Lauren is a 16 years old Pymble Ladies College year 10 student. As a passionate humanitarian advocate, she has aimed to create and lead in as many Social Justice and volunteering initiatives as possible. Lauren orchestrated and led a large-scale community fundraiser for Ukrainian Women and Children (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkpddhm8DjA). As part of this, she constructed marketing videos and posters, designed badges, ran sales, and donated thousands of dollars to UNICEF post-completion. Through this initiative, Lauren also organised and ran the Ukraine sector for 2023 inter-school Social Justice day. Coupled with this, she has joined in with many other practical initiatives, such as Community Pitch from local charities and not for profit organisations, Days for Girls, Hornsby Women’s Shelter, organised numerous fundraising busking events, and MC’ed and performed at a community concert for Breast Cancer.
Having always been confident and outgoing, Lauren began engaging with Debating and Speech and Drama in primary school, which eventually led her to discovering other areas of Language Arts – Mock Law, Model UN, Public Speaking – and Leadership. These experiences not only refined her eloquence and ability to speak in front of an audience, but also formulated her creative and critical thinking skills. As such, Lauren has become an effective communicator and spokesperson, and as demonstrated through her positions as an Upper School Leader, Student Representative Council and Peer Support at Pymble Ladies College, can act as a representative for her peers. Lauren thrives on challenge and enjoys taking part in academic competitions such as History and Science Olympiads, Da Vinci Decathlon, inter-school Stock Pitch Competition, Future Problem Solving, as well as writing for academic research magazine. Her Academic and Language Arts related pursuits have also granted numerous volunteering opportunities. She has dedicated much of her time to coaching and adjudicating Primary School Debating, mentoring at Young Entrepreneurs Society, running Speech Festivals and helping at Career events, all of which have fostered relationships and helped to further develop her leadership capacity and future career ambitions.
All of these has led to Lauren being awarded National Finalist in 2023 Edstart Achievement Awards Social Impact category, National Finalist in 2023 Young Leader of The Year Next Gen Awards, and shortlisted for 2024 NSW Youth Advisory Council.
Currently, Lauren is taking part in Humanitarian Refugee Program which is an inter – school educational project where she teaches English to children refugees (many of whom are from Ukraine and have Jewish roots) helping them to integrate into Australian school system. Also, this year she is applying for Sydney Jewish Museum Youth Committee 2023-2024 and taking part in BJE Nesiah Year 10 Israel Program.
Through this participation and leadership, Lauren has learnt not only the value of service to help others, but also its ability to unite a community under a mutual cause. She aims to continue extending it and hope to channel her efforts into an outlet of significant impact.