Lagos Hero Recieves The Diana Award
Published by Borderless Media
Mariam Haruna, aged 25, from Lagos has been recognised with the highest accolade a young person can achieve for social action or humanitarian efforts – The Diana Award, which was established in memory of Diana, Princess of Wales.
The Diana Award charity fosters, develops and inspires positive change in the lives of young people through four key programmes which include; a mentoring programme for young people at risk, a youth-led anti-bullying ambassadors campaign, a collaborative Changemakers programme that aims to reimagine mental health support for young people from racialised communities and a prestigious award which publicly recognises young changemakers.
Mariam was recently invited to the Chatham House London conference where she gave insights and solutions to issues affecting young people; she also addressed issues of technology and governance, mobility and medical tourism.
She founded ‘MAYBAL Global Foundation’ at 21, which focused on improving the lives of poor and marginalised people, especially women and children. Through her foundation, she has helped to provide clothing and food to over 5,000 people, promoted the recycling and reusing of clothes.
As a volunteer, she has provided menstrual hygiene and sexual and reproductive health education for over 500 young women.
During the pandemic, Mariam along with other volunteers launched the #COVID19InMyLanguage campaign, creating videos containing information about COVID-19 in different languages and sharing them online, to ensure that information about the virus and safety measures were accessible to all.
Tessy Ojo, CEO of The Diana Award, says: “We warmly congratulate our new Diana Award recipients from the UK and across the world who are changemakers for their generation. It is especially poignant as we remember Princess Diana twenty-five years on. We know by receiving this honour they will inspire more young people to get involved in their communities and begin their own journey as active citizens.”
