My Future My Voice Ambassador Stories
International Climate Activism
Aditya Mukarji
At the age of 14, Aditya Mukarji was made aware of the harms of plastic pollution by his mentor, Ms Bharati Chaturvedi, which got him thinking about how he could make a difference by doing one act at a time. By championing the #RefuseIfYouCannotReuse initiative,
Aditya went door-to door in the hospitality sector to propagate to them to ‘Not offer a plastic straw at all’. Within a month, he expanded my influence to include stirrers, cutlery, cups, bottles, packaging being offered by the hospitality sector. By March 2018, he had helped remove over 26 million plastic straws and a few million other single use plastics from this sector. In 2019, Aditya interned with UNDP India, in their plastic waste management program, to encourage the reduction of bulk generators of plastic waste, proper segregation and responsible recycling of plastic waste. He managed to get agreements initiated for recycling plastic waste of over 33 tonnes and was selected by the United Nations to attend the UN Youth Climate Action Summit 2019. Aditya has been recognized as Youth Mentor for the National Geographic “A Million Yays for the Oceans, EARTHDAY.ORG Youth Ambassador, UNEP Plastic Tide Turner Champion and Ambassador, Atmanirbhar Champion, Eco Hero, Earth Day Network Rising Star, and more. Aditya’s philosophy – Refuse If You Cannot Reuse – promotes the most important R in the waste management hierarchy – REFUSE. He advocates for “Individual Social Responsibility”- where each one of us can make a change in our lives and influence others around us to change.
International Environmental Activism
Suphane Dash – Alleyne
Suphane Dash-Alleyne has dedicated her academic and extracurricular activities to advocating for environmental protection, climate action and climate change awareness. In 2017, she was chosen to be 1 of 4 individuals representing Guyana at the Caribbean Youth Climate Change Conference because of her excellent performance at the Cape Environmental Science Conference, where she educated individuals about climate change and its effect on Guyana. After this conference, she joined the Caribbean Youth Environment Network in Guyana. She has engaged with youth throughout Guyana and the Caribbean through this organization on different forums, such as outreaches, competitions, and online webinars. She continued her advocacy and activism through the years. In 2019, she was selected to be a Youth Parliamentarian. She was appointed Minister of Natural Resources, wherein she utilized this forum to educate people about the need to develop sustainably and avoid past mistakes. Due to her continued work, she was selected to attend the Inaugural Youth Climate Action Summit in 2019 at the United Nations headquarters. This conference enabled her to meet with other youth activists and share Guyana’s unique position due to climate change on a global stage. She is currently a student at the University of Guyana and is pursuing a bachelor’s degree in Environmental Studies and was elected to be the head of the only environmental club in society. Through this position, she educated many youths about climate change and the importance of climate action. She is currently in Global Shapers Georgetown hub, Eco-trust Society, Caribbean Youth Environment Network in Guyana, and she is a Rights of Child Ambassador. She utilizes all these platforms to educate youths about climate change, as there is need for climate education in Guyana.
New York Restoration Project
Caroline Rose Morris
Caroline supports New York Restoration Project (NYRP), a nonprofit organization with a mission to provide private resources for spaces that do not have municipal support, creating healthier and happier environments for people living in heavily populated areas. It also beautifies open spaces with greenery and gardens that help ensure environmental and food sustainability, which helps raise funds from donors to cover the cost of seeds for one year. This is through an initiative SEEDNY started by her brother. SEEDNY formed a partnership with two seed companies that donated over two hundred seed packets. Caroline spearheaded a donation drive to collect gardening tools for NYRP’s community gardens. A greener urban environment and food sustainability through community gardens are important, and NYRP empowers her to create positive change in her city. Caroline is also in the process of forging a partnership between a New York City public school and the Columbia University/Putney Student Travel pre-college program to provide under-resourced high school students who are interested in environmental issues with an opportunity to participate in a summer program on the environment and sustainability at their climate school in Vermont.
Mission Me Club
Yanique Beckford
Yanique Beckford is a teacher by profession and currently teaches Agricultural Science and Integrated Science at the Holmwood Technical High School. Over the years, she has been actively participating in various environmental activities through the CASE Cadet Unit, Mission Me Club (which she founded), Rotaract Club of Mandeville, and the Manchester 4H club. Through the Mission Me Club, Yanique and her partners train community members, mainly youths, on proper environmental practices, including tree planting and developing various environmentally friendly insecticides made from natural materials such as (onion, garlic, hot pepper and plant starch). Yanique’s love for agricultural research is based on her belief that organic pesticides are healthier for both plants and humans and helps preserve other living organisms such as insects. Her strong advocacy against synthetic chemicals is that they contribute negatively to farmers’ health and contribute to the relocation, reduction, or extinction of some organisms vital to the proper function of our ecosystem. Additionally, in her mentoring role as a teacher, Yanique has helped her students cop the coveted NCTVET Innovations Award for the 2017/2018 period for their Tech Sci Irish Potato Organic Pesticide. This case study is in our eBook Climate Literacy: Beyond the Written Word.
Recycle My Battery
Sri Nihal Tammana
12-year-old Nihal Tammana is the Founder of ‘Recycle My Battery’, a non-profit he started in 2019. His slogan is ‘Saving Earth One Battery at a time’ for the organization he has set up to promote and facilitate proper battery disposal. Nihal says, ‘I started this initiative because I found some 15 billion batteries get trashed every year. Just 1 percent of people follow the rules to dispose these properly. The rest – billions of batteries – end up in landfills, where they often cause catastrophic fires. That they pollute the environment is a given with the hazardous chemicals they contain leaching out when left to rot. My initiative aims to increase numbers for the proper disposal of batteries rapidly.’ Since its formation, Recycle My Battery has recycled over 75,000 batteries and grown to encompass over 70 volunteer staff, dozens of schools, and public libraries and offices of many businesses. Nihal says, ‘Our awareness campaigns have already reached around 1 million people. We place free-to-use battery bins and conduct large-scale education campaigns to spread awareness about the necessity for the health of both humans and all living things, not to thrash batteries randomly. US Senators and other public figures already appreciate the efforts. Nihal has won several international awards like Global Kids Achiever Award for 2020, Citizens Award for 2020 from Woodbrook Elementary School, Edison NJ, and CNN Heroes Young Wonder Award 2022, to name a few. He has also been featured in the TEDx talk titled Saving Earth, One Battery At A Time!
Lilly’s Plastic Pickup
Lillith Electra Platt (Lilly)
Lilly is an international environmental champion who initially went viral on social media after posting litter of plastic she picked up — sorted accordingly. She started ‘Lilly’s Plastic Pickup’ at the age of seven and has picked up more than 150,000 pieces of plastic to date. She sorts the collected plastic waste meticulously and posts them on social media to raise awareness on the issue. In this way, she actively advocates for cleaning up plastic pollution, restricting plastic production, and finding alternatives to the material.
Lilly is a dedicated youth ambassador for Plastic Pollution Coalition, Earth.org, World Ocean Day Italy, and YouthMundus. At just the age of 13, Lilly has achieved more than the average adult and is one of the world’s most aspiring environmentalists.
Inspired by Greta Thunberg, she started climate striking in 2018. In just a few weeks, Greta joined Platt’s strikes in the Netherlands, seeing as the Netherlands had been one of the highest emitters of greenhouse gases in the European Union. Both were invited to Brussels where they attended a climate rally outside the European Parliament.
Onalytica voted Lilly as number 28 on its prestigious environmental influencers list in 2018 alongside fellow activists, including Leonardo DiCaprio, Dianna Cohen, and the Mayor of London. In 2019, she was awarded an International Eco Hero Award and a Young Activist of the Year Award for her constant and unwavering climate strikes. Later that year, Lilly was honored by the President of Egypt at the World Youth Forum, where she was a panelist alongside Dr. Jane Goodall. Lastly, Lilly was featured as a Global Citizen in their coverage of UN World Oceans Day 2020, due to her being the youngest panelist alongside its Secretary General, Cara Delevingne, the Cousteaus, and others.
