Navanya Tichkule is a student of The Millennium School, Raman, Bathinda. She participated in the category of class 3–5. Navanya talks about her zest for organic food, resolution to grow her own food, and management of wet waste at home. She has a great clarity of vision and determination. Read her resolution below.
1) What's your resolution?
I am learning to grow my own veggies at home. I am making my small terrace garden, making compost at home from kitchen waste, and learning the technique to grow organic vegetables, that too, at home.
2) Why this resolution?
I want to learn how to grow my own veggies in an organic way without using any chemicals so that I can learn more about the importance of green organic vegetables, which my Mumma asks me to eat often. This will also tell me how safe these veggies are for us.
3) How will you fulfil this resolution?
I will try not to throw away any kitchen waste, will make compost from that, and reuse wastewater from our kitchen and every possible thing at home. I am trying to be more and more organic in every way.
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Deviprasad Shetiya is a student of Ebenezer International School, Bengaluru. He participated in the category of class 3–5. Deviprasad talks about the need to save water and electricity, and already seems to be doing a lot towards this cause. Read his resolution below.
1) What's your resolution?
I will cut down my water and energy usage!
2) Why this resolution?
I believe in what Socrates said, “The secret of change is to focus all of my energy not on fighting the old but on building the new.” Hence, this new Deviprasad will focus on saving water and energy from the year 2022!
3) How will you fulfil this resolution?
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Prisha Moudgil is a student of Shiv Nadar School, Gurugram. She participated in the category of class 3–5. Prisha talks about stopping the use of palm oil products. She is very focused and knows her subject well. Read her resolution below.
1) What's your resolution?
My resolution is to eliminate palm oil consumption from my day-to-day life. It will be like killing two birds with a single stone—great for our environment and our health as well.
2) Why this resolution?
Palm oil primarily comes from Southeast Asian rainforests, where these forests are being chopped. As a result, the habitats of orangutans are getting destroyed. That is why their population is going down with deforestation. Also, studies suggest that palm oil is not good for our health.
3) How will you fulfil this resolution?
I have started cutting down on packaged food—chocolates, Nutella, namkeens. I have also asked my family to reduce and eventually eliminate the use of everything that contains palm oil. Then, I will try and educate my friends and, eventually, move on to a larger audience, after all I am a founding member of the Climate Change Warrior group in my school.
I wish and hope that people learn more about palm oil—that it is not good for the ecosystem as a whole. Eliminating it would be in the best interest of us humans, animals, forests, and our planet.
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Vanapalli Yasaswini is a student of ZPHS Dharmavaram School, Vizianagaram. She participated in the category of class 6–8. Vanapalli wants to replace plastic pens with biodegradable stuff, which she makes and distributes herself. She offers a very interesting and focused personal initiative. Read her resolution below.
1) What's your resolution?
2) Why this resolution?
Plastic is causing air, water, and soil pollution. It leads to global warming. Plastic-made small components, like pens and pouches, are not collectable and not recyclable. Ganesh idols made with plaster of Paris and poisonous paints cause water pollution.
Therefore, these things must be replaced with eco-products.
3) How will you fulfil this resolution?
I designed eco-pens and eco-pouches by using biodegradable waste. I made and distributed 500 such pens last year. I plan to distribute 1,000 more eco-pens and pouches in the year 2022. I will conduct workshops on making them and making Ganesh idols with paper, among the students in our school.
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Shivansh Sharda is a student of Shiv Nadar School, Noida, Gautam Buddh Nagar. He participated in the category of class 6–8. Shivansh provides a very specific and focused list of doable actions. It is also interesting how he connects them to carbon footprints. Read his resolution below.
1) What's your resolution?
From today, I want to decrease my carbon footprints. My current footprint count is at 3.678 tonnes (I estimated it through a website). By the end of 2022, I would like to decrease it to 1 ton.
2) Why this resolution?
While filling this form, I tried to be as honest as possible. And honestly, I have not been one of those people who have not been that caring about our home, the Mother Earth. From today, I would like to do something for the world, for me and my children (when I grow up), of course.
3) How will you fulfil this resolution?
I know you all are sick of the planting-trees and save-water stuff.
So, I will not use my car for making trips to the market when I can go on my bicycle.
I heard we add to our carbon footprints when we drink packaged water. So, I will reduce my usage of packaged water and prefer fresh water instead.
And I will try to segregate my waste properly. All the plastic I produce normally on Christmas and all the vacations will go to my nearest recycling plant. They make tiles out of plastic and it’s just 3 km away from my house.
I have been struggling with procrastination (with homework and everything) and I would like to change that starting with this initiative!
That’s all from me, folks!
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Vedika Vijay Ramnath is a student of Global Public School, Ernakulam. She participated in the category of class 6–8. Vedika offers a clear resolution on saving energy. Read her resolution below.
1) What's your resolution?
To be careful about switching off all lights and fans when I leave a room or when they are not being used.
2) Why this resolution?
We have been facing the severe impact of wastage of electricity and other resources. More the power is wasted, more the government has to run thermal or hydel power plants. Thereby, putting a strain on our depleting resources and further damaging the environment.
3) How will you fulfil this resolution?
I will keep the window curtains open and let the sun stream in with natural light, so that we feel a lesser need to switch on electric lights and bulbs during the day!
I will also ask my parents to put up a chart with a reward point system for how much my sister and I follow the important step of reducing electricity wastage. Each month, we will get stars for the number of times we remember to switch off our electrical appliances when we are not using them. If we forget, we get a minus mark. At the end of the month, if our total points are good, then my parents would give us a small but precious eco-friendly treat!
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Poorvi Mandovra is a student of St. Raphael's Higher Secondary School, Indore. She participated in the category of class 9–10. Poorvi provides a focused argument. She believes that people should follow traffic rules so that our roads become safe for bicyclists to commute. She suggests that schools should encourage traffic awareness as it will help reduce air pollution. She also wants to write poems for kids and develop software programmes to address this issue. Read her resolution below.
1) What's your resolution?
To make people in the education industry aware of the need to teach traffic rules to school children since their kindergarten; and encourage people to ride bicycles, which will decrease our pollution.
2) Why this resolution?
I have experienced this problem in real life—my parents did not allow me to cycle to school because other people do not follow traffic rules properly. Therefore, I have to take a car, which increases pollution. The use of bicycle is good for our environment but it is possible only if our public has a good traffic sense.
3) How will you fulfil this resolution?
As far as I am concerned, I'll author poems which can be taught to small kids in their schools. As I have learnt some programming languages, I can write a program or give a structure to the entrepreneurs to develop, and help solve this issue further.
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Tannu Priya is a student of Kendriya Vidyalaya, Begusarai. She participated in the category of class 9–10. Tannu provides very well-written and focused actions, ranging from climate mitigation to waste management, etc. She is aware of the environment and what impacts it. Read her resolution below.
1) What's your resolution?
I would actually like to make my resolution on living in a more environment-friendly manner, which includes spending less and wasting less money.
2) Why this resolution?
Living in an environment-friendly manner involves reusing products, generating less waste, and reducing energy consumption; which eventually leads to spending less and wasting less money. Therefore, assigning ourselves a more environmentally sustainable New Year resolution is a great way to save our money and planet at the same time.
3) How will you fulfil this resolution?
By practicing Meatless Mondays i.e., by eating less meat, we can benefit the environment by lowering our carbon footprints, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, etc.
Another way is to have a garden and grow our own food. It has many benefits such as: reaping fresh fruits and vegetables for our personal consumption, saving money on buying food, and eliminating the use of plastic for packaging.
A third way is to reduce food wastage. That is because food waste ends up in landfills, which emits greenhouse gases, like methane and carbon dioxide.
A fourth way is to use eco-friendly wrapping paper. A normal wrapping paper is usually not recyclable and ends up getting trashed. So, I use only eco-friendly wrapping papers that can be reused or composted.
And, a last way is to replace our plastic soap bottles with soap bars.
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Thameem Ansari is a student of CSI. St. Hilda's & St. Hugh's Matriculation Higher Secondary School, Chengalpattu. He participated in the category of class 9–10. Thameem talks about the need for solar panels for street lighting. He wishes to fund them from his pocket money. Read his resolution below.
1) What's your resolution?
My resolution is to save money to buy a solar panels to get free electricity for my street.
2) Why this resolution?
In my street, my friend's father, who was an electrician, died in an electric accident while repairing the street light.
3) How will you fulfil this resolution?
I will start saving money and also make my parents save some money to buy a solar street light for my street.