Webinar on Clean Air Champions Cohort to be held on September 7

Bhubaneswar: On the occasion of International Day of Clean Air for Blue skies, SwitchON Foundation, in partnership with WWF, Greenpeace, Earth Day Network, Y-east and other Organizations, will be organizing a Webinar and launching the Clean Air Champions Cohort on September 7. After the success of the first cohort, SwitchON Foundation has decided to expand this year’s cohort to Jharkhand and Odisha along with West Bengal.

SwitchON Foundation will also organize a Q/A Session for the students during the Webinar to highlight important issues and queries. It will also focus on Awareness Campaigns, Technological Innovations, Field Implementation and Infrastructural Development etc.

We have invited some prominent speakers from reputed institutes to share their thoughts on the urgency and role of the youth to take an active role in Climate Action for Clean Air: Prof Nirmal Kanti Chakrabarti, Vice Chancellor, NUJS; Shri Ashirbad S. Raha, Communications Director, EPIC India, University of Chicago; Prof Raghu Tata, XLRI Jamshedpur; Prof Ranjan Mitter, IIM Calcutta; Prof Pritha Bhattacharjee, Calcutta University; Prof Dr. Himadri Sinha, XISS, Ranchi; Dr Saroj Kumar Mahapatro, KIIT, Bhubaneswar.

The Clean Air Champions Cohort will be organized for a period of 6-12 months with youths and college students, working professionals and clean air enthusiasts from Jharkhand, Odisha and West Bengal, to innovate new ways to deal with the exponential rise of pollution in the State. Students can apply by visiting the link: https://www.switchon.org.in/blogs/become-a-clean-air-champion—register-now.

Vinay Jaju MD of SwitchON Foundation said, “We would request institutions and students to come forward and partner with us in our initiatives. We would also like request Institutions to nominate bright students for this program as well as encourage them to become future young leaders to take up climate action. Clean Air Champion Cohort builds a platform to drive grassroots change and action towards curbing pollution emissions in the respective State and spread awareness among the young stakeholders in the State by promoting sustainable living as a way of life in our cities.”

The Clean Air Champions Cohort is a 3-6 months (tentatively) program that will train future youth leaders who will take up various initiatives to make significant changes in mindset, policy, or technology to reduce air pollution. The program will provide an opportunity to clean air champions who are under 30 years of age and committed to devoting at least 10 hours in a month with the appropriate skills to manage projects related to climate change and the environment and scale their idea into reality.