Every week on Saturday, Mihir Pathak visits a Government school in Pipariya, a town in Madhya Pradesh’s Hoshangabad district. He introduces children there to lessons on the environment. “These are children from villages near the Satpura tiger reserve,” points out the 27-year-old. “Literacy level is low in the region and I use environment education as a tool to teach children to read and write, as well as help them think scientifically.” Mihir is among the 20 Earth Educators who won a fellowship constituted by the non-profit Youth Conservation Action Network (YouCAN).
The fellowship, that was initiated with a grant from the National Geographic Society, aims to equip volunteers for the environment with tools to facilitate activity-based lessons on Nature and conservation. “We wanted to create a generation of young earth educators who work with children in an exciting way,” says K Ramnath Chandrasekhar, who co-founded YouCAN along with his partner Rachita Sinha. The 32-year-old is a trained wildlife filmmaker, photographer and conservation educator himself, and lives in Coonoor.
