Shanela De Mel, a 11-year-old student of Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya, won a gold award at the Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition (Junior Category) recently.
This is an annual event organized by the Royal Commonwealth Society where a record number of over 25,000 entries were considered before adjudicating the winners of 2021.
This year’s Winners and Runners-Up are from Kenya, Uganda, and India.
Shanela’s essay revolved around new hobbies that she harnessed during the time of the epidemic, where she expresses her experience on how she made use of the extra time to discover these hobbies and how they made her life more meaningful.
Shanela is a bright student in her school. She was able to pass her scholarship examination with 171 marks last year.
From her young days she has shown much talent, especially in art, music and creative activities.