I was born and brought up in a small but beautiful town in India called Chandigarh. I still remember when I was 6 or 7 years old, a few family friends had come over. I hid behind my father as if greeting them back to their “Hello” was akin to saying “eat me” to a lion!

Post that embarrassing incident, my parents took it on themselves to make me confident to face the public, so they enrolled me into a summer camp in 2014. It was a theatre summer camp where everyone had to get up on stage, face an audience of 20-30 kids every single day and perform. It was a complete nightmare, but the best part was stepping into the shoes of my character and forgetting who I was. By the end of the year, I was cast as the main character in the Academy’s final production.

 

As 6 years passed, I grew into being more confident, expressive, and respectful of the art. Theatre helped me in ways, nothing could, but then there came along yet another feather to my Metamorphosis Tale. One day I was in my Education Counsellor’s office when she saw a program- TWF TAKE THE WORLD FORWARD by Harvard Model Congress San Francisco and Harvard Student Agencies. She hesitated for a second then asked me, “Would you want to apply for something different than what you usually do?” I didn’t understand and inquired more about the program, when I heard about it, I was amazed with what the organization, ‘Learn with Leaders’ was doing, and deeply wanted to be a part of it, I completed my application in a day, and got selected!

 

My first project happened with my team, which consisted of people from Argentina, Romania, Netherlands, and little did I know all of them would become such close friends to me! This fellowship helped me even more by teaching me diversity, how different cultures, routines, and rituals are present in different parts of the world. It’s amazing to see how people with such different backgrounds, different dialects come together and form sustainable ideas. Currently, I’m in the second part of my fellowship and what can I say? I am loving each and every minute of it.”

As part of her Take the World Forward Fellowship Project, Prakriti wants to make Menstrual Health & Hygiene resources easily accessible to teenage girls in schools.