CHENNAI: A 17-year-old city schoolgirl will be the youngest participant at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, slated for January 26-30. Anjali Chandrashekar will be attending the global forum in her capacity as a British Council Global Changemaker.
Anjali, a two-time national award-winning visual activist, who uses art to raise awareness on key social issues, is one of five youth selected to attend the event from over 1,500 applicants around the world. The British Council’s Global Changemakers initiative is a network of young social entrepreneurs and community activists from 110 countries, who come together to build their skills, share ideas, and work together on projects that directly impact the lives of those in their communities.
“I started painting at the age of four and by the time I turned 10, I knew I wanted to get into activism through my art,” recalls Anjali. “I remember a painting I had done as a part of an anti-smoking campaign in which I bore holes in a pair of painted lungs. It was used on a poster and after seeing that, a professor came up to me and admitted that he had quit smoking after he saw the poster. That is when I realised how powerful a medium art is and communicates so much better,” she said.
Her work now revolves around humanitarian issues, and health and environmental causes. A student of the Class XII at the Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan Junior College, Anjali will be the youngest Indian ever to attend the World Economic Forum.