Greening India - One Classroom At A Time
VIEW EVENT DETAILSOf the issues facing the world today, few compare in their ability to affect the well-being of posterity in the way that climate change does. Climate change and sustainability are issues that span through generations, and the decisions that are made today will have an effect not on the generation that makes them, but generations to come. Education can give young people the chance and the apparatus to participate in these decisions and allow them to make conscientious decisions. Protecting the environment is one of the key Sustainable Development Goals identified by the United Nations. As a part of the goals, "Environmental education is a tool that promotes attitudes and value systems that influence environmentally ethical behavior by developing understanding, skills, and values that will enable people to participate as active and informed citizens in the development of an ecologically sustainable and socially just society."
Environmental education also inspires young people to be involved as global citizens and involves and engages them in an issue whose impacts will be felt most keenly by those now going through the education system. Sonam Wangchuk, who recently won the Rolex Award for Enterprise for his path-breaking idea of the ice stupas, has championed the cause of education through his school The Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh and will talk about this very important subject and his work in the climate and education space. Joining him will be Kartikeya Sarabhai, Founder and Director of Centre for Environment Education and a leading environment educator. The discussion will be moderated by Ranjit Barthakur, Chairman, Amalgamated Plantations (formerly Tata Tea Plantations) and social entrepreneur.
Sonam Wangchuk co-founded SECMOL, the Students’ Educational and Cultural Movement of Ladakh in 1988, and then, in 1994, led the establishment of a solar-powered, student-built, student-run alternative school where teenagers who still fail in the conventional education system get a second chance. It was at this school that the ice stupa and many such innovations were born. Much of his career has focused on developing solutions to problems encountered by communities living at high altitudes such as education, climate-responsive housing and now access to water. He did his mechanical engineering at the National Institute of Engineering in Srinagar, Kashmir.
Kartikeya Vikram Sarabhai is the Founder Director of the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), established in 1984 as a Centre of Excellence of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Government of India. Mr. Sarabhai is on several committees formed by UNESCO for the Decade of Education for Sustainable Development. He is the UNESCO Chair on Education for Sustainable Development and the Human Habitat set up at CEE in partnership with CEPT University and supported by ICLEI and the Swedish Institute of Education for Sustainable Development (SWEDESD). He is the co-chair of the Global Citizenship Working Group convened by the Brookings Institute, Washington D.C., to examine how Global Citizenship Education is measured, and make recommendations for new ways of assessing learning.
Ranjit Barthakur, currently chairing Amalgamated Plantations (formerly Tata Tea Plantations), Federation of Indian Chambers and Commerce Industry (FICCI), North East India, has previously served as an Investment Advisor to the Government of Assam, India for 15 years. A strong advocate of Social Entrepreneurship, Ranjit Barthakur actively promotes the holistic advancement of Human and Natural well-being through sustainable Healthcare, Education, Environment, Culture and Skills Development. Influenced by living in the Eastern Himalayas, his passion is promoting the interdependence between humans and the environment through Naturenomics.