Dubai: Twelve-year-old Prerana Pai, student of Grade 8, Delhi Private School, Sharjah was one of the proud recipient of Sharjah Award for Educational Excellence session 21 for the year 2014-15. The award ceremony was held at the Sharjah University City Hall, University City in Sharjah. The award was given by His Highness Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed bin Sultan Al Qassimi, Crown Prince and Deputy Ruler of Sharjah.
Prerana is the daughter of Harish Pai, from Manipal. Her grandparents Sharada Pai and Sanjeeva Pai said that they were overwhelmed to note the achievement of their granddaughter.
Prerana’s mother is Ragini Pai, whose parents are from Car Street, Mangalore. Jahnavi Shenoy and Purushotham Shenoy said they felt blessed to have such a wonderful granddaughter and wished her all the best in all her future endeavours.
Prerana had also won the “Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Award” for “Distinguished Academic Excellence” (2012-13 cycle 15). She feels that her dedication and perseverance towards overall excellence is the main reason behind winning such laurels.
She has been outstanding student academically throughout, with her favourite subjects being Science and Mathematics. She always tries to do well in everything she takes up, and believes firmly in “Practice makes us perfect” and “A task worth doing is worth doing well”. Her interest in science helped her to get her experiments in space. Her 2 experiments were selected in 2014 and 1 experiment in 2015 to be flown into space by CubesInSpace, an educational initiative which helps students around the world to send their experiments into space via NASA’s sounding rocket.
Prerana has been learning bharatnatyam from the tender age of five, and has completed “Nritya Bushan” – Senior Diploma in Bharatnatyam from the famous Pracheen Kala Kendra, Chandigarh with distinction. She is currently training under Vidushi Rohini Ananth, an excellent dancer and a wonderful teacher.
Prerana also plays the drums and is training in vocal Carnatic music. Her most passionate hobby is reading books. “Reading books is one thing I cannot live without” says Prerana. She has been an avid reader from a very young age and according to her parents just devours books and once she starts a book, she cannot rest until she finishes it.
She is very passionate about Nature and Animal Welfare, and campaigns for the environment regularly. She turned a vegetarian to show her compassion towards animals, and even made a video to encourage others to turn vegetarian. The video was selected by American Vegetarian Group for a $250 scholarship. Her recent video was nominated for the European Environmental Short Film Festival GreenGo, and was appreciated by one and all who promised to change their ways and “Go-Green”.
Prerana thanked the Almighty, her parents and her teachers for everything she has achieved.
