Winner
Shivani Dhillon
Diplomatic Studies MA, 2003
Shivani Dhillon is the founder of Down Syndrome Support Group India, an organisation that helps people with intellectual disabilities and their families. After struggling to find support for her daughter and facing stigma and discrimination in India, Shivani started the online support group in 2012. The group provides counselling, support and information to people with Down Syndrome and other intellectual disabilities and their families. The group consists of more than 2,500 parents from all across India.
Shivani is an ex-BBC journalist and had worked for almost a decade until she had her daughter. She is also the founder of Samvid - Stories & Beyond, an initiative that holds storytelling sessions for children and young adults with intellectual disabilities and mental health illnesses.
Finalists
Markus Grupp
Hypermedia Studies MA, 2003
Markus is Co-founder and Chief Facilitator of The Prosper Lab. While volunteer-teaching at-risk students in a marginalised, inner-city neighbourhood of Toronto, Markus became acutely aware of the challenges facing adults living in poverty. In response, Markus and his partner Chenny Little started The Prosper Lab, a social enterprise to provide a safe, inclusive learning environment. The concept was simple: build a business together to support the unemployed community members to gain the tangible skills, experience and confidence needed to obtain and sustain employment.
Since 2016, 85% of participants have completed the programme (vs. 25% for traditional classroom-based courses), with 50% finding jobs. The Prosper Lab has now open-sourced the model, allowing others to adapt it to support the needs of communities in Canada and the United States.
Thiago Jesus
Visual Culture MA, 2010
Thiago came to Westminster on a full-fee waiver scholarship. For the past six years, he has managed a cultural exchange programme between indigenous and non-indigenous artists through People’s Palace Projects (PPP). When Brazil’s first COVID-19 death was confirmed last year, his team partnered with the Kuikuro to prevent the virus from entering their villages. Using storytelling, they raised money from international audiences for essential items, helping them avoid exposure to contamination from outside the Amazonian Xingu Territories.
PPP were able to provide the community of 650 indigenous people with food and essential medical supplies. They also hired two health professionals and a car to provide emergency aid to local villages. Of the 1,063 indigenous people that had died due to COVID-19 in Brazil by May 2021 (APIB, 2021), none were from the Kuikuro.
James Musisi and Dr Lem Ngongalah
International Public Health Nutrition MSc, 2015
Lem and James are both Directors at CORE Africa. They founded CORE Africa in 2016 to help improve the research abilities of students and young researchers in Africa. Research levels in Africa remain low at less than 1% of the global output, and Lem and James believe research is key to addressing societal changes in the region. Since 2016, they have engaged with over one million students and 40 academic institutions to understand the challenges they face.
Their virtual mentoring programme has proven instrumental in supporting those in conflict-affected countries where access to training centres is limited. They have also worked with secondary schools in Cameroon and Uganda, developing a research club for pre-university students which provides a background to basic research concepts through fun activities and games.