About Changemaker Kowsalya

Would you like to start your own Eco-Club just like Kowsalya? Download our step-by-step guidelines at the bottom of this page and let us know what you did at changemaker@kidsrights.org.
Kowsalya studies and lives in India, where she has been fighting for children and for the environment for years. She started with this when she cooperated in several training programs for children, which made her see the problems that children are facing. Later she also took action for the environment, by setting up Eco-Clubs and participating in theater games. She wants to pass on to other children and young people how important it is to protect our earth. It is Kowsalya’s dream to get every city free of plastic bags & parthenium plants.
What is the problem?  Kowsalya is a member of an Eco-Club in her village, via this club she worked on the project called ‘Our Earth… Our Hope’. By participating in this project, she gained a lot of knowledge about the environment and the protection of it. She learned how the use of plastic, and the existence of parthenium plant, which is bad for the environment. Parthenium plant is a plant that actually does not grow in India, but people do plant it. It needs lots of water, and results in other plants having less space to grow.
Kowsalya wants to decrease the use of plastic and stop the planting of the parthenium plant.
What is Kowsalya’s solution? Kowsalya learned a lot herself because of the Eco-Club and the ‘Our Earth… Our Hope’-project, and that is why she wants to reach other young people in the same way. She hopes to motivate young people in two villages to also take action for the environment and set up Eco-Clubs too. Kowsalya is going to do this via three activities:

Teach classes about the environment in general, plastic bags, and parthenium plants. To make sure young people and children understand the effects the plastic and parthenium plants.
Forming Eco-Clubs that will consist of children and young people. Kowsalya will guide the participants in this.
Action! The Eco-Clubs will remove the parthenium plants from their village, and make sure that the use of plastic bags will decrease. They will do this by for example convincing stores to replace the plastic bags with recyclable bags. But also by motivating other people to bring their own bag when they go grocery shopping.

What is the goal?  The final goal is to set up as many active Eco-Clubs as possible, in as many different villages as possible. Kowsalya’s goal during this project is to reach 30 young people and 30 adults in the two villages. Out of these people at least two Eco-Clubs of each 15 young people should be set up. The Eco-Clubs will in turn reach more people and create awareness.
How does Kowsalya work?  Kowsalya will play a leading role in her project. She will teach the classes, guide the forming of the Eco-Clubs, and help them with setting up a plan of action. She sees it as a challenge to combine her studies with leading the project.
Would you like to start your own Eco-Club just like Kowsalya? Download our step-by-step guidelines via the button below and let us know what you did at changemaker@kidsrights.org.