Announcing the DEIJ Champions Award 2025

Celebrating Everyday Actions that Build Belonging at DSB International School

At DSB International School, we believe that Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Justice (DEIJ) are not stand-alone goals. They are ways of being, learning, and leading together.

The DEIJ Award, a bi-annual recognition, honours educators, staff, and community members who intentionally create spaces where every learner feels seen, valued, and empowered.

We are proud to share the final results for this semester’s DEIJ Champion recognition.

Maria Kurkova – GFL Teacher & Learning Leader, Primary

Maria Kurkova has demonstrated exceptional depth, intentionality, and sustained commitment to DEIJ. Her work is notable for embedding inclusion directly into curriculum design, creating equitable access for EAL, ALN, SEN learners and newcomers, and implementing multimodal teaching strategies that make language learning accessible for every child. She has also influenced colleagues through her leadership, mentoring, and modelling of inclusive practice. Her routines and pedagogical structures have been adopted beyond her classroom, showing clear scalability and long-term impact. For her combination of equitable teaching, systemic thinking, identity-affirming practices, and compassionate leadership, she has been awarded as the DEIJ Champion for this semester.

Doreen Lwantale

Doreen's work exemplifies deep care and ethical responsibility. She consistently supports children navigating sensitive identity-related experiences-such as adoption, single-parent households, and emotional challenges-with remarkable empathy and professionalism. She has also extended her DEIJ influence beyond the classroom through her presentation at the COBIS conference, representing the school commendably on an international platform.

We deeply value her contribution and recognise her as a key leader in strengthening belonging within Primary. Doreen’s relational DEIJ practice remains exceptional and essential to the school's culture.

Tejas Rajuskar

Tejas’s multilingual mathematics glossaries represent a powerful example of equity in action. He identified a meaningful barrier to learning and created a practical, high-impact solution that has significantly improved curriculum access for EAL students. His initiative is replicable, sustainable, and already benefiting more learners as it expands. We recognise his work as highly commendable and encourage him to continue developing similar equity-focused interventions. Tejas's work stands out as one of the clearest examples of targeted academic equity this year.

Reema Ahuja

Reema's leadership in the Foundation Stage is shaping a deeply inclusive and culturally rich environment for young learners. Her commitment to celebrating global festivals, engaging families, valuing home languages, and nurturing early empathy lays important foundations for long-term DEIJ understanding and attitudes.

Her work is especially notable for its community engagement and the visibility it gives to diverse identities. We appreciate her sustained efforts and the joyful, respectful environment she helps cultivate. Reema's contributions to representation, awareness, and early-years inclusion remain highly valued.

The DEIJ Champions Award reminds us that inclusion is built through everyday actions, through thoughtful curriculum design, courageous conversations, compassionate relationships, and leadership that centres equity.

We extend our heartfelt congratulations to Maria and to all shortlisted candidates. Your work makes equity visible, inclusion possible, and justice part of our everyday practice.

Together, we continue to build a community where every learner feels seen, valued, and empowered.