2023 VCSIA Master’s Student Award Winner-Neema Jayasinghe
Neema completed her undergraduate degree in Education last year and is a current Master’s student studying Education, Policy and International Development. Neema has always been passionate about social impact, having already started her own NGO (Education Equalizers) teaching English to orphans in Sri Lanka at the age of 18, but what makes her truly exceptional is the sheer volume and breadth of impact she has had since coming to the University of Cambridge. During her time as an undergraduate, she worked as the President of the Afrinspire Student society, which works with a charity involved in the health and educational development of rural African communities, operating in fourteen different countries. Volunteering as the fundraising officer for Cambridge Hub, she helped raise £3000 over the course of a year.
More recently, Neema was selected as a Youth Researcher for UNESCO (and as the youngest in the accepted cohort to boot) and led a group of other academics, professors, lecturers and professionals to understand the effects of the ongoing unprecedented socio-economic-political crisis in Sri Lanka on University Students, focussing on key issues such as access, mental health and gendered impacts. Working in tandem with the Department of Education in Sri Lanka she and her team have produced reports that have and will influence Government policies that will improve the lives of University students. Their report is due to be published as a UNESCO report at the end of the year. During the height of COVID restrictions, Neema devoted her time to volunteering at the thinktank LIRNEasia, which focuses on digital policy research in the Asian Pacific. There she analysed data on the impact of Covid-19 on Indian Schooling systems and assisted in generating reports for the Delhi State minister.
Furthermore, for the past two years she has also been a panellist on The University of Cambridge’s very own Human Rights Podcast, Declarations and is now the host, having interviewed several high-profile speakers on various pressing Human Rights issues.
Neema Jayasinghe has always been passionate about social impact and since coming to the University of Cambridge as an international student in 2019, she has spent all of her free time trying to give back to society. She has volunteered with numerous charities and societies and worked with think tanks and UNESCO on social impact projects. Additionally, she is the host of the University’s very own human rights podcast, Declarations where she has produced numerous episodes discussing the pressing human rights issues of our time.
