Nishtha Sharma Receives GS Gold Award by Girl Scouts

HOUSTON: Nishtha Sharma is a senior at Clear Horizons Early College High School (CHECHS) and she will be graduating this year not only with her High School diploma but also with her Associates degree in Life Sciences. She has been involved in Girl Scouts as a young Daisy, Brownie and Junior in Pittsburgh, PA. Six years ago she moved to Houston, with her parents and little sister and became a GS Senior and Ambassador of Rebecca Grime’s troop # 586. When Nishtha was a sophomore she watched an inspiring documentary called “The Science of Healing with Dr. Esther Sternberg”. This documentary studies the connection between the mind and body in order to understand how our brains, emotions and environment influence healing. After watching this documentary, Nishtha decided to apply learning’s from documentary to real life applications such as to improve the healthcare facilities environment.

Nishtha’s Gold award project dealt with the interfacial area of art, environmental beautification, human psychology, recovery from sickness and attitude toward physical settings. She tried to address an issue in healthcare sector which seems simple, therefor ignored sometime but it is extremely important to create highly refined, satisfying and pleasing background in hospital facilities and infrastructure. Normally, during health condition people have no choice but to visit doctor and/or hospital. When it comes to Doctor’s offices and/or hospital(s), there are several factors which can impact society/patients. She picked up highly interesting, psychological and meaningful element of a hospital’s architecture i.e. interior design of a healthcare facility. Based on many statistical and factual data, Nishtha carefully reviewed and assessed the neighborhood healthcare facilities and hospitals. Based on her research she concluded that hospitals need to add more colors to their walls for a positive, patient friendly surrounding for the speedy recovery of their patients. After careful considerations of all of her explorations and assessments of the various hospitals in the community, she decided to innovate and design unique, pleasant, fitting and colorful multiple canvas paintings for the state of the art facility of Cancer Center at Memorial Hermann Hospital since its patient recovery area was lacking satiating and patient friendly surroundings. These multiple exceptional and high quality canvas paintings were hung inside the patient recovery area of the Cancer Center, for the breast cancer patients, so they could feel confident about their inner beauty and embrace their natural body after their chemotherapy was completed. The strong, motivating, encouraging, positive and powerful quotes on one the paintings will also help these patients greatly. These famous quotes will remind them about their high level of confidence and desire to live and fulfill their life dream(s). Since every patient and family member prefers speedy recovery, Nishtha is confident that patients will feel better psychologically, and they can recover from their illness faster. Nishtha Sharma completed her Gold Award Project on June 2013. Overall, it took her approximately 6-7 months of time to complete the project. She received the notification of her Gold Award from Girl Scouts of San Jacinto Council on August of 2013.

Nishtha sincerely thanks her Gold Award Advisor Terri Castillo, project advisor Coleen White, her troop leader Rebecca Grimes and project team comprising several of Clear Horizons Early College High School Art Club members and Teachers.  By completing this project, Nishtha has contributed significantly towards improving the Cancer Center’s settings and ultimately added towards speedy recovery of cancer patients at Memorial Hermann Hospitals Cancer Center. She very much enjoyed doing this Girl Scouts project. Upon the completion of this project, she considers that this project helped me greatly in the development of strong leadership and organization qualities and allowed her to grow her team player and interpersonal skills. Finally, she feels a sigh of satisfaction and honor while helping her own community and society.

In recognition of this GS Gold Award Nishtha Sharma has also received multiple congratulatory letters from various Government officials including President Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, Governor Rick Perry, Mayor Annise Parker, and Mayor Timothy Paulissen.

 About GS Gold Award: The Girl Scout Leadership Experience engages girls in discovering self, connecting with others, and taking action to make the world a better place. Discover, Connect, and Take Action are the three keys to Leadership. Since 1916, Girl Scouts’ highest award has stood for excellence and leadership for girls everywhere. The Girl Scout Gold Award is the highest and most prestigious award that Girl Scout Seniors and Ambassadors can earn.