8-year-old climate heroine of India

She is only eight, but for the last two years, Licypriya Kangujam has been actively campaigning for passing a law to tackle climate change in India.

At the age when kids are usually learning addition and subtraction, this girl from Manipur is travelling to different countries of the world to raise her concerns about climate change.

The youngest environmentalist is pressing for new laws to control high carbon emission in India and everywhere else, and to make climate change a compulsory subject in the school curriculum. She also advocates plantation of 10 trees per student per year in order to be able to pass finals exams.

“We have 350 million students, and if they plant this minimum amount of trees every year, we will be planting 3.5 billion trees a year”, says Kangujam.

Activism, including weekly protest outside the Parliament House in national capital New Delhi, consumes most of her time.

"I weep every time I see children lose their parents or become displaced due to the dangers of disasters. My heart feels sore to see people who can’t help themselves when disaster strikes", she adds.

Kangujam dropped out of school in February 2019 as attending classes regularly amid protests wasn’t possible.

While her struggle against climate change continues, she has not given up on her dream to pursue education. So far, Kangujam has travelled 32 countries and has spoken at over 60 places about her movement.

"I travel place to place to raise my concerns about climate change and disaster risks reduction to the people of the world," the young climate activist says.

So far the youngest speaker at the United Nations (UN), Kangujam says she was only four years old when she accompanied her father to raise funds for victims of the deadly 2015 Nepal earthquake.

But it was only after attending a UN disaster management conference in Mongolia with her father in 2018 that she felt the need to be involved in activism.

"I got a lot of motivation and new knowledge from the people giving speeches. It was a life-changing event for me," she says.

Right after her return from Mongolia, Kanjugam with the help of her father set up an organisation called 'The Child Movement' to demand immediate action to save the planet and the future of young children.

Rajasthan and Gujarat have been the first ones to add climate change to the school curriculum.

Licypriya finds it distasteful when people call her Greta Thunberg of India.

To this, she says, "if you call me Greta of India, you are not covering my story. I began the movement to fight climate change much before Greta appeared on the scene."

She added that she is good friends with Greta and they both respect each other.

The little girl has big dreams and an electrifying story.