The two students are a part of the 1M1B Foundation's Future Leaders program that empowers youngsters to create meaningful change in relevant areas.
When Esha and Samaraditya, two ninth-graders from Bengaluru, talk about their projects for climate action, it is clear that this topic is not just a hobby for them, but their future. The youngsters, who study in National Public School (NPS) Rajajinagar in Bengaluru, are part of the Youth Leaders program of the 1M1B (1 Million for 1 Billion) Foundation. The aim of the foundation is to activate one million leaders who will impact one billion people to create a world with balanced prosperity. The Future Leaders program selects and nurtures youth leaders from high schools and undergraduate programs who have the potential to create meaningful change in relevant areas. Esha says that she is passionate about climate change and sustainable fashion. She started a project called ‘Interlaced’, which she says is a campaign against fast fashion. The project’s Instagram page indicates the amount of research that has gone into it. Through her project, Esha says that she wants to “encourage people to upcycle or donate clothes instead of just throwing them away”. The young leader found out about fast fashion while casually browsing the internet. “I was browsing through YouTube when I saw this video by Hasan Minhaj called ‘The Ugly Truth of Fast Fashion’,” she says, adding that it spiked her interest in the subject. Learning about it inspired her to start this project. Project Interlaced has three simple steps, says Esha. The first step is creating awareness about fast fashion. Esha has been conducting awareness sessions with over 450 people about the consequences of fast fashion and what can be done about it. The second step is creating donation drives. So far, she has partnered with organisations in Bengaluru to collect around 127 kg of clothes for donation. The third step is encouraging people to upcycle their clothes. For this, Esha has connected with an organisation called Oh Scrap, who collect scrap cloths and use them to make small articles like masks or handbags. Like Esha, Samaraditya too is passionate about climate action. His project is called ‘Jeeva Jala’. It aims to provide access to and create awareness about clean drinking water in three villages in the Western Ghats and the Cauvery river basin in Karnataka. Samaraditya says that he is a traveller and photographer, and likes to trek. “I have trekked to most of the peaks in the Western Ghats and I feel we have access to a clean water source. But I feel very sad to see the way water gets polluted by the time it reaches for human consumption,” he says. This inspired the youngster to interact with the residents of the village and create a documentary highlighting their issues. The documentary also lists some measures that can be taken to conserve water. “I would like to set up a rain harvesting and water filtering facility at the three villages that I have chosen,” he says. Jeeva Jala conducted a fundraiser to set up these facilities, through which he has raised Rs 45,500 out of the required five lakh.
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