ABOUT RUHIKA
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Ruhika is a rising freshman at Watchung Hills Regional High School and graduated from Green Brook Middle School. Ruhika has had a flair for dancing from the tender age of two where she performed "Jai Ho" which was choreographed by her guru Kavita. Ruhika has learned various dance forms like Bollywood, Tollywood, Folk, Contemporary and Acro dance forms, and began learning Bharatanatyam at age 6. Ruhika strongly believes that dance has helped her mold as a better person and has taught her values such as discipline and creativity. She is highly indebted to her Guru Kavita Aunty and Aishwarya Didi. She believes a strong core both physically and mentally are the keys to success and especially loves trying out challenging acro moves in her Indian dance forms. She loves spending time with her dance friends especially during competing season and her troop has won multiple regional dance competitions in the Tri-State area.
Besides classical dance, Ruhika also loves art and has launched an online store (Snazzy Sellables) to sell custom sketches, bullet journal templates and artwork that she creates herself. She is pursuing art in high school. Her vision is to bring equal access to healthcare and education across the Global South. She did all the illustrations for her sister's published book, The Adventures of Wilbur, at the age of 8. She has been working on integrating art in STEM fields to help with her vision.
Ruhika's other interests include competitive gymnastics like Floor, Beam, Uneven Bars and Vault, and Figure skating. Ruhika is on the high school varsity Gymnastics team. She has competed and won awards at State, Regional and National level gymnastics. She was a competitive figure skater until Covid-19 happened and competed in multiple figure skating competitions.
Ruhika volunteers for Swaravedika and has raised funds to help with multiple initiatives that drive equal access to healthcare and education. She coaches the middle school MathCounts team and participates in the Academic League. She cares deeply about childhood obesity and did research around it for her Global Leadership project.
This arangetram is also a platform that Ruhika is using to raise funds towards Covid Relief efforts. This includes organizing efforts to help doctors and healthcare workers in New Jersey urgent cares with PPE kits, food and masks created by her community. She also collaborated with her relatives in India to supply ration kits to frontline workers and laborers affected by Covid, in collaboration with Swaravedika. Details are on the Fundraiser section of this site.
ABOUT MIHIKA
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Mihika is a rising senior at Watchung Hills Regional High School. She has been dancing from the tender age of 4. She has learned various dance forms from her teacher, "Kavi aunty" and aspires to be as independent and expressive as she is. Mihika started dancing at the age of two and she has trained in various dance forms from contemporary, folk, acro, Bharatnatyam and bollywood dance forms. Under the guidance of her teacher, she loves to mix different dance forms to create fusion dances. She remembers the mummy steps, daddy steps and baby steps and is thankful to her teachers Kavita Aunty and Aishwarya Didi for instilling a love of dance. Along with her troop, she has participated in various prestigious dance competitions and recitals in the tri-state area. She firmly believes that nurturing the creative right brain is key to thinking out of the box and developing confidence and grace.
Mihika's other interests include figure skating, singing, debate and politics. She has published a children's book "The Adventures of Wilbur", when she was 10 years old.
She is a feminist and has a nonprofit, Ladyship, a platform to inspire girls in her generation to take on leadership roles. She runs a podcast series "InspireHER" that you can listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Play Music or her website. She also has done a TED talk around this. Mihika participates in Model UN and Young Democrats club and cares deeply about social issues and activism to shed light on the topics. Through Ladyship, she has presented at various events, and recently participated with the UN and Aspire Artemis Foundation in a symposium to encourage girls on the island of St. Lucia to pursue STEAM careers. She has preseneted in a panel with AWS, Microsoft, Interdigital and New Signature on Ethics and AI at the Grace Hopper Conference in 2019, where she shared her GenZ perspective.
This arangetram is also a platform that Mihika and Ruhika are using to raise funds towards healthcare workers and frontliners in India and USA in collaboration with Swaravedika and Ladyship. Details can be found on the website for the Arangetram and Ladyship. As a part of their efforts, they have raised funds and helped fund PPE for urgent cares and hospitals in USA and India and created and collected masks for frontline workers and finally funded PPE and ration kits for hospitals and workers in Dharwad and other places in India via Swaravedika.