A STUDENT at the University of Manchester has recently won a global award at the Undergraduate awards.
Farhana Choudhury, 21, submitted her research paper to the Undergraduate Awards in June and recently received a call to say she won the global award for the entire competition.
The title of her piece was: ‘A discussion of literacy as a vehicle which enables women from urban Afghanistan and rural Nepal to overcome societal challenges and participate in society.’
Choudhury explains: “Initially I was planning on focusing on Afghanistan, but when I looked into the official statistics in the United Nation Human Development Report (UNHDR), I found that Nepal was constantly next to or around Afghanistan and I thought, ‘their two countries are really different, why are their literacy rates falling in the same way?’
“I looked further into the two countries and compared them. I found that the issues women are facing are the same. They are patriarchal societies with a lack of will power, so I thought it was a really interesting topic.”
Congratulations to Farhana who was a global winner at this year’s Undergraduate Awards, also referred to as the ‘Junior Nobel Prize’!
Find out how she felt to win the award below:https://t.co/wj3rlannt1 pic.twitter.com/nObEQrhrOr
— Uni of Manchester (@OfficialUoM) December 8, 2017
Her submitted paper was originally written for a module within her English Language for Education degree, however her lecturer urged her to get the piece of work out there.
“I registered in January, then I submitted the paper to the competition in June,” she explains.
Choudhury is one of 6,500 people who submitted their papers among these categories.
From each of the 25 categories, the judges choose the top 10% and they become highly commended winners. From that 10% they choose a regional winner, then they choose the global winner from that category.
Farhana describes: “When they emailed me saying I was a highly commended winner I was like wow this is amazing! They included small section in the email saying keep an eye open for the Regional and Global winner. I completely ignored that.
I got a phone call from an unknown number two weeks later and it turned out they chose me as global winner. It baffled me.”
People from all over the world who had submitted their work travelled to Ireland for the awards night.
“The other attendees that I met were absolutely phenomenal. These people are the leaders of tomorrow and it was an incredible experience to be among them,” She explained.
Following on from winning the award, Farhana hopes to go into research and pursue a PHD: “I want to do something that makes education accessible for those who are in socially deprived, but I’ve constantly been in education from school, to sixth form, to university, to masters.
“I want to work and gain life experience first.”
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