KUALA LUMPUR: Winning the Queen Elizabeth II Commonwealth Trust 100 Young Leaders Award has encouraged three young people to continue their work supporting underserved communities through healthcare, education and technology.
Doctors On Ground (DOG) founder Arissa Jemaima Ikram said receiving the Queen Elizabeth II Commonwealth Trust (QECT) 100 Young Leaders Award validated years of work delivering healthcare to marginalised groups.
The 29-year-old, who works at a technology firm, said DOG provides healthcare directly in patients' homes to overcome barriers to accessing care.
The non-profit focuses on communities affected by poverty to ensure they are not neglected. Arissa, who is from Shah Alam, said the recognition affirmed the importance of its long-term work.
She said the award was not hers alone but also represented the communities DOG serves.
"We work along the lines of poverty, so communities who are affected by poverty will not be neglected," she told New Straits Times.
Another recipient, Sarah Callista Ng, 19, from Selangor, founded Hope2Kids, a youth-led non-profit that supports underprivileged children from orphanages and refugee centres through educational and career guidance modules.
"It is a huge honour, but it is an award for my entire team. All of us put in so much time, managing online meetings after school until midnight," she said.
Ng said the organisation's career immersion module helps children explore potential career paths and plan their futures.
She said the award recognised the efforts of her student team, who balance their studies with late-night strategy meetings and online discussions.
The third recipient, Ho Wei Liang, 27, from Pontian, founded Tech For SDG in 2022 to provide free artificial intelligence (AI) training to marginalised groups, unemployed young people and persons with disabilities.
The mechatronics graduate and AI engineer has mentored more than 1,300 young people across Malaysia and Southeast Asia, with a focus on addressing the technology resource gap in Johor.
Ho said the initiative aimed to ensure that people outside major urban centres were not left behind as AI advances.
He also hoped his achievement would encourage young people from smaller towns, saying that an elite overseas education was not necessary to gain international recognition.
British High Commissioner to Malaysia Ajay Sharma, who presented the award to Arissa, said he was delighted that three Malaysians were among the 100 recipients across 56 Commonwealth countries.
He said their achievements in leadership and community service reflected the late Queen Elizabeth II's ideals and demonstrated the talent among young people in Malaysia.
"I am really delighted that the Queen Elizabeth Commonwealth Trust has recognised what the three recipients have achieved in terms of leadership and service to communities," he said.
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