That day in 2013 felt too overzealous at a house in Pakistan’s eastern city of Lahore. A 16-year-old college student had put on his best suit and was walking restlessly in his room.

He was holding some papers in his right hand, and every time he completed a lap in the small space between his bed and the study desk, he would go to his dressing table, look in the mirror, and utter some sentences as if he were delivering a speech in front of a large crowd.

He was due to deliver a speech later that morning at a declamation contest and was very anxious to win the competition.

He had prepared very well, had worked hard on the delivery of his sentences, phrases, references, and expressions. He was brimming with confidence and was certain he would lift the winning trophy at the end of the day.

His journey from home to the venue of the contest seemed too long for him. He wanted to reach the place quickly, give his best performance, and return victorious.

He finally arrived, performed to the best of his ability, but did not win!

A world ended for him, but he bore it with bravery. He approached the winner of the competition and sought some tips on how to be capable of winning such prestigious contests next time.

The winner looked him in the eyes and said, “You can never win a top-notch competition. You don’t have the guts, nor can you learn.”

The world had ended for him completely now. He returned home, tears flowing down his cheeks, his feet too heavy to take another step. He went straight to his bed and laid there for hours, lost in thoughts of disappointment and distress.

Then, there was a moment during this episode of disappointment when he realised that the person who defeated him was lying about him.

“He knows nothing about me,” he told himself and jumped out of the blanket.

He sat down on his bed, holding his head in his hands and thinking about himself. He measured his knowledge, skills, weaknesses, and strengths.

Moments later, he was back on his feet. He started strolling again in the room, thinking to himself, “I can make it possible.” That was his resolve.

In the following days, he began devoting more time to his studies, his preparations for speeches, and signing up for more competitions.

He logged into social media, searched for and connected with more experienced and friendly debaters, and made them his friends.

He lost 10 kilograms of weight to become slimmer and more active. He increased the number of books he read.

He practised and rehearsed using every available moment of time. He went to almost every debate competition in the country and won every single one of them.

Then, he ruled his country’s debating circle for several years, cherishing every walk to the stage whenever his name was announced to lift the winning trophy.

A few years later, he became a permanent judge at the premier debate contests in the country and guided scores of youngsters to become good debaters, speakers, and responsible citizens.

He is Pakistan’s 26-year-old Fahad Shahbaz, who won the 2023 Diana Prize for his community services.

Shahbaz, an aspiring young man from Pakistan, sees himself as the future national leader of the country who will take this battered South Asian nation on the road to prosperity, development, and reform.

His journey, however, has so far been a roller-coaster ride, in which he touched the lows and the highs, and then emerged as a leader of the youth. He set up a General Assembly for the young people of his nation and several other projects, which opened avenues of happiness and better lives to many who are impoverished.

Born in August 1996, Fahad Shahbaz struggled in his early life with studies and sports.

He shuttled between several schools, academies, colleges, a religious seminary, and university to get on the track of education and become a military or civil government officer.

He also followed an ambition of becoming a top-class cricketer for his country and played as an all-rounder in a local club but could not achieve this dream.

However, his failures made him discover his leadership skills and his interest in governance.

He enrolled at one of the oldest and most revered colleges in the country, Government College Lahore, and soon became the most important member of its debating society.

In 2018, Shahbaz finished his master’s degree in media studies from the University of the Punjab, Lahore. He then obtained his bachelor’s degree in law from the same alma mater, which is one of the most prestigious public sector universities in Pakistan.

He got a certificate in International Law from the Hague Academy of International Law and another in Public Policy Economics from the Department of Continuing Education, University of Oxford.

He is now pursuing a Master of Laws (LLM) degree in International Human Rights, Mediation and Alternative Dispute Resolution, and International Arbitration from the University of Law, United Kingdom (UK).

When he was winning the debate contests across Pakistan, his talent was finally noticed, and he got an opportunity to become a member of the youth committee of the government of Punjab.

He regularly interacted with the Chief Minister, who was the patron of the Youth Committee, and the Minister for Youth and Education.

Soon, Shahbaz became the President of the Chief Minister’s Debating Society.

In 2015, during his interactions with government functionaries and public institutions, he realised the need for a regular platform to channel young talent and their activities towards better governance and public welfare in society.

So, with the help of like-minded young people, he set up a Youth General Assembly (YGA) on the lines of a national parliament in a democratic system.

Fahad Shahbaz became the founding president of the YGA, which also has a general secretary and other secretaries and directors to run the secretariat of the assembly.

The YGA selects members from all over the country based on the applicants’ abilities and then engages them in different programmes of leadership, governance, and service.

It organises regular assembly sessions, forms 26 shadow ministries and standing committees, and works like a parliament, debating the country’s issues and their solutions.

The YGA has so far played its role in legislation at the national and provincial levels, providing input for amendments and the creation of laws about workers’, women’s, children’s, and transgenders’ rights, climate change, the Right to Information, disability, and local government acts. It also succeeded in securing a separate youth fund in the annual official budget.

Besides, the YGA has taken the debating culture to underprivileged students and organised and participated in several national and international summits.

Shahbaz also set up his charity organisation, the Fahad Shahbaz Foundation, and in collaboration with the YGA, created awareness among the masses to vote for their rights and succeeded in making public representatives provide water to several impoverished areas of Lahore through their ‘Vote for Water’ campaign.

Under another public service programme, they renovated around 100 public schools and planted thousands of trees to fight climate change in the Punjab province.

But the most successful initiatives of Shahbaz and YGA have been the formulation of the Trans Rights Protection Act 2018 and the launch of the Police, Judiciary, and Public campaign.

Shahbaz lent support to the draft of the trans act and its approval to help improve the lives of the transgender community.

The campaign for Police, Judiciary, and Awam helped provide quick justice to ordinary people.

These two programmes won him the Diana Award in 2023.

This award was given to him in recognition of his service in bringing the trans community into the mainstream and removing the distance between the police force, judiciary, and governing organisations to provide vulnerable communities with easy access to the judicial system.

Fahad Shahbaz has now launched a campaign to highlight people’s issues in political campaigns as the 240-million-plus nation heads to national polls in February 2024.

“We will put a questionnaire at the level of the provincial constituencies and ask the masses to identify their problems. Why were these problems not solved? What are the plans of their representatives to solve them?” he explains.

Fahad said that after getting answers to these questions, they would present them to the public representatives and the authorities responsible for solving these issues and will pursue them until these problems cease to exist.

He believes that out of the 68% of the young population of Pakistan, 64% will vote in the national elections this year, and the political parties’ agendas should be driven by the ambitions of these young voters.

To fulfil the dreams of these young voters, he himself wants to be an active part of national politics at some stage and is currently setting up his path to achieve his future goals.

“My wish is to empower youth. Constitute a separate Youth Affairs Ministry and budget for young people. Take maximum young people to Parliament because we can’t solve our issues until we go to Parliament ourselves.”

Shahbaz has already listed the steps for his reform agenda, which he will take when he comes into power.

“Pakistan will have to change in my lifetime. If I get a chance, I will make Pakistan a welfare state. I will set up a Truth Commission to correct the history and will also take steps to decide if Pakistan has to be an Islamic state, a democratic one, or a simple country.”

“I will also bring election reforms, making 18 years of education mandatory to contest polls, reducing the expenses for election campaigns to the minimum, and disqualifying candidates who would spend more money than the allowed limit.

Shahbaz has a strong resolve to bring about a judicial revolution in the country by making the national language, Urdu, the official language of the courts, setting up judicial tribunals with teachers and bureaucrats as members, and launching evening courts to quickly resolve pending cases.

He dreams of converting his YGA into an official Youth Assembly of Pakistan, consisting of citizens between the ages of 16 and 25, working closely with Parliament and the Cabinet.

For now, he roams the streets of Lahore, donning his best suits every day to convince people to stand up for their rights, question their representatives, and vote for those with a clear agenda to improve their lives.

Through his interactions with the youth, he is preparing them to lead their country themselves and to ignore comments like, “They don’t have the guts and will never be able to win.”

He is still overzealous and working hard to win!