abstract
| - Melinda Leanna Shankar joined the cast of Degrassi in its eighth season as Sav's little sister, Alli. Prior to this, she did runway and print modeling. In 2008, Melinda traveled to Ecuador with the organization "Free The Children." In 2011 Melinda traveled again with FTC, this time to Haiti. Documentaries of the trips were made for MTV and MuchMusic in Canada. In 2009, Melinda made her lead role debut as Indie Mehta for the YTV series How to Be Indie and for her work was nominated for a Gemini Award for "Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program." Melinda played the role of Janie Gibb in the Disney remake of the Nickelodeon classic Harriet the Spy and also starred with Aidan Quinn in the independent film The Festival of Lights, for which she received a Best Actress award at the Ibiza Film Festival in Spain. The movie was filmed on location in New York City and Guyana. Melinda has a black belt in karate and has been studying martial arts for over 15 years. She also started taking ballet, pointe, and other forms of dance at only three years old. In February 2010, Melinda accepted an award for Actress of the Year at the Anokhi Magazine Gala. In early 2013, Melinda appeared as Kaitlyn in Shawn Desman's 30-minute music and dance infused special for MuchMusic. In March 2013 Melinda nabbed a Canadian Screen Award for "Best Performance in a Children's or Youth Program" for her role in How to be Indie. Most recently, Melinda co-hosted (alongside Degrassi castmate Munro Chambers) Free The Children's first U.S. "We Day" event in Seattle. She has stated that she is on good terms with all of her cast mates, but she is closest to Jessica Tyler, Dylan Everett, Scott Paterson, Luke Bilyk, Munro Chambers, Alicia Josipovic and Aislinn Paul.
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