Prerana Pai Bags Academic Excellence Award

Prerana Pai Bags Academic Excellence Award for the Second time

Dubai: The 18th cycle of the Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award ceremony took place at the Rashid Hall in the Dubai World Trade Centre. Among the 275 winners were 204 Distinguished Students who excelled in academic achievement, behaviour and work development.

Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and Minister of Finance, gave away the awards to all the winners at a grand Award ceremony.

Prerana Pai, a grade 9 student from Delhi Private School, Sharjah, was among the winners of the prestigious “Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award” for “Distinguished Academic Excellence” (2015-16 cycle 18). She is winning this award for the second time. Previously, she had won the award for the 15th cycle (2012-13). She is also the recipient of Sharjah Award for Educational Excellence for the year 2014-15.

Prerana Pai is the daughter of Ragini and Harish Pai. Her paternal grandparents are Bhande Sharada Pai and Bhande Sanjeeva Pai from Vidyaratna Nagar, Manipal and her maternal grandparents are Kumbla Jahnavi Shenoy and Kumbla Purushotham Shenoy from Car Street, Mangalore.

She had won the Sharjah Award for Educational Excellence last year (2014-15) and had received the award from the Deputy Ruler of Sharjah.

Prerana excels in academics and also has several extra curricular activities, which she follows with great zeal. She also passionately promotes “green-living” and has participated in several community drives and International promotion contests to spread the word to take up an eco-friendly lifestyle. She turned a vegetarian at the age of 9 to show her solidarity towards animals and for leading a environmental friendly lifestyle.

She uses her computer talents in making videos to highlight the various facades of environmental degradation, and her videos have been highly appreciated and recognized. She was the only student from Asia to be in the European Environmental Short Film Festival (Green Go). She posted several activities and notes on newspapers and Social Media to take up Waste Reduction, Waste Management and Green ideas.

In recognition of her community service in promoting Environmental promotion, she was awarded the International Diana Award in 2015, and received a badge and certificate signed by The Rt. Hon. David Cameron MP, British Prime Minister and she received it during the Karnataka Rajyotsava celebrations in Abu Dhabi from Mrs. & Mr. B.R.Shetty.

Prerana is very passionate about dance and has been learning Bharatnatyam classical dance since she was 5 years old. She is currently being trained under Guru Smt. Vidushi Rohini Ananth. She has already completed her NrityaBhushan (Senior Diploma) in Bharatnatyam from the prestigious Pracheen Kala Kendra, Chandigarh, and currently preparing for Vidwat in Bharatnatyam. Her Guru has planned her Arangettram/Ranga Pravesham on July 23rd in Don Bosco Hall, Mangalore.

She feels blessed to have teachers, family and friends who constantly encourage her to do her best, without any expectations. They have helped mold her personality into a strong independent girl with a go-get attitude.Such attitude made her explore new and interesting avenues, which she feels is one of the main reason for her diverse interests and talents.

She loves living in the UAE, as it is not only one of the best places in the world to live, but also it gives you ample opportunities to display a child’s talents, and encourages them with Awards which motivates them further.

She believes in the evergreen sayings “Practice makes a man perfect” and “Anything worth doing is worth doing well”.

She was ecstatic with happiness when she heard the news that she is receiving the Hamdan Award for the second time. She thanked Almighty for blessing her and then called and thanked each and every person who helped in achieving this honour.