At 15, Bengaluru Teen Fought To Save Water. Now, She’s Going Places

New Delhi: Garvita Gulhati, Founder of “Why Waste?” has been invited to Zurich, Switzerland as the only Indian amongst 60 changemakers – aged between 18 and 23 – representing 42 countries from across the world, who received the prestigious title of ‘Global Changemaker’ for their efforts and solutions to solve some of the world’s most pressing challenges. These young leaders were selected through three rigorous rounds of selection from applications received from over 185 countries. They will join the Global Changemakers network comprising over 1000 young leaders from across the world who, to date, have impacted over four million people.

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About her selection, Garvita shared, “I am excited to be part of the Global Changemakers network and it’s a great opportunity for me to learn from other young changemakers from across the world and bring back those learnings to inspire youth of our country to be changemakers. My vision is to inspire a culture of every young person of my country contributing to create change.”

“Why Waste?” is a youth led organisation headquartered in Bengaluru founded by Garvita Gulhati at the age of 15. Previously, for her work, Garvita has been recognised as an Ashoka Youth Venturer by Ashoka Innovators for the Public, world’s largest network of social innovators and entrepreneurs. Her campaigns and efforts to save water have also been supported extensively by Change.org, through her petition change.org/glasshalffull.

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Speaking on the occasion Yashveer Singh, Director of Youth Venture, Ashoka Innovators for the Public said:

Garvita’ s efforts to change behavior of society to create positive change is an inspiration to our country’s youth. She will be a great ambassador to represent aspirations & possibilities which can be created by our country which has world’s largest youth population.

The changemakers will be flown to Switzerland by the Mercator Foundation to attend the week long Global Youth Summit taking place in Aarau, Switzerland from 12 to 18 August. At the summit they will participate in, and lead, training sessions, networking and workshops to enhance their skills such as campaigning, fundraising, project management, leadership, public relations and pitching, and to learn from each other’s experiences. The changemakers will also have the opportunity to pitch their ideas to an enabling panel and will be eligible to apply for grant funding to scale existing initiatives or create new projects.

Also Read: India Is One Of The World’s Most-Improved Nations For Reaching The Most People With Clean Water, Says Report

The 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development emphasizes young people as “critical agents of change” and the 2018 Global Changemakers are testament to that statement. This year’s Global Changemakers cohort works on issues as varied as rehabilitating victims of ISIS in Iraq, creating suicide prevention programs in high schools in Mexico, providing free health screenings for cervical and breast cancer in Cote d’Ivoire, establishing child care programs in hurricane devastated regions of Dominica, building a children’s library in a cave in a war-torn region of Afghanistan, and facilitating the entry of over 200 street children into schools in Nigeria.

Also Read: 10 Crore People In India Are Getting Water With Excess Fluoride