A local Moose Javian has been honoured with the Diana Award for their work in empowering girls and gender-diverse youths.
On July 1, Isabella Grajczyk joined a virtual ceremony where she was awarded the Diana Award for the organization she co-founded, Sask Girls United. Grajczyk was nominated for this award by a group on the Regina University campus and an individual that Grajczyk viewed as a mentor. She did assist with the application process to make sure all the information given was accurate.
Since winning the award, Grajczyk’s drive and commitment to her work has continued to grow. She truly hopes to empower girls and gender-diverse youths in Saskatchewan and give them a space to be themselves and foster their leadership abilities and confidence.
"My passion for the work that I do in my community has continued to grow. It is really nice to get recognition for the work that you do, but at the end of the day, I do share this accolade with my team and with everyone that supported me along the way," says Grajczyk, Executive Director.
Sask Girls United is a non-profit organization, based in Saskatchewan that provides free virtual programming to girls and gender-diverse youths ages 8-14. The focus is on leadership skills, confidence, mental health, empowerment, and many other useful life skills within our province. The organization strives to create the next generation of strong leaders and to give the kids the opportunity to have those hard conversations, and to learn about these topics in a fun and safe space.
Since they started, they have had over seven hundred participants in their program. They offer programs every month or every two months, and each session lasts one to two hours on a range of topics like leadership skills, girls supporting girls, competence, mental health, and self-expression.
"The idea came to me during the pandemic. When everything shut down, I kept thinking, what could I do? What are some virtual things that I could do to give these kids an opportunity? Extra-curriculars were not really happening for students at this time so I kind of thought ‘what is something that I could do for the community, to alleviate a lot of the stress, some of the negativity going on?’” says Grajczyk. “In August 2020, I put on my Instagram story that I was interested in hosting a one-time girls' leadership camp online, I asked if anyone would be interested in helping me do this and I got five responses, and those happen to be all of my co-founders"
The Diana Award is an award that is given to young people who work towards improving the lives of others. The award was established in 1999 by former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and was named to honor Diana, Princess of Wales. This award is the most prestigious award for a young person aged 9-25 can receive for their social action or humanitarian work.
To learn more about Sask Girls United you can visit their website at https://saskgirlsunited.ca/.
To learn more about the Diana Award you can visit its website at https://diana-award.org.uk/.
