Be the change you wish to see: School kids champion the cause of a greener future
Most of us only keep wishing for change, but only a few choose to be the change. One such person is 17-years-old Samarrth Khanna, a student of class 12 from Faridabad, who is spearheading afforestation efforts —under the name SEWAM — in the city. He has already managed to convert a small space near his home into a mini-forest with over 300 trees.
How did he manage to do all of this, you ask? Khanna gladly explains, “I first saw this place near Lal Bahadur Shashtri Chowk in Faridabad while coming back home from school, and was disappointed to see all the garbage that had been dumped there. The land had been a dumping ground for locals since the past two decades and nothing had been done to beautify it. That is when I took the initiative to do something about it and asked a few friends to pitch in.”
Khanna also tells us that in the beginning, the volunteers did all the beautification on their own expenditure, but soon people started to notice a change and Global March for Elephants and Rhinos (GMFER) extended a helping hand with generous donations. “Initially, we depended mostly on selling bottles and scrap from the park to help cover the cost. GMFER saw that our efforts could have a greater impact and chose to contribute. We also often make planters out of plastic bottles and sell saplings and planters at nearby melas to collect money ,” says Khanna.
The core group of SEWAM consists of Samarrth Khanna as the team lead Shubham, Rudr, and Goutam as volunteers, and Nirmal Mehendale and Gauri as advisors and mentors. The group has about 20 volunteers and most of them are school students. Khanna believes that having more hands at help might make the initiative stronger. “Despite various challenges that our group faces, we try our best to plant as many trees as we can, while still keeping the process environment-friendly and cost-effective, too. We use milk pouches for planting saplings and also actively remove other scrap. Till date, we’ve cleared 3500kg of plastic,” he says.
In future, SEWAM plans on identifying more such spaces and beautifying them. “With the right support we could change the city,” says Khanna.
We plant as many trees as we can, in a costeffective way. With the right support we could change the city, and the world, one plant at a time. SAMARRTH KHANNA
STUDENT