Mumbai: When Saloni Ashish Ghatnekar rose to the applause of delegates at the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, she was confident of her eloquence in French, which is neither her first language nor the medium of instruction at her college. The student of H.R. College of Commerce and Economics was in the last leg of a journey which had catapulted her to one of the seven Indian winners of the 2017 Many Languages, One World international essay contest.
“Speaking at the U.N. General Assembly was like a dream come true. I was privileged to stand at a podium where many great leaders have delivered inspiring speeches. The aura of the building gives you the courage to believe that you are capable of making a change,” said Ms. Ghatnekar, who is awaiting results of her third-year management examination.
Participants in the competition submitted essays in one of the six languages of the U.N.: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish. The other winners from India had written their essays in Arabic. Ms. Ghatnekar wrote hers in French, a language she has been learning for the past seven years.
“I applied for the competition last year, but unfortunately did not get through. This year, I worked on my essay and reapplied. It was a proud moment when from a pool of over 2,000 entrants, I was declared one of the 60 winning students representing 57 universities in 27 countries,” she said.
The fourth year of the contest was conceived and managed by ELS Educational Services and the United Nations Academic Impact. Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts, was the host of the Many Languages, One World Global Youth Forum, and the organiser of the Northeastern University Global Youth Symposium.
After clearing a three-stage selection process, 10 winners were selected for each of the six language groups. Ms. Ghatnekar said the contest challenged full-time university students from around the world to write and submit an essay discussing their personal, academic, cultural and national context, and global citizenship, cultural understanding, and the role that multilingual ability can play in fostering these. Each group was allotted one of the 17 U.N. Sustainable Development Goals to discuss, and to create plans to solve the problem in their country.
Ms. Ghatnekar, the only winner from Mumbai, was provided with an all-expense-paid trip to attend the forum and symposium, and to speak at the U.N. from July 16 to July 26. “We worked in groups, arranged according to the language of the essays. On July 21, our group made presentations on achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls at a special meeting of the U.N.,” she said.
Ms. Ghatnekar’s action plan was a 5 ‘E’ plan for a gender-equal India: education, employment, experience, elevation of mentality, and emancipation of mindset
Ms. Ghatnekar credits her teachers and parents for her achievement. “My French teachers, Aban Davar and Radhika Kulkarni, helped me with corrections in my essay. And my college teacher Navin Punjabi referred me for the the competition. My parents were my backbone and my motivation through the toughest stages.”
