Meet the young people transforming food systems
Five podcast episodes to celebrate International Youth Day
Today is International Youth Day, when we lift up the brilliant leadership of young people everywhere. This year’s focus? The U.N. is showcasing how young people innovating to ensure the wellbeing of people and the planet by changing food systems for the better.
For months, activist, science communicator, and educator Danni Washington has been interviewing young changemakers across the U.S. for the Genius Generation podcast. These young leaders are taking on all kinds of issues and putting their their world-changing ideas into action, from launching nonprofits to creating their own tech inventions.
Today we’re highlighting five young leaders with solutions for the climate, food security, and human health. Have a listen and get inspired!
Adithi Raghavan: Looking out for bees (and all of us)
At age 16, Adithi Raghavan learned about “colony collapse disorder.” Bees are disappearing around the world for reasons that we haven’t totally grasped — they include factors like viruses, pesticides, and climate change. Bees pollinate 71 of the top 100 food crops, from almonds to bok choy, which means there are huge consequences for our food systems. Talking with her peers, “I realized that nobody else knew about this issue either,” Adithi says. “And I thought if nobody knows about it — how are we going to put an end to it?”
Adithi founded her organization BEEducated and created “The Million Pollinator Garden Challenge” to equip people to create their own bee pollinator gardens — safe places for bees to live and thrive in their own backyards. Listen here.
Luna Abadia: Combatting climate change, together
When a speech she wrote about climate change received unexpected attention, Luna discovered the power of her own voice. She founded the Effective Climate Action Project (ECAP) — a youth-led organization working to increase awareness of effective solutions to climate change.
The climate solutions we often hear about, like planting trees or avoiding plastic straws, focus on individuals. While those actions are important, Luna wants people to understand that we need bigger, systemic solutions.
Her team runs interactive workshops called “climate simulations,” where people work in groups to think of solutions together. Anyone —adults, middle school students, science experts — can participate, and afterwards the solutions are measured for effectiveness. At the same time, Luna and her team are doing online advocacy and working for policy change. She shares her story here.
Ananya Sridhar: Safe water for everyone
Ananya Sridhar learned about the water crisis in Flint, Michigan when she was 12. Lead poisoning has devastating health impacts, particularly for young people her age and younger. One day, Ananya’s chemistry teacher showed the class a litmus test. “Why can’t we do this for lead?” Ananya wondered. The idea for Neptune Project was born.
Alongside her teacher, she tinkered in the science classroom during lunch and after school on Fridays, trying over and over until they got a test that worked. Not only did Ananya find an innovative and affordable way to test lead levels in water, she figured out how to code a machine learning model in high school that would identify the communities most at risk. The next step? Bringing on more volunteers to conduct tests across the country. Listen to the full story on the podcast.
Chander Payne: Healing soil and communities
In his sophomore year of high school, Chander saw an empty vegetable refrigerator in his cafeteria. He couldn’t stop thinking about how the lack of nutrition impacted his peers, their health and education. Chander also knew about the potential of urban farming — his grandmother, an Indian immigrant living in Memphis, Tennessee, had grown food in her backyard garden for decades.
So Chander decided to start an urban farm at his high school, growing fresh fruits and veggies through regenerative agriculture — and pulling a little carbon out of the urban atmosphere at the same time. The students began creating urban farms in other schools and homeless shelters in the Washington D.C. area., turning into an organization called Urban Beet. Hear from Chander on Genius Generation.
Kiran Sridhar: Using tech to fight hunger
Volunteering at a shelter in downtown San Jose, California, Kiran felt deeply impacted when he met young people waiting in line for a free meal. “They look just like me and have similar aspirations,” he thought. “Yet, they tell me hunger is a barrier to achieving their dreams.”
Kiran wanted to do something. He knew that food insecurity is a large-scale problem—and so is food waste. He spent a year doing in-depth research, shadowing the teams that work at restaurants and charities, to learn the factors that prevent them from donating excess food to those who need it.
Once he understood the problems, he collaborated to design a platform, Waste No Food to solve them. Farms, restaurants, cafeterias, hotels, and grocery stores post excess food on the site. Then organizations feeding the hungry can view what’s available nearby, pick it up, and offer it to their clients. The platform has spread across the country, serving over 6,000,000 meals so far. Hear from Kiran on Genius Generation.
All of these young changemakers have something in common: They’ve participated in our various Challenges! Learn more about Ashoka’s work with young changemakers here. And don’t forget to check out Genius Generation.
