Amanda Amaeshi is a 16-year-old UK-based girl. A citizen of Dunfermline, Scotland by birth but born of Nigerian parents. Her father is Kenneth Amaeshi, a professor at the University of Edinburgh.
According to www.thecable.ng, she is one of the only 18 girl-guiding youth advocates across the UK, and a campaigner who has spoken up about gender bias, racism and helped inspire girls to take STEM subjects at school.
She is also an award-winning writer. In 2017, she won the Young Reporters for the Environment (YRE) competition, when she wrote about problems concerning food waste in Scotland and potential solutions.
After all these interesting inputs in girls’ growth, she has been recognized and honoured by Glasgow Times as the Glasgow Times Young Scotswoman of the year. This announcement was made in a virtual ceremony held in association with St Enoch Centre and streamed from the Glasgow shopping mall on social media by Callum Baird, the newspaper editor.
In his words, “I am delighted to announce that our young Scotswoman of the year is Amanda Amaeshi. Amanda is an inspiration. She has taken on business bosses over gender bias; she is an award-winning writer and has a track record already of speaking out on racism and injustice wherever she finds it. We’re delighted she is our 2020 Young SWOTY.”
Passing a comment about Amaeshi, Anne Ledgerwood, centre director of St. Enoch Centre and SWOTY judge said, “This year’s young Scotswoman of the Year, Amanda Amaeshi, has shown passion and commitment in standing up and being heard on important social issues. I’m sure Amanda’s campaigning efforts and talent for writing will continue to be recognised in the years ahead.”
Expressing her pleasure in the honourary award and recognition, Amanda said, “Winning this year’s Scotswoman of the year award means that I can be a positive role model for other young women. I know that there are many talented young women out there, so hopefully, the work that I’ve done will inspire others especially those from ethnic minority groups to contribute positively to society in their own way. After all, everyone’s voice, regardless of who they are or where they come from, is important and deserves to be heard. I believe that if we all work together to fight injustice in the world, we will leave the world in a better place than how we found it.”
We hope Amanda’s passion continually rekindle. This is a good one.
