BENGALURU: It was some time in July last year. Many schoolchildren made their way to National Public School in HSR Layout, Bengaluru, with bags full of old newspapers. Over a span of a few days, the students had managed to collect almost 3,000 kg of newspaper. These newspapers were then recycled into as many as 2,500 notebooks, which were then given away to underprivileged children.
The person behind this novel initiative is 17-year-old Nesha Prabahar, a student of the same school. So far, she and her friends have managed to collect 8,000 kg of newspaper and recycled them into 5,500 notebooks. These have been donated to children in need, with the help of NGOs such as Parikrma in Bengaluru and The Learning Curve in Hyderabad.
Nesha is the brain behind Strive, a non-profit, student-run initiative that she started with two of her close friends Chandana Sathish and Sakshi Chandak. “It was in October 2015 that I thought about starting something significant that would help preserve the environment. I then approached my two friends about Strive and they were more than willing to take this forward,” Nesha says.
Within a few months, the girls roped in some 50 volunteers, all of them from different schools, to help them with various initiatives.
Apart from the ‘Newspaper to Notebook’ initiative, Strive also has something called a ‘Strive Hour’, which is aimed at saving electricity. Through their Facebook page and emails, Nesha and her friends started Strive Hour, which encourages people to turn off electricity for just 15 minutes (from 7pm to7.15pm) every Sunday. “This seems minuscule but it does have a significant impact on the environment. So far, 600 individuals, five schools and three offices have agreed to observe Strive Hour. Even people in Lucknow have signed up for this,” says Nesha.
The do-gooders also make it a point to spread the word about protecting the environment wherever they go to donate the notebooks. With an initiative aptly called ‘Youth Mentoring Youth’, the team does a presentation on topics that could leave Planet Earth a bit more cleaner and greener - such as waste segregation. The teenagers find support in their school for all the initiatives. Nesha says it took many people to make Strive a success.
Chandana says her parents too have been supportive right from day one. Chandana plans to pursue Engineering and says she will continue with Strive. What happens after the girls leave school? “We will pass the mantle to our juniors as far as our school is concerned. But we will, however, continue to monitor the work done.”
Just like her friends, Nesha too is busy preparing for her Class 12 exams now, but she is also working on an app for Strive. “It is almost complete. It will initially have a sign-up page for all our initiatives but I will expand it soon,” she says.
In her effort to make the world a better place, Nesha plans to do furher studies in computer technologies and use it to make Strive bigger with what she calls ‘social entrepreneurship’.