These 6 teenagers doing their bit for environment show that age is no bar for activism
Meet six students who are raising awareness about climate change and sustainable development through their initiatives and enterprises.
For the Gen Z generation, sustainability is of the utmost importance. According to a 2021 Pew Research report, 76 percent of people under the age of 24 termed climate change as one of the biggest societal concerns.
Sustainability is defined as catering to the present generation without sacrificing the needs of future generations. The youth has been vocal about this as according to a 2020 First Insights report, 73 percent of Gen Z consumers were willing to pay more to buy sustainable products.
Realising the importance of sustainability for a greener earth, many young entrepreneurs, environmentalists, climate activists and social activists have come forward with solutions to protect the environment.
SocialStory looks at some of these young activists/ innovators doing their bit to save the environment.
Anushree Pratap and Tisya Dewan
Having been part of many educational initiatives, Anushree Pratap (19) and Tisya Dewan (17) realised environmental courses taught in schools and colleges lack climate literacy.
The girls started Nitara youth initiative in 2021 to work on climate literacy as they believed the subject should be taught to students early on. The duo are on a mission to provide a broader scope of environmental courses to children and adults.
At present, Anushree and Tisya, along with their team, are working on two simultaneous projects. The first project, Eco-Net, focuses on climate literacy where the team makes resources available under structured modules and puts them on its website.
The second initiative, Green Column, is a monthly newsletter which brings young voices to the forefront, giving adequate coverage to climate issues in India often ignored by the mainstream media.
Sri Nihal Tammana
An Indian-American, Sri Nihal Tammana founded ‘Recycle My Battery’ in 2019 on realising the harmful effects of disposed of batteries on the environment. The US-based NGO aims to promote and facilitate recycling through safe disposal and educating others about the process.
Nihal with the used battery and the bin
The 12-year-old has been working to rid the world of battery pollutants to make it safe from fires. According to him, globally, over 15 billion batteries — containing toxic chemicals — are carelessly dumped in the garbage each year. This improper disposal causes fires and pollution, putting the lives of millions of people and animals at risk.
To date, he and his 150+ team of young kids have recycled over 150,000 used batteries and educated over 1.5 million people on the importance of recycling used batteries.
Vishwa Iyer
A nature lover, Vishwa Iyer decided to take action when he learnt about the number of people dying due to air pollution in India.
In 2021, he built Air Variance Authority (AVA), an app that helps determine air quality through images. There are two models behind AVA – one is a 16-layer convolutional neural network model deployed on Google Cloud. When a photo is uploaded, the model can predict which AQI bucket the photo would fall into.
The other model is built for rural Indians and does not require internet. It is a simple algorithm that determines the red, green, blue (RGB) value of the sky in the photo. It compares them to those in the dataset, and finds the closest value. The picture is assigned to the same AQI bucket as that of the nearest neighbour.
Vishwa has partnered with several local foundations, including Chopra Foundation, which is helping him deploy AVA on the ground. He is also in the process of collaborating with panchayats and local governments to update the public health guidance accordingly.
Khushi Chindaliya
Since her childhood, 17-year-old Khushi Chindaliya has been passionate about nature. The teenager found the inspiration to preserve nature and its resources after witnessing her hometown turn into a concrete jungle.
Owing to her interest in conserving the environment, the Surat resident was recently appointed the Regional Ambassador for India by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) - Tunza Eco-Generation.
Amidst the lockdown, Khushi spent her time understanding the causes and repercussions of environmental degradation. Due to the restrictions and the problems of the pandemic, she is now working on an online programme where she shares reports and speaks on what the government is doing for the environment, and how education can help arrest the decline.
Siyona Vikram
A podcaster, speaker, and social entrepreneur, Siyona Vikram was seven years old when she fell in love with the idea of podcasts. She started her own podcast – Little Mind Chats to inform children about current global events and educate them further on the limited information available in their textbooks.
During one of the podcasts, she learnt about how turtles were dying in the ocean due to plastic pollution. This led to the genesis of Little WISE club in late 2020. Through her club, Siyona intends to inspire kids the world over to use toys made of sustainable and biodegradable materials.
Through her club, Siyona raises awareness about the health hazards of plastic toys on children and their effects on our environment once discarded. She also collects used plastic toys from children and does her best to stop them from entering landfills and water sources.
Edited by Kanishk Singh