If you need inspiration to take action for our environment, look no further! Our Climate Rockstars are young dynamic leaders who have been working relentlessly to mitigate the harmful effects of the climate crisis and to conserve and preserve our environment.
Aadya Joshi
Aadya Joshi is the founder of The Right Green, an initiative that champions the cause of biodiversity restoration through research, education, and advocacy on native plants. She has created the first of its kind research-based database of over 15000 plant-insect feeding relationships for the Indian subcontinent and developed a BioPower Index to help landscapers, gardeners, and civic authorities plant the best biodiversity supporting plants for their region. Aadya is currently a student at Stanford University. She has received numerous awards including the Children’s Climate Prize, North American Association of Environmental Education Global 30 Under 30 award, Earth Day Network Youth Ambassador and Rising Star, The Pollination Project Grant award and has been featured in “Stone Soup for a Sustainable World: Life-Changing Stories of Young Heroes”.
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Abhiir Bhalla
An active youth environmentalist at a global level, Abhiir has been working in the field of environmental conservation for over 8 years. Identified by the BBC World News as amongst the foremost youth environmentalists in 2020, Abhiir and his work have been featured prominently in the national and international media. As a sustainability consultant, his work focuses on air pollution and waste segregation, and he is currently producing a vastly successful climate change podcast, 'Candid Climate Conversations' for a UK-based think tank. A prominent youth leader, Abhiir is passionate about driving youth climate action. He's been a three-time TEDx Speaker, and is also a Youth Ambassador for Earth Day International and sits on the Board of the Commonwealth Human Ecology Council.
Anjali V
Anjali V is a 21-year-old girl from a small wetland village, Muhamma in Kerala and has been brought up around the lake and other water resources. She is passionate about women’s rights, preserving water bodies and promoting sustainable living. Anjali joined hands with Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) and the Panchayat in their campaigns to spread awareness about sustainable menstruation in her village and to sensitise villagers about the disposal mechanism. This became an agenda in the Gram Sabha and it was called "Suchitwa gramasabha", especially for menstrual hygiene. At the same time, she advocated for the easy and cheap accessibility of these menstrual products in her village to make the change sustainable and affordable. Such actions have led to impact more than 500 women in her village prompting them to switch to sustainable menstrual products.
Atyantika Kothuri Mookherjee
Atyantika Kothuri Mookherjee is a budding writer with a keen interest in sustainability, youth advocacy, and the social sciences. An ardent advocate for sustainable menstruation, she co-founded and currently directs The Red Lotus, an organization exploring the intersection between sanitation workers, the environment, and menstruation. She has been nominated for the Pradhan Mantri Bal Shakti Puraskar in Social Service for her work as part of the organization and has been part of many seminars to highlight the cause. Atyantika is also working on publishing her debut novel, ‘My Islamabad Diary’ which chronicles her childhood in Pakistan and an India-Pakistan context from the eyes of an adolescent. She is presently studying at the Global Indian International School in Singapore, and enjoys long walks with her dog and learning about Japanese history in her free time.
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Nikita Dhawan
Nikita Dhawan is a Grade 11 student at the American Embassy School in New Delhi. She has always been passionate about animal rights and environmental conservation and is the founder of an animal welfare initiative called "Youth for Animals.” Nikita is leading the organization’s flagship campaign #FreeShankarDelhiZoo to free Shankar, an African elephant languishing in the Delhi Zoo, from his life in solitary captivity. Nikita has filed a legal petition in the Delhi High Court for Shankar’s freedom and has received almost 200,000 signatures for her online petition. The campaign has been covered extensively by Indian and International media, including BBC, ABC News, Newsweek, Financial Times, Hindustan Times, Times of India, Indian Express etc. Nikita received the Youth Award from the Federation of Indian Animal Protection Organization (FIAPO) in 2022. Nikita is also a Youth Ambassador for Born Free Foundation and Earthday.Org and one of the youngest members of IUCN’s Commission on Education and Communication (CEC).
Prasiddhi Singh
Prasiddhi, founder of the Prasiddhi Forest Foundation, is a 9 year old climate leader. Prasiddhi is recognized with the Prime Minister National Child Award 2021 (Highest Civilian Honor under 18 years) as the youngest social entrepreneur. She is the youngest fruit forest creator of India as per the India book of Records 2020. Two times TEDx Speaker, Prasiddhi is also the youngest keynote speaker of Harvard Model United Nations, India. She is also appointed as the Brand Ambassador for the nationwide girl literacy campaign - “Beti Bachao Beti Padhao” by the Tamil Nadu Government and she has also been globally recognized as the “Earth Day” Network Rising Star (USA). She has been awarded the Global Sustainability Award 2021 by GCPIT & the Global Child Prodigy 2022. Prasiddhi has been awarded as Byju’s Young Genius, an initiative of Network 18. Prasiddhi is on a mission to plant 1lac trees by 2022 and to spread the G3 PROJECT - (Generate your oxygen, Grow your own food, Gift your community) to every school, every student of India.
Reshma Kosaraju
Reshma Kosaraju is a current sophomore at The Harker School in San Jose, California. Her passion for preserving the environment started at a young age in her elementary school with her avoidance of food wastage during lunch. At the time, wasting food felt morally wrong to her, but as she grew, she learned just how much of an environmental impact wasted food really had when it entered landfills. Enjoying nature is one of her favorite pastimes, so this realization was extremely jarring to her. When her family moved from Chicago to California a few summers ago, she was immediately struck by the intensity and frequency of forest fires on the West Coast. Soon after she moved, the Camp Fire occurred. Even though she lived over 200 miles away, she needed to wear masks, and this was prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. After learning more about forest fires and their environmental impact, Reshma knew that this was an issue that she wanted to help address. So, she used machine learning to build an artificial intelligence model that could predict the occurrence of a forest fire using meteorological data and human factors. She saw this project as an opportunity to merge two of my passions: science and environmental advocacy.
Sawan Kanojia
Sawan Kanojia is an Environmental Activist from Meerut, Uttar Pradesh. He is a Journalism and Mass Communication Student. He is working for the environment protection from his 9th standard, in the same class he founded ENVIRONMENT CLUB, a youth organization. With his more than 35+ school friends he has been working for the Nature Welfare for the past 5 years. Sawan along with his team is reaching out to each community of society to bring change and to raise awareness on Environmental Issues especially Water Crises.
Ridhima Pandey
Ridhima Pandey is a Haridwar based climate activist who, at the age of nine, filed a petition against the government of India in response to its inaction to mitigate climate change. In 2019, along with 15 other child petitioners, Ridhima filed a lawsuit against five countries at the UN. This 14 years old climate leader has been widely acknowledged for her work, and has been named as one of the top 100 most empowering women by BBC in 2020. Ridhima is currently participating in international conferences and helping to empower other students, at all levels, to fight for their future and for the biodiversity of the world. Ridhima is working to save her future and that of the coming generations. A role model for children everywhere, Ridhima, is a popular speaker at various national and international conferences, and has spoken at international conferences. She is a recipient of various awards, including Sanctuary Asia's Young Naturalist Award, 2020 and Mother Teresa Memorial Award of 2021 for social justice.
Malhar Kalambe
Malhar Kalambe is an Environmentalist & a Youth Leader. He is also a digital creator who creates content around environment & sustainability. Malhar is the Founder of 'Beach Please' - a Mumbai based youth community working towards environmental conservation since 2017. Apart from organizing weekly clean-up drives at multiple locations in and around Mumbai, 'Beach Please' also conducts sensitization programs with schools, colleges and local communities. The community has conducted more than 450 clean-up drives in the last 5 years. The community has successfully managed to clean and dispose of more than 7.5 million kgs of garbage from the city's coastline in a span of 250 weeks and counting, and has also engaged more than 2.8 lakh citizens hailing from diverse backgrounds in the initiative over the period. 'Beach Please' has received accolades from the Government of India and the United Nations for their exemplary contribution in environmental conservation.