Global acclaim for Bengaluru's climate change warrior

BENGALURU: Sankalp Mohan Sharma, a grade 12 student in the city and a climate reality leader has earned acclaim over the past two years at the global level and now caught the attention of a transnational student society, which felicitates and facilitates high school students across the globe for their hard work, commitment and sacrifice towards achieving academic excellence while at school itself. 

The National Society of High School Scholars recognises top scholars from the high school level without any form of either nominations or applications.

Formed in 2002 by James W. Lewis and Claes Nobel, a senior member of the family that established Nobel Prizes, the organisation helps their members with resources they need to develop their strengths to follow their dreams, right from high school to college through to their careers. In a chat with Deccan Chronicle, the 17-year old commerce student said the climate change added to his concern of what he could do to sustain Mother Nature in an undisturbed form. “Climate change and global warming have been the most recurring words that have been catching my attention right from my early school days. Witnessing Bengaluru itself transforming for the worse from a city once dubbed the best place to live, into a place sacrificing lung spaces for urban development has concerned me and added to my interests my civic responsibility,” he said.

Addressing audiences of different ages across strata ranging from students, academicians, corporates and veterans to representatives from international organisations on similar issues, the youngster aims to tackle the issue from all possible perspectives.

“As sharing information that connects directly to a particular group is essential to influence views, I have been preparing separate presentations on similar topics and this has given me a deeper understanding of the problem,” said Sankalp.
Earlier this year, the young activist was also invited to represent the tricolour at the United Nations headquarters in New York to sharing his views and studies based on his observations. That has been the biggest achievement in my life till now, remembers Sankalp.

“Getting an opportunity and a stage to address international delegates in the building which was introduced to me via pictures in history and civics textbooks was something which was never expected,” he said.

The student from Frank Anthony Public School in the city also made it to the 2017 International Youth Fellowship World Culture Camp held in July where he worked on waste segregation and recycling processes for 5,000 households there. “Implementing my takeouts from that experience in the city is what I have been working on since then, to make the city fuel goals for India, thereby influencing a change to the bigger picture. Countries like USA, Russia and China should look up to us from the realm of sustainability by 2030,” he asserts.

Currently pursuing his final days of school education, Sankalp aspires to pursue higher education in business management and international law to converge his interests at a higher level. The youngster has also chalked out plans of establishing an organisation to connect and bring together link-minded individuals and organisations under one umbrella.

“There are numerous bodies and organisations that work at regional levels which need to be brought in together. As ideas converge and meet each other, bigger and faster solutions can be sought, leading to real-time responses and changes which would create a larger impact,” he said.