Kayla Arvina Putri Gumelar, a grade 11 student of KBS won the third place in the 2020 Indonesia Essay Writing Competition organized by Trinity College, University of Melbourne Australia. This competition is held annually for Indonesian students started from grade 9 to 12. Over 300 entries were submitted and Kayla’s was chosen to be among the best 14 on 4th November 2020. Kayla was given a two-week scholarship to join a Young Leaders Program in Australia in 2021. Winning the third place in this competition had never come to Kayla’s mind because it was her first time joining a writing competition and she tried to do everything herself. Under the topic “If you could have a conversation with any famous person past or present, who would you choose to meet and why?”, Kayla wrote that she wanted to meet Simone de Beauvoir, a philosopher, political activist and feminist from France.
She said that Simone has always been one of my female role models, “I always admire her because she was a feminist at the era where women’s right is not a frequently discussed topic. I also love her works such as She Came to Stay and All Men are Mortals”, Kayla said. Well, Congratulations Kayla! We believe that you’ll be a great writer.