Crescent Girls’ student wins 2nd prize in prestigious Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition

SINGAPORE – Achanta Lakshmi Manognya was falling asleep one October evening when her elder sister rushed into the room to shake her awake.

“Mano, we’re going to Buckingham Palace!” her sister screamed.

That was how the Crescent Girls’ School student, 14, realised she was the junior category runner-up in The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition 2025. Her mother had received an e-mail from the organisers.

Founded in 1883, the competition is the world’s oldest international writing competition for schools.

Over 53,400 entries were submitted from 54 Commonwealth countries, a new record and a 53 per cent increase from 2024, according to the Royal Commonwealth Society.

The junior category, for those aged 14 and below, was won by Vivaan Agarwal from India.

The senior category was won by Kaira Puri from India and the runner-up was Pandora Onyedire from Nigeria.

The four won a “Winners’ Week” trip to Britain in November that involved visits to historic and cultural sites, such as Westminster Abbey and Jane Austen’s House. There was also an award ceremony at St James’s Palace on Nov 20, where they received their certificates from Queen Camilla.

On meeting the Queen, Manognya said: “She was really kind... She went to every single family member in the winners’ families, and she talked to each of them.”

Manognya told the Queen she felt grateful for the opportunities the contest had given her and “the platform that it’s giving the youth”.

“The essay competition is a very empowering competition, and I’m honoured to have been a part of it,” she said.

Manognya’s winning poem, India To Mauritius, tells the story of a young monkey that is taken from its mother and transported from its home in India to an enclosure in Mauritius.

The India-born permanent resident, who moved to Singapore when she was six months old, had wanted to write about India in relation to the competition’s theme in this edition – Our Commonwealth Journey.

She discovered the slave labour trade that connected India and Mauritius and began researching the route between the countries, as well as the experiences of those who arrived in Mauritius from India. She learnt that exotic animals were being traded too, and that became her inspiration to write from a monkey’s point of view.

She added that she was also inspired by her parents’ stories about moving to Singapore and building a new life for her and her sister.

“I used that feeling (of) how this monkey came to a new country and took care of another monkey, instead of being upset about losing its own (mother),” she said.

Manognya’s winning poem was her second draft, which she started in April – a month before the submission deadline – after scrapping the initial copy because she thought it “fell flat”.

Manognya’s mother teared up after reading the completed poem. “She said, ‘This reminds me of me leaving my mum’,” Manognya recounted.

Her father, “someone who’s not very emotional”, gave her a hug. He had moved to Singapore with Manognya’s late uncle. “Your (uncle) would be so proud of you right now,” he told her.

Her teacher, Madam Chng Woei Ling, said she was moved when she read Manognya’s final draft.

“I was very touched, even as I was reading as a teacher with a critical eye,” said Madam Chng, who heads the school’s English Language and Literature Department. “I told (Manognya) this piece has a lot of promise.”

Madam Chng, who has been working with students on The Queen’s Commonwealth Essay Competition since 2019, was confident Manognya’s poem would do well in the competition.

But winning was only a bonus, she said.

“(Writing) is about finding their voice and saying what they want to the whole world,” she added.

Motivated by her experience in the essay competition, Manognya urged other young writers to believe in themselves too.

“I know it sounds very cliche – ‘never give up’,” she said. “It’s true because if you don’t try, you’ll never know. There’s nothing you lose from trying, but there’s a lot you lose from never trying.”