meerut sawan kanojia was 14 when he observed how his seniors left water taps open during recess in the school when he asked them to close the taps to avoid water wastage he was badly snubbed angered by the insensitivity the class ix student complained to his science teacher who asked him to prepare a speech for the morning prayer meeting in the school the passionate discourse of kanojia touched one and all the taps were never left open after that and the event gave birth to the youth environment organization made by kanojia and a few dedicated friends six years later kanojia now 20 has a band of 30 friends who spend their free time visiting villages on their two wheelers organize jal chaupals and educate villagers to optimize the use of water they run online campaigns to save birds and distribute earthen vessels to ensure provision of adequate water for avian species especially during summer they have interacted with more than 800 students of different schools and encouraged them to make pledge to ensure no water is wasted they run tiny movements through short films against chinese manjha that not only kill birds but cause serious injuries to humans as well and the list goes on speaking about his early days his former science teacher anjali sethi said sawan was very sensitive towards environment conservation from a very early age in fact he used to take book lessons on the environment very seriously and was keen on applying the suggestions on ground zero and would get agitated when environment conservation was taken for granted by people he had leadership skills in taking students and teachers together in holding school workshops in saving the planet hes made for this field in the initial years only close friends of kanojia joined him but over a period of time the group increased to 30 members and interestingly all are very dedicated towards environment conservation vidhi kaushik 18 who belongs to the same school as that of kanojia was good at poster making and joined the club in 2016 only now a first year student of bba has already held seminars on ozone layer in her college environment degradation is a burning issue and unfortunately people are still not concerned about it i loved poster making and my skills were used by sawan for creating banners this drew me towards the cause and i will continue with it for life after all its a matter of life and death says vidhiits race against time for environmental degradation was never as fast as it is now we all need to hurry up before it wipes us all from this planet says sawan the student of journalism and recipient of the earth day hero award 2022 for asia continent conferred upon him by earth day network that pioneered the observation of world earth day 52 years ago divisional forest officer meerut rajesh kumar said this group of youngsters is highly motivated when it comes