2020 International YOUNG Eco-Hero Award Winners 

Action For Nature is proud to announce our 2020 International Young Eco-Hero Awards, which recognize young people 8 to 16 years old for their environmental achievements. We hope the accomplishments of these outstanding young people will inspire many others to preserve and protect the Earth upon which all life depends. 

Winners are divided into two groups, ages 8-12 and ages 13-16. Please note, the ages listed below are based on each winner’s age on February 28, 2020. Click here to download the 2020 Press Release.

Age Group: 8-12

- 1st Prize: Rylee Brooke Kamahele
- 2nd Prize: Sofia Molina
- 2nd Prize: Ivanna Ortega Serret
- 3rd Prize: Justin Sather
- Honorable Mention: Zach Hartman
- Honorable Mention: Lily Kay

Notables

Growing up in Hawai’i, Rylee was a born ocean conservationist. She’s been diving since she was 3 years old, and says that doing a beach clean up is “like taking care of my second home.” Over the years, she’s cleaned up several tons of plastics and trash from Hawaii's beaches. When Rylee was eight years old, she began to create formal programs under her umbrella organization, The Catalyst Club, which works to empower youth and build a generation of leaders. Under this organization, Rylee runs a number of projects including Promise to our Keiki, The Plastics Project, and the Hashtag Speak Up Movement.

Promise to our Keiki (keiki meaning children in Hawai’ian) aims to empower youth to be advocates and activists. Most recently, Rylee has been advocating for the Promise to our Keiki, Keep Hawai’i Hawai’i bill which protects Hawai’i’s nature and wildlife and educates tourists to be more mindful visitors when hiking, swimming, and visiting. The bill is now a law in Oahu. It was killed at the state capitol, but Rylee is working on getting it reintroduced next session. Rylee is also working to ban single-use plastic in Hawai’i by 2024.

Rylee is a speaker at many public and community events, raising awareness about the environmental issues our world is facing, and she prepares and assists other kids to do the same and to create their own bills. She is working on a documentary and has set a goal to raise funds for other kids to make documentaries that showcase important issues and call for change.

The Plastics Project is Rylee’s environmental and ocean conservation program which advocates and educates about the environment, plastics, and all marine life. She organizes beach clean-ups specifically for kids, as well as social media clean-up challenges, and partners with other organizations to encourage youth to participate in their events. In addition, Rylee goes to schools and community gatherings to educate about plastic pollution and ocean conservation, including protecting sharks.

Through her animal advocacy program, the Hashtag Speak Up Movement, Rylee actively rescues and rehabilitates animals, while educating about animal welfare and working to protect endangered species such as monk seals and Hawaiian green sea turtles. “I love what I do!” says Rylee. “Every single program or project I create is sparked by a passion I have or experience I've gone through that called for change. I want to grow my organization to be bigger than the YMCA and give kids something to do.”

ryleebrooke.com
promisetoourkeiki.org
@ryleebrooke_official
@promisetoourkeiki
@theplasticsproject
@hashtagspeakupmovement

In 2016 when Sofia was just 7 years old, she decided to build a better world and create an environmental platform for youth. She recognized that people generally did very little to protect the planet, while children often had great ideas as well as the time to carry them out, but not everyone listened to them and only some supported them. She wanted to give kids like her the tools they needed to carry out small actions for sustainable development and care of the environment.

Sofia developed a program called "Cococu,” named for the initial syllables of her three main actions, COncientizar (to raise awareness), COnocer (to know), and CUidar (to care), with the slogan: “a personal cause causes a collective effect!” She works to make the world listen to children and give a voice to their perspective, demanding that we improve this planet and improve the quality of life for kids today and for future generations.

For the last several years, Sofia has organized more than 1,000 children to participate in a variety of conservation projects and become Cococu ambassadors. Recently, she was able to secure 30,000 acres for voluntary protection of ecosystems and sustainable use of resources.

Besides being a youth representative for the San Luis Potosi state sub-committee working on the Sustainable Development Goals Agenda for 2030, Sofia registered Cococu as an NGO in 2019, in order to make a larger difference in Mexico and around the world, making sure that children are heard and that their ideas and actions are taken into account to change our present and improve our future.

"I am sure that the climate crisis can be combated by children being guided in a simple and professional way, and above all by giving us a voice so that through a plan created by us, we can demand respect for nature,” says Sofia. “If children can fulfill our dreams, there will be a better world!”

cococu.org
facebook.com/cococu.org
@cococuorg
youtube.com/channel/UCkcInP4XlvF7g2m7bctKsVQ

Ivanna lives outside of Mexico City in Atizapán De Zaragoza, home to the beautiful Madin Dam, an essential ecosystem in the area. It’s been a source of water for three nearby towns, including hers, and it used to be frequented by herons, pelicans, ducks, and people kayaking and enjoying nature. In 2019, budget cuts left the municipality without funds to keep the water clean, so water lilies and other plants took over, the fish began to die, and no birds were seen there anymore.

Ivanna decided to take action and approached CONAGUA, the company that monitors the dam. They told her that a minimum of 19,000 signatures were needed before they would even discuss any solutions. Ivanna quickly created a petition on Change.org and gathered the required signatures in just two weeks. Government authorities and CONAGUA used the signatures to secure 21 million pesos to start cleaning up the dam, thanks to her tireless efforts to make the petition successful and connect with other movements and organizations to work together with scientists, citizens, and government.

Since CONAGUA only sent 6 workers to clean 65 hectares of water, Ivanna, along with civil groups, organized clean-ups to put pressure on the authorities to expedite the project. It was then that the environmental group Nacel Arcoiris launched an initiative to make divisions in the dam, cornering the lily plants with machines to prevent them from spreading throughout the entire body of water. Ivanna joined their efforts to obtain resources, including donations of materials and money.

Today the Madin Dam is officially lily free! Ivanna’s work hasn’t stopped there though. She’s continued to petition and secure donations to stop the sewage discharges that fall into the dam along with nearby construction waste, and she hopes to make it clean for public use again soon. Her petition now has more than 70,000 signatures.

“It is like a lake full of life and it broke my heart to see it almost dying,” says Ivanna. “My mom told me that anyone, even me, can open a petition and make a difference. I've learned that I can make something for my town and for nature.” 

chng.it/qV5K4yDBvT
limpiemos-presa-madin.webnode.mx

Like many 9-year-old boys, Justin loves to play sports and hang out with his friends. He also loves frogs, which might seem like an ordinary thing – except he’s taken that love to another level. It started in kindergarten, when Justin learned that almost one-third of frog species are on the verge of extinction. He learned that pollution, pesticides, and habitat destruction are the main causes for their decline. Knowing that frogs are an indicator species, he recognized that frogs are telling us the planet needs our help. Justin’s mom saw his passion to create change, and together they set out on a quest to tell the world. 

He began by selling toy frogs around his neighborhood, and as his confidence grew so did his sponsorships and social networks. Justin worked with PLAE Shoes to create his own frog-themed shoes, had the opportunity to present his work to Dr. Jane Goodall, and was spotlighted in Bravery Magazine for his efforts and determination. As his donations expanded, his projects and impact grew. He began organizing wetland cleanups, studying frogs with herpetologists worldwide, and working with companies that turned plastic waste into treasures. Currently, Justin has raised over $22,000 for his efforts to conserve land and to make the planet safer with less plastic and better water quality for the frogs and beyond. 

On Earth Day 2019, an environmental science student from Cameroon named Perise reached out to Justin asking for help with his town’s plastic pollution. Justin started completing projects in the United States to encourage Perise to do the same “in parallel” in Cameroon, and The Parallel Projects was born. Together they upcycled thousands of plastic bottles into useful items like flower planters, bowls, and even a fisherman’s boat. In order to reduce single-use plastic and teach youth to become their own eco-heroes, Justin donated hundreds of reusable water bottles with personalized drawings of each child’s favorite animal.

Justin continues to inspire and educate youth about protecting the planet. He wants other children around the world to take care of the planet just as he is doing for his love of frogs. His latest project is raising money to purchase land to protect rainforest in Ecuador that is home to thousands of frogs and other critically endangered animals and plants. Justin’s mission is to protect 30% of the planet by 2030. 

“I want people to take better care of the environment,” says Justin. “I want to make the world a cleaner and safer place for the frogs, other animals, my family, and friends.” 

ForTheLoveOfFrogs.com

Zach was 7 years old when his parents asked him to start taking out the trash. “I realized we only got one trash day for recycling items and actually two pickups a week for regular trash. I wondered where all of our trash would go,” says Zach. In 2017, he launched a service project called Zach’s Planet to fulfill his mission to help the planet and his community. 

Researching areas where he could best help, Zach was alarmed to learn that 300 million books are discarded into landfills each year, and that a lot of parents throw away stuffed animals that their kids have outgrown, because many resale shops don’t accept them. He began organizing collection drives, and so far he’s succeeded in keeping 40,000 pounds of used items out of landfills, and saving 2,600 trees by promoting reuse of books.

Zach has collected 65,000 books, distributing them to Little Free Libraries in all 50 states, as well as to 15,000 students through a partnership with his county’s public school system. His most impactful delivery was to Robert E. Lee Elementary, a Title 1 school in Tampa that had been destroyed by fire. Zach helped collect, sort, and deliver over 1,000 books for classrooms in their new location. He has also collected 2,500 stuffed animals, donating them through Glad Dog’s Nation to animal shelters and rescues in 19 states. 

Zach recruited members of his Cub Scout pack, martial arts studio, and Humane Society Kids Club to help collect and distribute the stuffed animals and books. He has set up a website, YouTube channel, and blog as a way of sharing his ideas with other kids. He’s also sold bracelets for ocean conservation and donated proceeds to Ocean Conservancy and 4Ocean.

Zach’s efforts of kindness were featured in Woman's Day Magazine and recognized by his district Boy Scout office. He also won the EPA's 2019 President's Environmental Youth Award representing Region 4.

“I hope others will try doing Random Acts of Kindness especially when it comes to saving the environment,” says Zach. “Every small act of kindness can make a big impact on the environment. We all have to pitch in to be kind to our planet.”

zachsplanet.com

In the summer of 2018, while visiting national parks with her family, Lily asked, “In what grade do kids get into State Parks for free?” When she found out that there was no such program in Texas, she was determined to change it. On January 6, 2019, she wrote a letter to Texas Representative Morgan Meyer, asking him to introduce a bill that would allow for Texas fifth graders and their families to enter State Parks at no cost.

Representative Meyer liked the idea and introduced HB1561, and then asked Lily to testify on behalf of it in front of two committees, the House Culture, Recreation, and Tourism committee and the Senate Water and Rural Affairs committee. The proposed bill passed the House committee, only after the chairman, Representative John Cyrier, removed the “and families” language from the bill. 

Lily testified before the Senate committee, but the bill was not sent to the Senate floor for a vote. However, Senator Angela Paxton, who was the Senate sponsor of HB1561, acted quickly and offered the State Park language as an amendment to another bill, HB2065, that was about to pass. After a quick re-vote in the House, that bill was sent to Governor Greg Abbott. He signed HB2065 into law on June 14, 2019, or Flag Day.

Lily plans on asking for the original bill to be introduced again next year, as she would like the legislation expanded to include “all children under 16 in the group and up to three accompanying adults or an entire car.” The Outdoor Alliance for Kids (OAK) has offered to help her with these continued efforts during the next Texas legislative session. 

Eventually, Lily would like for all states to allow grade school students to explore their State Parks for free. Because many families are unfamiliar with National and State Parks and/or can’t afford to pay entrance fees, Lily would like to remove the financial barrier so that all kids can enjoy State Parks, which tend to be closer to homes than National Parks.

“Kids and people of any age can make a difference,” says Lily. “Don’t be afraid to speak up. If you don’t ask, you’ll never know. Never stop trying, even if you get discouraged, are scared, or things get hard. Dream big!”

Not many 14-year-olds can say that they started their own nonprofit organization, but Jade Bothma can and did. She founded Oceano Reddentes, meaning “the ocean revives,” at the age of 12, and in addition to cleaning up beaches, she is pioneering the use of discarded plastic for home building. 

Jade and the volunteers she has inspired have removed more than 8,000 pounds of waste from beaches around Cape Town, recycling some 3,300 pounds and diverting it from polluting the ocean and from landfills. What’s unique about Jade’s approach is logging the brands of the waste on each beach, teaching the beach volunteers that what they buy can affect the environment, and using the brand data to work with those companies to make changes. 

Beyond recycling waste, Jade came up with the idea of storing recovered plastic in bottles with lids, then using them as “eco-bricks” to build housing for the homeless. Many people told her that her dream could not be realized but, undeterred, she found a project site to build on and enlisted the help of Waste-Ed and Stellenbosch University to fire-test the bricks with natural building materials, such as clay, lime, and hemp. When completed, she will seek planning permission to build one of the first eco-brick houses in South Africa, which will be a home for a caretaker and his family at the Bhongolethu Foundation.

Jade has learned much from her project. “Oceano Reddentes has taken me on a journey like never before,” she says. “It has shown me how much the world needs our help and has deepened my love for the ocean. It has shown me that the world is the most beautiful place and that we need to protect it.” 

An avid surfer and snorkeler, Jade’s dream is to become a marine biologist and to travel the world doing research while also educating people about the ocean. Matthew Horn, Director of Immersant Data, has helped Jade with her data and website. He writes, “Jade is possibly the most dedicated teen I have ever met. She has a singular purpose with this project and nothing else comes between her and her passion for the environment. This project of hers will become her life’s work.”

oceanoreddentes.org
instagram.com/oceano.reddentes
facebook.com/oceanoreddentes

Adarsh Ambati
Age 15
San Jose, California, USA
Smart Community Sprinkler System

Adarsh Ambati lives in Northern California, where harsh drought conditions have existed for several years. Around him, lush green lawns have turned brown, the creek in front of his home has dried up, the frogs are silent and the deer have moved on, and wildfires and flash floods sometimes rage. But as Adarsh traveled around his neighborhood in San Jose, he noticed many of his neighbors had automatic sprinklers dispersing precious and expensive water, regardless of weather conditions.

Adarsh decided to develop a smart, low-cost, community sprinkler system that would conserve water that is often wasted during general-purpose landscape irrigation. Using a Raspberry Pi, a small single-board computer, he created a prototype that monitors soil moisture as well as weather conditions, then publishes information via Twitter on when and how long to turn on sprinklers. The device also logs daily water usage, assisting residents in complying with water restrictions.

Existing smart sprinkler systems cost upwards of $200, require expensive installation, and are intended for single households. Many monitor either soil moisture or weather conditions, but not both. Adarsh’s prototype cost $50, and a single device can serve tens of households. “By engaging the community rather than the individual, we shed light on this problem that can only be solved through collective, unifying effort,” says Adarsh.

Adarsh began working on his prototype in 2016, and conducted a two-month pilot with 10 neighboring households. He concluded that these 10 homes had the potential to save 50,000 gallons of water over two months. He approached several local water companies, but for two years faced only rejections.

In 2019, Adarsh’s prototype won first prize in the hardware category of the Coolest Projects USA national competition, and was featured in The MagPi magazine. Aaron Behman, a board member of Lake Canyon Mutual Water Company in Los Gatos, California, who happens to be a Raspberry Pi enthusiast, saw the article. Adarsh had previously reached out to the company without success, but with Behman advocating on his behalf, he is now working to implement the project in Lake Canyon.

In addition, Phillip Colligan, the CEO of Raspberry Pi, interviewed Adarsh and selected his project for a TedX talk, garnering visibility that Adarsh hopes to leverage to gain traction with other water companies.

Aside from his sprinkler project, Adarsh is the founder of Gro-STEMs, a program that sells succulents to fund STEM classes for underrepresented and impoverished youth, in order to support the next generation of scientists. They currently teach students at the local LifeMoves Homeless Shelter as well as the Aarti for Girls School for abandoned children in Kadapa, India.

“With the advent of thousands of interdisciplinary fields towards the end of the 20th century, my current goal is to be a reputable environmental biologist,” says Adarsh. “Throughout my independent research and science fairs, I have tried to explore computational sciences, biology, and ecology. Being the core of my passion, I hope to use all elements of these three fields to help the masses as well as to continue my current efforts in providing STEM education to the impoverished.”

twitter.com/aaweather
gro-stems.com

Lazar Dukovic first became interested in science, electricity, and how things work upon visiting a history museum at the age of nine, where he was inspired by an exhibit on Serbian-American scientist Mihajlo Pupin. He began reading about Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison, and experimenting with practical projects in his small workshop. Now at the age of 15, he has put his knowledge to work to help a rural village in his native Montenegro, building a water pump for all residents and providing solar electric power for eight households. 

Lazar knew that his grandparents and the other villagers of Ilino Brdo had always had problems with water supply and lack of electric power. Water was only accessible from far-away springs and wells, and residents were unable to connect with the power grid, having to resort to polluting gas generators.

Determined to help, Lazar consulted the Internet and learned how to build a ram pump that uses gravity and the momentum of moving water to bring water to village homes. He raised $350 to buy the needed parts, by selling handmade souvenirs to tourists. After the success of his ram pump, he embarked on testing small solar collectors to charge his phone. With additional fundraising, Lazar was able to buy larger panels and to scavenge the parts necessary to produce solar power for his grandparents’ home and seven others. He provides the ongoing maintenance to keep the systems running, and plans to upgrade them by adding more panels and pumps.

The project opened Lazar’s eyes to the issues of pollution and global warming. He eagerly shares his enthusiasm for renewable energy through presentations at nearby schools and youth clubs. He is particularly proud of having presented his working model of a solar collector to Montenegro’s Minister of Science.

“When I started, I suspected that I, as an individual, can’t change much. I believe that is the Global Youth problem,” says Lazar. “I changed my mind on that after I acknowledged that every individual has to contribute for positive change to happen.” Not stopping there, Lazar is embarking on new projects to protect bees and to convert collected rainwater for everyday use.

youtube.com/channel/UC7_Iu11TmzfWFfNhTibBVBw
instagram.com/lazar_djukovic

Duncan Jurman has been passionate about butterflies since he was four years old. In the fourth grade, recognizing his unique interest and knowledge, his teachers invited him to lecture students about butterfly habitats and life cycles. He has continued teaching ever since, and in 2018 he created the Bring Butterflies Back initiative, aiming to grow butterfly populations while educating and empowering youth to help the environment.

Duncan maintains gardens and a vivarium at his home where he has raised and released over 5,000 butterflies. In 2018, after a yearlong planning process, he created a large butterfly garden and vivarium at his high school, NSU University School in Fort Lauderdale, that has attracted 28 butterfly species, including two imperiled species, Martial Scrub Hairstreaks and Atalas. More than 1,200 butterflies have been raised and released from the vivarium, and by virtue of the garden, the surrounding area’s biodiversity has increased with greater numbers of birds, native lizards, and other insects, such as bees and ladybugs. Deemed a model for its sustainable irrigation system and best practices, the garden earned Broward County’s 2019 Emerald Award.

Throughout his initiative, Duncan has worked closely with teachers and administrators to embed the garden into the K-12 curriculum, fostering students’ environmental awareness and stewardship. Knowing the importance of students engaging with nature, learning observation skills, and being empowered to make an impact, he has given lectures, collaborated on special events, and created presentations, tools, and activities for use at his own school as well as Broward County public schools and several local private schools, where he has helped place butterfly enclosures with plants and caterpillars in 20 classrooms.

The garden at NSU University School has also afforded Duncan a unique opportunity to closely study plants and butterflies. Last year he learned — and also taught other students — to tag Monarch butterflies, working through the North American Butterfly Association to gather data used to monitor geographical distribution and population sizes. He has collaborated with Florida Keys residents on efforts to repopulate the Zebra Longwing, the Florida state butterfly, and conducted primary research to determine how the species of Passiflora that Zebra Longwings feed on affect their larval survival rate, time to reach maturity, and wing length.

In 2019, Duncan became the first-ever Broward County Butterfly Chapter (BCBC) Youth Liaison Coordinator. In this role, he is responsible for inspiring other youth to appreciate the beauty, biology, and importance of butterflies through outreach efforts. For his first BCBC initiative, he is partnering with gardeners across Broward County to collect native plant seeds that will then be introduced to third graders in area schools to plant, grow, and ultimately introduce into their school gardens or home environment. 

“From teaching, I recognized that most students don’t know the essential roles butterflies play in our ecosystems – as pollinators of plants and key food sources for numerous animals, such as birds and lizards – and the diversity of species in South Florida,” says Duncan. “Most also don’t know that butterfly populations worldwide are in serious jeopardy. Students today as a whole are more technology-oriented and have far less concern for, and knowledge of, gardening, insects, and nature in general than previous generations.”

“I want to change this situation and realize there’s an opportunity to raise youth awareness of the importance of butterflies, the many threats facing them, and the relatively little effort necessary to have an immediate impact on the future of butterflies.”

bringbutterfliesback.org
twitter.com/duncanjurman

Sarah Goody is the founder of Climate NOW, a youth-led organization in Marin County, California, whose members strive to ensure a sustainable planet for our future by educating and empowering youth in order to combat the climate crisis. 

Sarah was first introduced to climate change in the sixth grade, an experience she describes as eye-opening. “I discovered that I played a key role in the increase of CO2 in our atmosphere,” says Sarah, “and without urgent action, global warming will result in the extinction of the human species.”

She became a youth council member for the nonprofit Greening Forward, and attended one of their conferences in New York where she met climate striker Alexandria Villasenor. Sarah joined Alexandria in striking all day outside the United Nations building and was inspired. When she returned home, she began striking in front of the San Francisco Ferry Building every week.

However, Sarah soon realized that there was a lack of climate activism in her own community. “I saw that there was no way for children to get involved in climate action on a local scale,” she says. “In fact, most students didn’t even know what climate change was.” To fill the gap, she founded Climate NOW in April 2019.

The goal of Sarah’s project is to educate youth about the climate crisis and provide them with the skills to take climate action in their community. Thus far, Climate NOW has given presentations at eight public schools in Marin County, reaching more than 500 K-12 students. Sarah is also focused on collaborating with local high school environmental clubs, providing them with a platform to connect to the wider climate movement, and joining them in fighting for composting and recycling programs on campus. Sarah has been invited to speak on PBS Climate One and ABC 7 News, and her group regularly conducts outreach to the media and to the general public at events.

On September 20, 2019, Sarah joined forces with Youth vs. Apocalypse to lead over 40,000 people in a San Francisco Climate Strike, the largest climate strike that had ever taken place in the city.

“The most important thing that Climate NOW has taught me is how powerful my voice is,” says Sarah. “I have spoken with hundreds of children about the climate crisis and experienced the same feedback every time. These children tell me that they wish they could do something to stop climate change and that I have inspired them to take more action. Knowing that I have been able to show these children that they are capable of making a difference in their community means everything to me.”

sarah-goody.com

As a child, Lesein watched a fable by the famous Kenyan environmentalist, Wangari Maathai, about how a little hummingbird poured water out of its beak to put out a forest fire. This illustration of how even small actions can make a big difference, ultimately helped inspire Lesein to create Trees For Goals, aiming to educate himself about climate change, take action, and inspire others.

A sporty person who loves to play tennis and football, Lesein also loves the outdoors. When he was 12 years old, he started hearing about deforestation and plastic pollution happening in his country of Kenya. When he read about the vast number of trees being cut down every day, he knew he must do something.

At age 13, Lesein committed that for every football goal he scored he would plant one tree. A year later, having learned more about the crisis of climate change affecting the world, he increased his commitment to planting 11 trees for every goal scored, to represent every futbol team member that made it possible to score the goal. He talked to his team and schoolmates and founded Trees For Goals, a project his school agreed to support.

The more he talked to his peers, the more Lesein realized that most young people are unaware of climate change issues. He started sharing information with others in his school, his neighborhood, his football club, a primary school close to his grandmother’s rural home, at other public events, and on social media. Local and international media became interested in his project, and the President of Kenya invited him to the State House to plant trees there.

Now Lesein has planted over 1,000 trees, accompanied by over 5,000 other youths. He has attended national and international environmental events so that he can educate others about deforestation and climate change. And he has inspired other youth to start similar ventures.

“My goal,” Lesein says enthusiastically, “is to have FIFA take Trees For Goals to world football.” 

instagram.com/trees4goals
twitter.com/trees4goals

Riva Tulpule saw the need to responsibly recycle electronic waste, and what started as a small community project in 2017 has evolved into a major enterprise in just three years. Beginning at age 12, Riva successfully collected one ton of e-waste in the first year. But by increasing public awareness and enlisting the help of friends as well as corporations, she has now collected and recycled more than 20 tons of e-waste.

Riva was inspired to begin her recycling project when she came across a drawer of obsolete electronic items in her home. Realizing it needed to be properly disposed of and discovering that there were not many recycling collection points in her home city of Dubai, Riva began to build awareness of the issue through social media, and went door to door to collect similar items from other homes. With ever increasing goals for collection, she was able to enlist the involvement of local corporations and schools. Large items were collected without charge by a recycling partner, ENVIROSERVE, through their Green Truck initiative. Likewise, Dubai-based start-up HUBUN provided complimentary rides to her volunteers in women-driven limousines to help with door-to-door collections. 

Riva concurrently started another project teaching menstrual hygiene for women and young girls in rural India through her own platform, WECareDXB. She has raised funds by meeting people at Diwali events and parties, and subsequently “adopted" 700 girls from the tribal area of Maharashtra, India, providing them with a one-year supply of sanitary pads. She spent a day with these girls to learn about their lives and to educate them about menstrual hygiene. Learning that the girls walked 4-5 kilometers to school without proper footwear, Riva launched yet another campaign to fund shoes for them. Some 600 pairs of shoes were procured, but with the onset of the COVID pandemic, the distribution of the shoes has been postponed until she can travel safely. 

Because of her interest and work in sustainability, Riva was selected earlier this year as the youngest National Sustainability Youth Ambassador by Youth4Sustainability. Through this program, she will receive further training on various aspects of sustainability, and she plans to use her new knowledge to improve and broaden the reach of her programs.

facebook.com/WeCareDXB
youtube.com/channel/UCopDlTTMJOoHca7dc9ENXOg

Living in Northern California, Ishan Goyal would often watch the news and see live coverage of the wildfires raging across the state. People were dying, properties were burning, and the atmosphere was being polluted. Knowing that many of these fires are sparked by malfunctions in the power grid, Ishan developed Pin & Post, a mobile app to simplify the process of reporting potentially hazardous vegetation and wires near power lines and utility poles.

In January 2019, Ishan first learned about the hazards of power drawing, a phenomena where vegetation draws power away from power lines, starting a fire. He explains, “As utility companies like PG&E have utility lines spanning thousands of miles, routine checks on each of these lines can only happen once a year. In that lengthy period of time, vegetation around utility poles can grow out of control.”

Over the next five months, Ishan taught himself to code and develop apps, then spent another seven months building Pin & Post. By January 2020 he had created a fully functional iOS app that allows users to quickly and seamlessly report potential hazards to utility companies, by taking a photo and submitting their contact information, the incident type, and a short description. The information, along with precise location coordinates, are sent to the utility provider, who can send out crews to address the issue.

Ishan is now working with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to pilot the app, and has consulted with Catherine Sandoval, former CPUC Commissioner and a current law professor at Santa Clara University. Based on her advice, Ishan is developing an easier-to-access web-based platform for utility providers and a map view of the filed reports to facilitate planning maintenance routes.

According to Professor Sandoval, “Five years of proposals to the CPUC did not yield a single successful platform for proactivity for wildfires, as the lowest estimates from professional developers were upwards of $5 million. Ishan’s Pin & Post application has the potential to save California taxpayers millions of dollars and save many lives.”

“When I started the project, I had no idea that a high school kid could actually make a change,” says Ishan. “I have now learned that youth have immense power and can actually make a difference.”

Eiman Jawwad has always loved tea and coffee, especially her first cup of the morning. But increasingly, the thought of how far the tea leaves and coffee beans had traveled to arrive on her kitchen counter, only to end up in the trash can, disturbed her greatly. She felt a constant sense of guilt until the day came when she thought of using the dregs as an organic fertilizer.

Through research and experimentation, Eiman discovered that coffee grounds can be used as mulch for acid-loving plants such as roses, azaleas, evergreens, hydrangeas, and camellias, while green tea leaves are high in nitrogen and can nourish garden plants while helping to ward off pests and insects.

She began soliciting local cafes and tea sellers, asking them to save their used tea bags and coffee grounds for her, then expanded her outreach to households, leading groups of volunteers on collection rounds. The fertilizer she produced was donated to local nurseries.

Eiman’s goal was to collect four tons of organic fertilizer in three years, but with the help of student volunteers, her teachers, and all those who contributed and collected, she collected nearly five tons in less than that time.

Continuing to persuade people to her cause, Eiman addresses schools and public gatherings, and distributes an instruction booklet she created with tips on fertilizing. The NGO Minhaj ul Quran featured her in their weekly magazine, and she was named a BIEA STEM YOUTH Innovation challenge winner in 2020. 

“There were many things I got to learn from this experience that may have left an everlasting effect on my life,” says Eiman. “I learned that even small things around us matter and even a small change can help in bringing a tremendous tide of change.”

Aditya Mukarji began his campaign against single-use plastics in 2018, with the goal of eliminating 50,000 plastic drinking straws. To date, he has eliminated over 26 million straws, and this number keeps growing.

“Two years ago I saw a video by chance of a sea turtle having a plastic straw extracted painfully from its nostril,” recalls Aditya. “It haunted me and I began to read anything I could on how this could be prevented.”

Deciding to concentrate on single-use plastic elimination, Aditya chose to focus on the hospitality industry. He began approaching restaurant owners and managers to persuade them to eliminate plastic straws. As a young person, it was sometimes challenging to get people to take him seriously, and many claimed their customers wanted straws and that there were no alternatives to plastic. In response, Aditya suggested that restaurants post signs to communicate their commitment to the planet and thus straws would be offered only if asked for. He also researched alternative materials and linked businesses with suppliers of more sustainable straws; in the end, many owners told him they saved costs.

Leveraging “The Alternatives,” a Facebook group he founded with over 21,000 followers, and working with the environmental NGO Chintan, Aditya was able to convince all 50+ restaurants in the well-known Khan Market in New Delhi to give up single-use plastics – straws as well as cutlery, plates, and containers.

In total, Aditya has visited more than 100 establishments and spoken about single-use plastics to 10,000 people in cinema halls, market complexes, schools, offices, and industrial plants. He has extended his attention to other single-use plastics such as bags, water bottles, packaging, toothbrushes, and earbuds.

“Through this project, I have learned about the harms of single-use plastics, the fact that we will all die but the plastics we consume and throw out will outlive us by a few hundred years,” says Aditya. “I have also become increasingly aware of how deep this problem has seeped into our society and consumption habits, and the push companies are giving to these destructive habits, in the garb of convenience, only to increase their profits. I want to continue to be a change influencer working towards influencing government policy and corporate behavior towards single-use plastics.”

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facebook.com/TheAlternativess

Every year, the city of Tampa hosts the Gasparilla Pirate Festival, and every year hundreds of private boats follow the main pirate vessel through the city’s waterways. It is a custom for boaters to throw Mardi Gras-style beads from boat to boat and to the onlookers lining the shore. After witnessing thousands of strands of beads falling into the water, and realizing that this practice had occurred for decades, Demetri Sedita decided to do something about it. Finding that there were no existing organizations that even acknowledged this problem, he decided to create his own.

Green Gasparilla is dedicated to raising awareness about the massive number of plastic beads entering Seddon Channel as a result of the Gasparilla Flotilla. Many of these beads contain high levels of toxins such as lead and phthalates, and as they sit on the bottom of the channel, they break up into tiny microplastics that can easily spread throughout the ecosystem. 

Demetri met with many local leaders, including Tampa Mayor Jane Castor, pushing the city to take a stronger stance against plastic bead pollution in their waterways. He found that the footage he had taken with an underwater drone was very persuasive. Working with the city and community members, he has organized three large-scale diver clean-ups, and his activism has led to the creation of a city-sponsored Bead Free Bay campaign.

Recognizing that it will be impossible to remove all of the beads from Seddon Channel through these clean-ups, Demetri sees these events mainly as a means to conduct outreach and raise public awareness. The clean-ups are covered by the media, and each year Demetri gives interviews on local news stations in the days leading up to Gasparilla, often sharing his underwater drone footage. His organization is active on social media and has produced a PSA. Their end goal is to eliminate the practice of throwing beads into Seddon Channel. 
“In the future, I plan to continue to grow Green Gasparilla and work to make all of the Gasparilla events more sustainable,” says Demetri. “In the more distant future, I hope to meld my loves of environmental activism, science, and politics to affect change on a global level.”

greengasparilla.org
instagram.com/greengasparilla
twitter.com/greengasparilla