The philanthropic work of a 26-year-old Enterprise woman from Guyana has earned her the prestigious Queen’s Young Leaders Award 2017. This young woman is committed to creating and influence community impact utilising technology.
She has been working with youths to improve their personal well-being, drive productivity, increase focus and most of all fulfill their potential through empowering & inspiring creativity, entrepreneurship, mental wellness and innovation.
Samantha Sheoprashad was born and bred in Enterprise, East Coast Demerara with her two siblings and parents (Mr.Rajeendra Sheoprashad and Beena Sirinarine). She is a suicide survivor-focused on making a difference in her community and helping young persons to realize their potentials.
Samantha helps disadvantaged communities and is working to reduce suicide rates in Guyana. She is the President of Enterprise Youth Development Group (EYDG), which runs several initiatives including providing clothes and food to low income families, organising Christmas parties for children living in orphanages and offering community computer classes. Under Samantha’s leadership, EYDG also ran a suicide prevention project, which offered support to people at risk.
She is Co-founder of Trifinity Solutions and Founding Leader of Enterprise Youth Development Group.
She has recently completed the research thesis ‘Identifying depression from social media content’ and created an algorithm which processes natural language to detect ‘depressive statements’ in social media posts. She is currently integrating the algorithm into an app.
Samantha will be representing Guyana as she joins winners from across the Commonwealth in the UK for a programme of inspiring meetings, networking opportunities and bespoke training and mentoring, all designed to help them to develop as leaders and work with ever greater impact to transform people’s lives.
Having been selected from a competitive process where thousands of young people from all over the Commonwealth applied to be a Queen’s Young Leader, Samantha was very much enthused.
“I’m really excited to meet all the other Queen’s Young Leaders for the first time and hear more about the work they are doing to help people in their community,” she said.
Before receiving their Queen’s Young Leaders Award at Buckingham Palace, the winners will visit 10 Downing Street, as well as take part in masterclasses at the BBC World Service and the UK headquarters of global social media company, Facebook. They will also meet the Commonwealth Secretary-General, take part in workshops at the University of Cambridge, meet senior executives from some of the UK’s leading organisations and visit projects that are changing the lives of vulnerable people in the UK.
The programme will finish with the launch of the final ever search for the Queen’s Young Leaders. The application process to become a Queen’s Young Leader of 2018 opens at 09:00 p.m. BST on Thursday 29th June 2017, and this year is the last chance for young people to apply to become a Queen’s Young Leader.
The programme is looking for people aged between 18 and 29 who are dedicated to creating positive changes to the lives of people.
