{"id":29746,"date":"2023-05-03T16:55:32","date_gmt":"2023-05-03T20:55:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/earlham.edu\/?p=29746&preview=true&preview_id=29746"},"modified":"2023-05-04T16:31:39","modified_gmt":"2023-05-04T20:31:39","slug":"projects-for-peace-selects-senior-vaishnavi-walades-climate-advocacy-project-in-india-for-funding","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earlham.edu\/news-events\/projects-for-peace-selects-senior-vaishnavi-walades-climate-advocacy-project-in-india-for-funding\/","title":{"rendered":"Projects for Peace selects senior Vaishnavi Walade\u2019s climate advocacy project in India for funding\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\"Vaishnavi<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
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During the winter break of her senior year at Earlham College, Vaishnavi Walade returned home to India to volunteer at a school district without reliable access to water. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Working with a local nonprofit, she facilitated workshops for elementary school students on water safety. Along with the workshops, they installed tanks, taps and water purifiers at each school. The project spanned a month at Zilla Parishad schools in Uran, a coastal town just south of Walade\u2019s hometown of Mumbai. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe workshops and water stations proved essential in ensuring that the school had access to safe water,\u201d Walade said. \u201cThis experience, combined with my high school and college education, has helped me become a determined advocate for climate education, especially among children.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walade\u2019s advocacy for education and climate change will continue this summer with support from the Projects for Peace program. She is the recipient of a $10,000 grant to develop and lead climate education workshops at eight elementary schools in the same district. The project is one of just 126 funded by Projects for Peace\u2019s 2023 cohort. Hosted by Middlebury College, the global program encourages young adults to develop innovative, community-centered and scalable responses to the world\u2019s most pressing issues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe addition of climate education to the academic curriculum is essential to peacekeeping,\u201d Walade said of her project. \u201cMy entire project is based on the fact that schools in fiscally poor areas of Uran are noticeably underfunded and therefore do not have the capacity to incorporate climate issues or advocacy into their curriculum.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI aspire to create an understanding of the underlying factors that are contributing to the environment we are raised and live in,\u201d she said. \u201cI want to teach young students how to prevent resource-related conflict through this knowledge and perspective.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Walade is working with the Citizens Association for Child Rights and local volunteers to facilitate the project. Giordano Margaglio, a disaster preparedness program analyst for the United Nations Development Programme, is a mentor on the project.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe will conduct workshops for the entire school population each day we visit a school,\u201d Walade said. \u201cSince we will be taking up most of the school day, we will provide food, beverages and sanitation kits for the students. For each workshop, the project team will be accompanied by school teachers to facilitate parts of the workshop.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After graduating from Earlham with a degree in economics later this month, Walade will return to India to begin preparing for the two-week initiative in July. She will return to the United States in the fall to begin graduate school at Georgetown University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wouldn\u2019t have had this opportunity without the support of Ahmed Khanani, the director of Earlham\u2019s Center for Social Justice, and Meredith Edwards, the associate director of grants and sponsored research\u201d Walade said. \u201cThey knew about my passion for the environmental and educational challenges facing India and encouraged me to apply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe goal for the longer term is that the schools incorporate climate change education into their curriculum and that students become more aware of the threats that climate change poses, especially to Uran\u2019s natural resources.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Media contact<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Brian Zimmerman<\/strong>
Assistant vice president of strategic communications
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Email: zimmebr@earlham.edu
Phone: 765.983.1256<\/p>\n\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n