Priyanka Saini

Marketing & Logistics Lead

Priyanka Saini is a proud Indian-American. She is half Gujarati and half Punjabi so she likes to say she gets the “best of both worlds”. She has made a great impact in her community and is a natural leader. She is on the board for her school’s chapters of National Honors Society and Asian Student Union, and the president of Spanish National Honors Society. She also plays varsity tennis and is a captain for the varsity badminton team at her school. She is a performer at heart and has been in many performances for chorus and dance. Being a strong, young desi woman, she is a 4-year attorney for her school’s mock trial team. Using all of this knowledge about law combined with the passion she has for change, she will be pursuing a Criminal Justice major next year at the University of Maryland-College Park. She is a bubbly and outgoing person who is always cracking jokes and striving to make others feel welcome. Her goal for SAYI is to give a voice to the many countries within Asia that are not represented well. She hopes that SAYI will help better educate people on the beauty an diversity within Asia.

Yash Param

Community Outreach

​Yash Param is an Indian-American high school student in rural Alabama. He is a part of National Honors Society, co-captain of his debate team, Model United Nations Chair, Student Council Vice-President and established South Asian Student Association (SASA) at his school. Yash is passionate about being awareness to social injustices amongst South Asians in his community, especially low-income, and is trying to create a nonprofit organization to raise money for low income families and teachers across rural Alabama and in India. He is also vocal on the issue of model minority and post-colonial structural oppression that motivates him to conduct research of the implications of stereotyping and post colonial identities of South Asians. Yash wants to use his voice in SAYI to combat the silent oppression that is currently discriminating South Asians in America and to confront the toxicity of colorism in social culture. He believes that working with ambitious, passionate, and smart people in SAYI!

Siddhi Kacholia

Social Media Lead

Siddhi Kacholia is an Indian-American sophomore at UMD. She will be majoring in government & politics and information science as well as minoring in buisnuess analytics. She has ran chapters of multiple organizations at her high school, such as DECA, C4, etc. She has also been an events coordinater for SASA as well as an attorney for mock trials at UMBC, which she attended for a year before transferring to UMD. She hopes to one day be a successful lawyer to advocate and act as a resource for her community. Siddhi has lived in India until she was eight years old and continues to visit frequently, which has helped her not only stay connected with her culture, but also embarce it in a society where it is not always easy to do so. Through SAYI, Siddhi hopes to share the various rich and diverse cultures of South Asia and further help South Asians all over the world embrace their culture. She also hopes to use SAYI as a platform to give back to the underprivileged and vulnerable South Asians theough different initiatives and awareness programs.