Almaaz Mudaly from Roedean School in South Africa to receive the Rod Fraser Leadership Award

Posted: 01 June 2022

We are delighted to announce that Almaaz Mudaly from Roedean School in South Africa, is the recipient of the inaugural Rod Fraser Leadership Award.

Back in 2018, in response to severe drought in South Africa, Almaaz Mudaly designed a carbon-negative, inexpensive cooler for sustainable food insulation under the hot African sun. She won bronze at the International Science Fair for her efforts. At the time she was just 12 years old. Almaaz has also innovated to created an agriculture empowerment platform that allows communities to share and grow their own food. It was endorsed by the SAIIA as the Best High School Research in South Africa by the EU Young Researchers Symposium (made up of government, scientists, and the foremost experts on climate change).

Almaaz has contributed to the Lancet, UNICEF and WHO CAP-2030, sharing the stage with global leaders to discuss Climate Change, and was a speaker at the World Health Summit in Berlin in 2021. In the same year she was part of the team that launched a South African Youth Parliament on Climate Change, and invited input from more than 100 communities across South Africa into a policy presented to government as the SAYCAP. She also presented at COP-26 and was recruited to the UNESCO Learning Planet Youth Council as one of 17 global changemakers. She joined the Children’s Health working group launched at the 76th UNGA, and is working to democratise access to healthcare information for her generation through a zero-rated digital health podcast.

“I want to study the world around me, so I can empower my generation and generations to come to lead their own narrative” she says.

Within Roedean School, Almaaz is leading the Student Drive Team, engaging with the 21st Century Learning Project alongside Emmy winner Howard Blumenthal to decentralise and rethink value an adventure-driven education. Almaaz is passionate about education equality and is part of the UBUNTU learning circles at the club of Rome.

“I am grateful for the quality education I have been afforded by attending a Round Square School”, she says. “Round Square has prompted me to consider the increasingly globalised society when I speak with my global peers whose diverse cultures I deeply appreciate. Engaging in Baraza groups helped me realise that our lives are not only measured in years, but by good mental, physical and social health, as an unhappy, or unwell, mind cannot lead change. I am confident that I can take my diplomacy skills of collaboration and communication to RSIC to meaningfully engage with, and learn from, my peers.”

Presented for the first time in 2022, in remembrance of former RS Chairman, Roderick D Fraser, who passed away in March 2021, the Rod Fraser Leadership Award will be presented annually to a student from a Round Square school whose leadership capability and potential is demonstrated in their actions to date and their ambitions for the future.