Kashvi Ramani wins Scholastics Art and Writing Awards Gold Medal

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Among the nearly 10,000 portfolios submitted for the Scholastics Art and Writing Awards, Kashvi Ramani, a teen from Virginia, and Poet Laureate in 2023, was one of 16 selected to receive the Gold Medal.

According to a Scholastics press release, the 16 portfolios earned  the program’s highest honor, the Gold Medal Portfolio Award, which includes a $12,500 scholarship. These Gold Medal Portfolio Award recipients, including Kashvi Ramani, alongside this year’s National Medalists, were scheduled to be honored at a virtual celebration hosted on Wednesday, June 26.  In addition, educators of the 16 Gold Medal Portfolio Award recipients receive $1,000 awards.

“Thrilled to share that I was one of the eight students out of over 100,000 selected for the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards Gold Medal in Writing for my poetry portfolio, “Indian Culture and Women”,” Ramani said in an email to Desi Talk.

“My six-piece portfolio submission included pieces about domestic violence in Indian homes, religious struggle through feminine expectations, the India-Pakistan partition and its historical significance, the treatment of menstruation in Indian society, and Indian orphanages and their poor and often heartbreaking conditions,” Ramani said.

She added that she was “extremely honored and grateful” for the recognition from Scholastics.

The letter announcing her award from the Alliance of Young Writers and Artists, noted that “More than 100,000 students entered nearly 340,000 original works of art and writing to the 2024 Scholastic Awards. Your work was selected by some of the foremost leaders in the visual and literary arts for excellence in originality, skill, and the emergence of a personal voice or vision. Fewer than 2,500 works received a National Medal, which places you within the top 8% of all submissions!”

Her poems will be available in the last week of June. “I also want to thank all my teachers, family, and friends for your constant support and love in all my endeavours,” she said.

“My journey with Scholastic has come full circle with my first big award of winning $5K for my elementary school in grade 4 ( https://patch.com/virginia/ashburn/ashburn-4th-graders-rap-song-wins-5000-grant); Silver Award for writing a personal memoir titled “A Trip to the Cliff” in grade 7 and now ending my Scholastic awards journey in such a momentous way,” Ramani shared.

According to her profile on Instagram @KashviRamani and information on other social media including Linkedin.com, Ramani was selected as Virginia’s Youth Poet Laureate in 2023. She began writing poetry at the age of 7, inspired by Shell Silverstein’s seminal work, Where The Sidewalk Ends.

She also is a singer/songwriter, and a performer at open mike shows and at poetry slams. On the website lcps.org/academiesonline, she is quoted saying, “I hope to be a multi-faceted entertainer,” adding, “I found my passion for acting at a summer camp at age 10. Growing up, it bothered me how inaccurately stereotypical minorities were portrayed in the media, and I struggled to find a role model who looked like me. Therefore, I hope to study film and entrepreneurship.”