Q- Chevening is looking for individuals that will be future leaders or influencers in their home countries. Explain how you meet this requirement, using clear examples of your own leadership and influencing skills to support your answer.
Leadership question from chevening
I consider guiding and leading people towards positivism and working for their rights an integral part of my existence. Not only that, as a human being, I consider it as one of my fundamental duties towards fellow human beings. I belong from a country where leaders or influencers in the right meaning of these words are a rare find. For me, a leader or an influencer is a person who engages with people, brings out the best in them through his/her able leadership qualities and channelize people's energy towards constructive activities. In this manner, the vision of leadership and influencer comes naturally to me. Thereby, I want to adopt the role of a leader and influencer, someone who is and would be able to not only lead people but influence them to break their shackles, identify the power within them and channelize that power towards contributing something to the country, society or community.
Beginning from school, I have always been a proactive student participating in all kind of activities ranging from theatre, inter-school debate competitions, writing and spelling competitions, sports and athletics. Along with the co-curricular engagements, I have always managed to keep my grades up to the mark. The ability of managing everything perfectly earned me the accreditation of teachers and school administration who would entrust me with organisation of events such as school annual function, theatre and plays, picnics etc. Not to mention, I have served as the school prefect and deputy head prefect too. From my school days, I have been sensitive towards the social issues prevalent in society which lead me towards writing about them in the form of articles, stories and poems.
The knack for exploration and urge to utilise my abilities to maximum followed me through my college years where I would guide students in their studies, would engage with the students of various communities, discuss their issues and mobilise students on campus for various causes. I would convey the grievances of students to college administration and would assist them in finding a feasible and mutual solution. After college, I served 1.5 years as a school teacher where within six months of my service I was designated as the subject in-charge for English and Social Studies, overlooking and guiding a group of five to six teachers each subject.
As I entered the university, my exposure and interacting skills served as a source of my engagement with departmental literary and dramatics communities. Years spent at the university were my transformative years, where I excelled the studies and also became a student rights activist. My interaction was/is not limited to my department only but to various other departments and faculties as well. I identified student issues both within the department and on campus, interacted with students regarding their solution and mobilised them for the solution of their problems. This involved taking up student issues to department administration as well as to the university administration. On campus, I formed a team of my own, which works for the rights of students, aid them in their studies, mobilise them for their issues. For instance, Sexual Harassment is an issue plaguing the campus since decades, this issue was taken up by my team supervised by me. I organised seminars, interacted with students, teachers and administration, mobilised them for the resolution of this menace and is still working on the issue.Holt Educational Consultant - / 14,835 
4783 Laila, I would like to commend you on your essay because you have shown a clear leadership foundation and development during your academic years. It is truly unfortunate that you cannot use the beginnings of your leadership abilities in this essay. As Chevening is looking for current leaders and influencers in their home country, this applies more to a professional setting instead of an academic or socio-civic setting. You cannot use this essay because of the lack of professional application of your leadership abilities. That is because the scholarship requires their candidates to have the potential to change their country either on a business or political level. So you need to think about your current profession and how it can prove that you have the potential to be a game changer in your profession based upon your potential studies. If you can prove that you have that ability, you will be able to revise the essay into a more appropriate presentation based on the prompt requirements.
Academia being my major area of professional interest and engagement I started working towards it from a very early stage in life, not only did I progresses within no time from a primary teacher to Subject In-charge and Academic Coordinator and now serving as a Principal at the school, I have taught kids of up to graduate level.
I began taking part in campus activities and was a core founding member of the state-banned students organisation National Students Federation. From being a member to the campus chief at University of Karachi, I proceeded on to build the foundation of the organisation and starting alone and anew it took me no time when I had around twenty competent people standing behind me who'd go on and continue the struggle when I graduate. Within the party I was promoted to the post of chairman organising committee and member central group of the organisation within a span of two years.
I organized several seminars on the campus on various subjects such as the reinstatement of students union, sexual harassment on campus, rights of students, de-politicization of students and society in general and importance of student activism.
From holding study circles to spearheading the campaign against sexual harassment on campus I have been invited as panellist for discussion on Gender, Politics and Equality. Besides that I have chaired discussion concerning Gender and Militancy at platforms apart from university.
Not only that, recently I attended a Training of Trainers as a Master Trainer on the subject of Gender, Harassment and Child Abuse.
Being a student of Literature polished my conscience towards issues otherwise considered as petty.
Carrying forward the insight my major subject helped me develop I joined a welfare school as a Principal where from curriculum designing to school policies and vision to even getting the menial tasks such as ensuring the delivery of books to school and facilitating parents in admission process I utilized every skill that I had.
I delivered trainings to the teachers at All Pakistan Women's' Association (APWA) Schools regarding curriculum development and lesson-planning specifically in English and Mathematics.
Recently I got a chance to work as a translator/sub-editor at a media house The Express Tribune where within the first month of employment I acquired profound insight on the necessities of journalism. Even before joining the organisation I had been a freelance contributor there writing about local issues.
Within five months into the organisation, I made myself sufficient enough to train my juniors in the organisation, helping them out with editing, curating and publishing of stories.
Four interns have been trained by me so far who are now part of reputable media organisations and are playing their part.
As a social worker and now a journalist, I had written articles on education, feminism and gender in the esteemed daily.
@Holt @skhaor kindly comment on this draft
Academia being my major area of ...
I think this sentence is too long and I would suggest you split it into two parts
... the state-banned students studentorganisation ...
From being a member toof the campus ...
At least for me, this sentence is too long.
... I had written articles on education, feminism ...
Maybe you can add some details and mention where did you publish them?
