Kiwi anti-bullying campaigner Ashleigh Smith has been presented a young leaders award by the Queen.
Smith, 19, was among 60 people awarded the Queen's Young Leaders Award at a ceremony at Buckingham Palace yesterday morning.
The award recognised her effort leading the New Zealand initiative "Sticks 'n Stones" to reduce online bullying within schools.
Smith spent the past fortnight in the United Kingdom attending the Queen's Young Leader Award residential programme, which included a suite of workshops designed to enhance recipients' work areas and projects in their home countries. The group called on such organisations as Redthread, the BBC, AMV BBDO, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Facebook and Google, among others.
The programme also included meeting with senior government officials at 10 Downing St and the Commonwealth Secretariat.