nominations for young leaders for change - paryavaran mitra mitra best student jury...

Copyright: Centre for Environment Education, India

Nominations for Young Leaders for Change


Shreya SrinivasBal Bharati Public School, Dwarka, New Delhi

Set up a composting unit (Khamba) with her mother’s support outside her house in which the organic waste from her home and a few

neighbours’ homes gets composted to manure.

Two of her neighbours continue to contribute to the compost and she has brought another Khambhaconvincing another. Four pots of green manure have been produced and is being used by the gardener for the

plants in the housing society.

“I have to continue my efforts regardless of what others think/ do/ don’t do. It gives me great pleasure and pride to play my miniscule part in helping the environment. “


Chetan DuggiralaTejasvi Vidyaranya, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh

Noticed the congestion on the road in front of his school and how they comprised of a single person in each car headed towards the new IT companies nearby. He explored if there was carpooling in place, and if they did then why did people not prefer to carpool.

Through my initiative, I made them realize the importance of reducing Carbon Footprint. I also created awareness about a Carpooling system already existent in Infosys which was dying a slow death due to lack of us

“It was like “an elephant in the drawing room”. Most of the interviewees were aware of the advantages of carpooling but everybody was ignoring it due to some inhibitions and also due to lack of interest.”


Umesh SharmaGovernment Jain Gurukul Hr. Sec. School Beawar,

Ajmer, RajasthanHis project was to make people aware of the

irrelevance of Aida in today’s times and to convince them to stop killing animals.

He contacted the village sarpanch, senior citizen, and farmers of the neighbouring villages and explain to them the flaws in the Aida tradition. He distributed 1500 pamphlets and also wrote applications to the Police Station, Collector, S D M and Department of forest to save local wild life.

“I want people to be kind and friendly with animals.”

Aida is a socio traditional practice of Rajasthan which happens during Holi when people go in the neighbouring forest area and hunt burrowing animals (which come out at Rabi harvest) as gameby making loud noises that scare the animals into coming out andthen kill them with sticks and stones as they consider them pests.


IndulakshmiJawahar Navodaya Vidyalaya Lakkidi, Wynad, Kerala.

Germplasm conservation– collection and preservation of paddy seeds of traditional varieties

Listed traditional paddy varieties of the different tribes in Wynad with the help of her teachers and the experts from M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation, Kalpetta. She interacted with the local community to gather traditional knowledge on some varieties to make a case for conserving these varieties and for going back to planting traditional varieties of paddy.

“My biggest successes in this project were that I understood the process of paddy cultivation without harming the ecosystem, I developed good interpersonal relation with many experts in this field and the local community. My friends and I now understand the importance of conservation of traditional paddy varieties “


Adityaraj SrivastavaHigh School Raipurchor, Bihar.Inspired by an incident of land going infertile, he decided

to create awareness amongst the farmers on the benefits of using ‘compost khaad’ (organic waste fertilizer) over chemical fertilizers which help get rid of the organic waste that would lie around otherwise and make the place look dirty hence the name of his project ‘Clean Rohtas, Green Rohtas.

He is abreast on this issue and different agricultural practices He got together a group of twenty friends, and two teacher in-charges and convinced farmers in Raipurchor, Alampur and Darigaon villages to use organic fertilizers. He got along farmers who had used compost khaad and to talk literate farmers who believed that chemical fertilizers are cheap, easy to transport and

need less labour.

“I intend to take up agricultural sciences as my career path and these interactions have given me an insight on what farmers want and what is good for our environment in the long term.”


Salil TripathyBharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Hyderabad

Salil’s action project involved working towards making his school a Paryavaran Mitra School by carrying out actions in waste management (pass on used textbooks of one year to the next year) and energy (turn off fans and lights when not in use) and biodiversity (each student plants a sapling on his/her birthday).

Got his friends from across classes involved in the initiative. In addition to this he encouraged his school to celebrate important environmental days.

“I could create a sense of concern and responsibility among junior students which motivated them to do something for their environment.“


Akshay VinayakVidya Bharati Chinmaya, Jamshedpur, Jharkhand

Inspiring his school to be a ParyavaranMitra School. Helped set up a medicinal garden in the school campus with his friends.

Used the assembly as a place to spread his message, the group distributed pamphlets on the different topics-minimizing waste by dong a paper collection drive, and installing two dustbins in every class for biodegradable and non-biodegradable waste. He has organized many expert talks and competitions on the different themes.

“The biggest challenge I faced is people’s negative attitude. When we went on excursion trips to spread the message with banners people would tell that it is a worthless exercise’. Other challenges were to juggle between studies and environmental work sometimes, but I got full support from my school teachers and friends”


Sagar VidhaniBharat Mata English Medium Higher Secondary School ,

Bilaspur, Chattisgarh

Raised awareness in the community to reduce polythene use and converting household organic waste to compost by means of rallies, dramas, competitions and campaigns.

Out of 50 houses, 30 have adopted both Waste Bin Method (WB) and Kitchen Garden Method (KG), 09 Adopted only WB, 7 adopted only KG and 4 adopted none method of waste .

“I’ve got insights on people’s habits regarding waste. People act according to their convenience and the most convenient way to get rid of waste is by throwing it anywhere”


Abhi ThadeshwarASIA School, Ahmedabad, Gujarat

Abhi’s project explored household wastage of water

and the need to conserve it.

Encouraged family, friends, neighbours, school and local areas to practice water conservation for which he suggested day-to-day tips on saving water, he carried out oral interviews, questionnaires to find out about people’s water wastage. Conducted a signature campaign in his housing society and forwarded it to the Public Affairs Minister, Gujarat Govt. to install water meters in every house.

“It was difficult to change people’s negative views on installing water meters. We asked them to see it as an instrument to keep track of wastage of water and thus find ways to reduce wastage and even pay less in the bargain. “


Sungwadan NarzaryHindustani Kendriya Vidyalaya, Guwahati,

Assam

Creating a bio-garden in her school where raw materials such as coconut shells, husks and bamboos were used as containers to grow small plants.

After creating the garden, she and her friends made sure that compost from organic waste from the school were used to grow the plants.

“I have learnt how I can utilize the waste eco friendly materials in a much innovative and eco friendly way.”


Shrungar BhuvaAhmedabad International School, Ahmedabad

‘Sanitation Ahmedabad’, to educate 20 homes in a slum nearby the importance of hygiene and introduce them to basic methods of maintaining personal cleanliness.

Encouraging parents of young underprivileged children to make them wear under garments and abstain from defecating in the open. Came back with a lot of empathy for them.

“I I learnt how to value and appreciate what I have, to not be judgmental about others based on their appearance, looks or attire, everybody has a lot of potential for goodness. And that sharing helps bring new meaning to life. “


Virok SharmaDelhi Public School, Chandigarh.

Worked on his school’s tetrapak recycling

programme.

Along with school mates recycle at least 200 kg of tetra pak and 500 kg of paper. Other activities included encouraging students to recycle paper and sell it in the community. The money obtained was used to buy CFLs to homes that were still using bulbs. Tetra pak recycling is constantly being carried out in school. 3 separate bins have been placed solely for tetra paks. All tetra paksused are disposed off in those bins

“I found out that for execution of projects, public support is very essential. That is obtained by showing previous results and achievements. And also that social networking sites like facebook and twitter can be of great value to spread the word on the environment.”


For more information contact:

Paryavaran Mitra SecretariatCentre for Environment EducationNehru Foundation for Development,Thaltej Tekra, Ahmedabad 380 054 IndiaPhone: (079) 2685 8002 - 05 Fax: (079) 2685 8010Email: [email protected]

nominations for young leaders for change - paryavaran mitra mitra best student jury...

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