Leading on Climate One out of three Ashoka Young Changemakers worldwide works on climate. Selected with Ashoka rigor, these teens have “had a dream, built a team, and changed their world”. The stories of two climate AYCers, India’s Garvita and Brazil’s Rhenan, follow. The AYCers’ initiatives work. But their impacts are far bigger – for the environment and for a world where everyone can give and therefore is welcome. They persuade millions to care and thousands to join or, better, to create their own new dreams and teams. Each of which then becomes a new multiplier. The climate AYCers and Fellows lead Ashoka’s special climate imagining and testing group. Morover, young people who know they can change the world at 15 are very likely to be the next-generation leaders for the environment and an everyone-canbe-a-giver world.
The greatest barrier to climate action now probably is the paralyzing “us versus them” politics that has swept so swiftly across the continents. This is rooted in the fact that millions cannot play in today’s everything-changing, everything-connected new reality. Those who can are doing brilliantly. But these people are being crushed. They need to blame someone. Hence the demagogues. The only answer is to ensure that everyone has the ability to give, to be powerful, i.e., in today’s reality, to be a changemaker. The AYCers are critical here. They are the goal-defining role models. They are working out the new patterns daily. They recruit. No one can convey the new definition of what success in growing up now is better, let alone with such emotional impact. Who could possibly lead youth communities as effectively?
JULY 12, 2019
[Rhenan] is at the forefront of a movement that could transform a stream into an ecological park... Rhenan developed a proposal to revitalize and recover the Brejinho stream, a tributary of the Araguaia river. “In my research, I noticed that the steam was a huge part of the resident’s lives, it cuts through the city and flows into Araguia, one of the main hydrographic basins in Brazil. The action included a task force to clean the banks, a public hearing with authorities and residents, and the planting of seedlings. To achieve it, however, he had to find supporters. “As the city is small, it was possible to go from door to door, and I partnered with the Fire Department, the Civil Police, the Environmental Police, schools, and other agencies...” With these partners, he organized a motorcade that invited the population to participate in the joint effort that followed. The next step was a public hearing, which discussed the progress of the project. “With this, we were able to isolate the area for planting seedlings. Folha de S. Paulo is Brazil’s largest newspaper
Ashoka Young Changemakers from Brazil
Rhenan | Brazil
Elected an Ashoka Young Changemaker in 2019
At 13, Rhenan became an Ashoka Young Changemaker and got the attention of the Governor of his state, Tocantins. As a result, the Government donated the seeds for the ecological park that Rhenan’s team is building, appointed him to represent the state in national meetings about water resources, and created an environmental education program for all schools in the state directly inspired in Rhenan’s action. The process of becoming an Ashoka Young Changemaker helped Rhenan to recognize himself not only as a leader of a successful project, but a leader with a mission to engage other youth in changemaking journeys. He now incentivizes young people to create their own teams, through speaking at schools, in radio programs and in the national and international meetings of the Congress on the Environment and Education.
Garvita: Save Water Garvita, a founder of Ashoka Young Changemakers has significantly expanded climate awareness by getting restaurants and their customers to pour only what’s needed. This also saves a lot of water – every day.
Garvita has a second goal: To enable all young people to discover and grow their changemaking superpower and to use it for good. In an everything-changing new reality, this is now as essential for all as literacy became a century ago.
Garvita evolved her approach and built a team of young “waterpreneurs” into Why Waste?. It very successfully took Garvita’s #GlassHalfFull approach viral. Then it convinced the National Restaurant Association of India to adopt the campaign – thereby reaching over five million restaurants, causing millions of customers to reflect, and saving millions of liters of water. Why Waste?’s other activities reach an additional three million people. It has carried its #GlassHalfFull campaign to dozens of Indian cities and to eight countries. Why Waste? now also seeks to change global water policy and is pressing India to declare a national water emergency. Key to Garvita’s success is partnering freely with and truly empowering local youth organizations.
Garvita discovered that she could accelerate tipping a school’s culture by having a different student or group each week present and discuss stories of young changemakers in assembly. The students who step up readily grasp the justice and urgency of “everyone a changemaker”. They want to engage their peers, value Garvita’s help and tools, and regularly contribute new approaches. She has also partnered with a media company that disseminates the stories monthly to 2.5 million more students. As she expands this reflective storytelling, she increasingly sees parents wanting to help their kids be changemakers.
EL PERIÓDICO GLOBAL BELÉN HERNÁNDEZ | AUGUST 6, 2020
In 2015, India experienced one of the worst droughts we can remember. Farmers committed suicide because they couldn’t harvest anything to eat or sell, entire families walked many kilometers to get water to survive ... That situation marked me forever,” explains Garvita Gulhati from her home in Bangalore. At the age of 15, together she and her friend Pooja created WhyWaste?, an organization that educates citizens on creative ways to reduce water waste, focusing on restaurants where millions of gallons of water are wasted per year in India. “I started by visiting restaurants around my house, but who was going to listen to a 15-yearold girl?” recalls Garvita, who later asked her mother to drive her to more remote areas so she could continue spreading her message. “In India it is normal to have water on the table of each guest. What I asked the owners was, why don’t you ask guests if they want water and only serve it to those who ask for it? That way less water is thrown away after the meal,” says Garvita. The method she proposed to each restaurant is to fill a guest’s glass only half full, thus saving thousands of liters of water every day. She
Garvita | India
Elected to Ashoka Youth Venture in 2016 Elected an Ashoka Young Changemaker in 2018
promoted her initiative with the hashtag #GlassHalfFull, which became very popular in India in 2019. “The beginning was difficult, when we felt like we were alone fighting against everything. We had friends who supported us, but others laughed at our ideas,” explains Garvita, who is now 20 years old and studying to be a telecommunications engineer. Whywaste?, which has continued to grow over the past five years, also works with high school students, encouraging them to propose solutions to the issues they care about. This model has been extended to another 20 schools in Bangalore and other parts of India. Garvita says, “We want to convey the idea that people who want to change things are necessary. And the importance of protecting the environment.” El Pais is Spain’s largest newspaper