Relentless Hero Nikhiya Shamsher: Only 16 and Has Entirely Transformed the Lives of More Than 12000 Children

You would have to be a true word wizard to name all the achievements of young Nikhiya Shamsher (16) in one brief paragraph. A thank-you note she received from a girl called Roja has changed her perception of the world. When barely a teenager, at the age of 12, Nikhiya formed an NGO called Women Have the Same Set of Teeth as Men. Its initiative – Bags, Books and Blessings – has helped more than 11000 students from 30 schools to receive school supplies, while another project called Yearn to Learn has provided 115 brand new Science and Math laboratories benefiting more than 12000 young souls. A student whose grandmother has arthritis and cannot climb stairs has made a prototype of a Hydraulic lift, thanks to the laboratory provided by Nikhiya’s NGO. In recognition of all her good deeds, Nikhiya Shamsher received the prestigious Diana Legacy Award at St. James’s Palace last year. She has spent the last 18 months developing and validating a diagnostic method to detect the early risk of oral pre-cancer and cancer in chronic smokers. Her research paper has won the Gandhian Young Technological Award and has been featured in the Harvard University Journal of Emerging Investigators. This girl seems unstoppable…