Prerna Pahwa
Prerna Pahwa; drive, will, determination, compassion, sincerity…how do you describe this person? She was the driving force of the team in Indian community and one of the founder of the ‘Help Ujwal campaign’ which has brought us to where we are today with SIMPLY HUMAN Inc. – Superheroes Without Capes.
Proud Indian by birth and proud Australian by choice, Prerna bring with her a passion for helping people which is so rarely found.
Moving to Australia as an impressionable and young international student, she studied at the Swinburne University of Melbourne undertaking a Master’s Degree in IT. It is in this niche sector where she remains to this day having worked for such stand out organisations as Domino’s Pizza Enterprises, Melbourne IT, & currently for Queensland Government – Department of Health.
With a deep-rooted empathy toward the needs of international students she is able to act as intermediary between new arrivals and the challenges students face when studying in a foreign country. As beautiful as Australia is it can still cast a daunting shadow to someone who has never been here previously. Prerna very much aims to change this with a positive approach in providing practical solution based services to young overseas students.
Aside from being well educated herself it is not the driving force in her life. As one of the founding member of the ‘Help Ujwal Campaign’ it should be clear to anyone who knows Prerna that her passion in life is helping others. It is literally that simple.
Helping is one thing of course but making herself emotionally available to those who need her is another entirely. Initiating crowd funding to support Ujwal and his family financially saw her call upon every friend, associate and favour she could to raise $88,000 for the campaign is – a truly remarkable effort. She did not so much pick the baton up but rather moulded it herself to share with others. She gives the credit to the whole ‘Help Ujwal Team’, donors, supporters and well-wishers for the success of the campaign.
The campaign also brought to Prerna’s attention the limited awareness surrounding bone marrow transplants and even cancer itself. Many hear the word but this seemed to be where many people’s understanding of this deadly illness ended.
The importance of preserving stem cells was even for her a foreign subject when she first met Ujwal and became involved in helping him return to full health. The next logical step for Prerna was to create that awareness & educate people about leukaemia & to preserve the stem cells, and initiating a mass bone marrow drives.
So many people care deeply about causes or charities or just everyday people but many don’t know where to begin to offer practical help. Prerna has not only found her beginning she has structured a team around her to be one of extreme closeness with all flying forward in the same direction as one.
When asked what she wanted to be when she grew up Prerna would always reply; ‘a humanitarian and a philanthropist.’
With the establishing of ‘SIMPLY HUMAN’ Prerna is very much living, and indeed driving, her dream.
In her own words, Prerna is a believer in the old adage that we should start counting our blessings and not our problems. Every problem has a solution but a blessing is just that – something to be embraced & enjoyed. Find the faith in humanity, if you can’t find one, be the faith in humanity. Life is indeed, beautiful.