Teenage eco warrior

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When 18-year-old Mani Makar became a part of his school’s (St. Mark’s Sr. Sec. School, Rajouri Garden) Eco Club, he didn’t know that he would become an agent of change. But being selected for a quiz competition under the Vacation Program on Environment Resources organised by the Aravali Foundation streamlined his interest.
“Some six years ago, I was selected for this program. I was sent from my school for the quiz competition and after that went for other rounds that included personal interviews and group discussions. Later, 50 students were selected for a camp that took us around Delhi to places like the Rajghat Power Station, the Aravali Bio-diversity Park and other places where we could see how the environment is getting affected because of increasing industrialisation,” says Mani.
But the turning point came when the team went to Solan in Himachal Pradesh. Mani was amazed that he could trace the constellations in the sky in Solan. “In Delhi, it’s rare to find a single star in the sky. It helped me understand how everything in the environment is changing,” he adds.
The camp experience made him take up environment activities in earnest. He got active in the eco-club activities. The following year, Mani was sent to the Copenhagen Climate Conference at Denmark in which around 500 people from 70 countries participated. “I was one of them. There were 14 others from my school, besides two other students from India — one from Goa and another from Gujarat. Our ideas were discussed with the world leaders,” he says.
When he came back, he started the Earth Week, alongwith other students who were a part of the camp, in his school with a variety of activities that would give the students an idea about eco-conservation. “The following year, we started Eco-Vision that saw participation of 10,000 students from different branches of our school. I headed the committee that time,” says Mani, who after passing out from Class 12 this year was felicitated for his work in Eco-Vision that has now become a big event with participation of around 26 schools.
His work for the environment was appreciated so much that he was sent to the US to represent India and was felicitated along with national honorees from five other countries, after winning the Second Annual Pramerica Spirit of Community Awards 2012. “The experience was enriching,” he says.
Mani says that after being a part of many plantation and anti-cracker drives in the marketplace areas, he has realised that people are hardly interested in bringing a change. “People don’t pay attention. They don’t think that their effort can bring a change. But change comes with effort at an individual level. I’m saying this because I’ve experienced this in school and at home. Many juniors have stopped burning crackers. At my home, my younger brother who was very fond of crackers, hasn’t been burning them since last five years because I told him about its ill-effects,” he says and adds that if people take up something voluntarily, it brings about a change.
Mani now wants to work not only for the environment but also other social causes that would help in making the society a better place to live.