Meet Shivi Anand, a crusader who dreams of a sustainable planet Earth

Shivi Anand

Shivi Anand has a dream! A dream of sustainable planet earth, where everyone does their bit for the goodness of mankind! If you think she is just another dreamer, think again! Shivi Anand is a thinker, a minimalist and a crusader, who walks the talk, without sounding preachy.

But that is not all. Shivi is a national-level swimmer, who is compassionate about her causes. She practices what she preaches and that is why she leads a zero-waste lifestyle and even involves herself to oversee the family's consumption of resources.

Speaking about environmental degradation and how it affected her, Shivi says, "I first learned about the waste problem when I was in the second grade. It amazed me that despite our awareness of it being such a grave issue, we as a community continued to produce insurmountable amounts of trash. When I was nine years old, I participated in my previous school's annual 'trash fashion show' on earth day. On that very day, I watched one of the most memorable and inspiring presentations by the students of the higher grades. It was about the installation of light bulbs made with plastic bottles in rural communities."

She insists that environmental degradation has always made her uncomfortable and confused, even angry. To handle all these extreme emotions, she takes help from reading about other environmental crusaders, e.g. Greta Thunberg. It was Greta's inspiration that pushed Shivi to go for the historic climate strike on March 15, 2019. Speaking about the experience, Shivi recalls, "It began when a week before the strike, I read an article about Greta Thunberg's call for a 'school strike' where she urged students like me to skip school and show the world that we want a brighter future than is currently on the road of creation. That's when I decided that I wanted my school to participate. The following week, I met with the organizers of the strike and they welcomed me to the team. After a round of selection, I was given a chance to speak at the event, as one of the six student speakers.

She is a national level swimmer too, an activity that she enjoys indulging in. About swimming, she says, "I started swimming when my parents put me into it because they thought it was an important life skill. And I really enjoyed being in the water." Her source of inspiration is the idea of "being better than yesterday."

Today, she follows a zero-waste lifestyle, which involves producing little to no non-compostable, dry trash. Explaining further, Shivi says, "By switching to simple alternatives such as biodegradable sanitary pads, bamboo toothbrushes, non-packaged soap bars, home-baked bread, bottled milk and pulses and grains bought in our own containers, I have even led my family in reducing our household waste significantly."

From turning a vegetarian to slowly moving towards a minimalistic way of living, Shivi Anand is showing the world the way to a better tomorrow!

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