Harvard Student Wins 1st Annual Outstanding Woman of the Year Award
May 13, 2008
BOSTON — Asian Sisters Participating In Reaching Excellence (ASPIRE) announced Mihiri Tillakaratne as the grand prize-winner of the 1st Annual ASPIRE Outstanding Woman of the Year Award for female high school or college students of Asian American descent.
Tillakaratne received the award at the “ASPIRE Asian American Women in Leadership Conference” on April 26 at Harvard University. This year’s keynote speakers included MTV news correspondent SuChin Pak and Kyung Yoon, vice chairman of executive search company Heidrick & Struggles.
Tillakaratne is the founder and executive director of Empower a Village, a nonprofit organization that provides breast cancer awareness workshops, mobile eye clinics, and English and computer literacy programs to villagers in rural Sri Lanka. During summer months, she visits Sri Lankan villages with volunteer American and urban Sri Lankan students to implement these programs.
In 2006, Tillakaratne received a scholarship from L’Oreal Paris as part of Teen People’s special report “20 Teens Who Will Change the World.” Based in Los Angeles, Tillakaratne is currently pursuing a degree in History with a focus on International Relations at Harvard University.
“We realized a real need to continue to encourage, mentor and celebrate the young women in our community that are doing wonderful work like Mihiri,” said Grace Niwa, chairwoman of ASPIRE. “She is a true example of this award and what it means to pay it forward.”
Finalists in the ASPIRE competition included first runner-up Neha Singhal, 20, of Gaithersburg, Md., and second runner-up Linda Chu, 21, of Monterey Park, Calif. Stephanie Drenka, 22, of Southlake, Texas, and Jessie Pan, 17, of New York, N.Y., received honorable mentions.
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4 Responses to “Harvard Student Wins 1st Annual Outstanding Woman of the Year Award”
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South Asians aren’t racially asian, they are caucasian. Try again?
Maybe in the 70’s, but since the 80’s South Asians are considered Asians in the US.
Now, I begin to “understand” Anh Tran.
He actually believes he has “passed.”
From “Asian” to “Caucasian”!
Who cares what the census says? By that stupid logic someone from Vladivostok should also be considered for this award.
The word asian (in a racial sense, which is exactly the sense virtually everyone here identifies with) means East Asians. “South Asians” are Asian only by a technicality and it’s not surprise they’ve lobbied hard to be lumped in with “us”.