health and how they can be leaders and mental health advocates in their environments.