Archives: People

PORTFOLIO CAP 1 CAP 2 SUMMARY

Ayanna is from Fort Lee, New Jersey, and is a junior at Bergen County Technical High School in Teterboro, New Jersey. She has always had a strong love and appreciation for nature, stopping to look at each flower as a child while on walks, much to her parent’s detriment. Nonetheless, she has channeled this love for nature into her advocacy and began exploring the intersections that the climate crisis has with preexisting social justice issues. She is now very passionate about environmental justice and works on local initiatives towards this cause. In her free time, she likes to listen to music, crochet, and read.

“After 30 days of powerful work, I will continue to amplify my voice, educate my community, and demand change. Going forward, I do not plan to stop sparking discussions about climate and will continue to speak on the environmental issues I am most passionate about.”

Five words to describe the PGC experience:
Inspirational, Motivational, Growth, Community-building, Empowering

PORTFOLIO CAP 1 CAP 2 SUMMARY

Luisa is a second-year high school student at Colegio Nueva Granada. She was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia, where she fell in love with the surrounding nature and became very interested in the environment. Her proximity to nature and the infinite amount of biodiversity in the country instilled deep respect and appreciation for environmental conservation in her. Luisa and her teammates Vasu Agarwal and Guadalupe Schmidt-Mumm came together to advocate for change in their community through their school and Project Green Challenge. In her free time, Luisa enjoys playing basketball, cooking, listening to music, and connecting with nature, friends, and family.

“As a kid, I was taught about recycling and not wasting food or water, but during PGC, I understood that there are so many other ways to make our communities more sustainable. Behind every action we take, there is always something we can do to reduce our footprint. It’s not as hard as it seems.”

Five words to describe the PGC experience:
Reflective, Productive, Inspiring, Innovative, Educational

PORTFOLIO CAP 1 CAP 2 SUMMARY

Natalia is passionate about nature and loves to collaborate with others. She is originally from Guatemala and currently studies Environmental Engineering at the Anáhuac Mayab University in Mérida, México, due to her desire to make change in the management of resources by industries and people. In Guatemala, the application of effective measures and laws on the subject has only just begun, and there is no public policy to make people aware of the subject. She attended high school at the Vista Hermosa Bilingual School in Guatemala and her sophomore year, she carried out an intercultural exchange for two months in Indiana, USA. During that time, she was able to learn about and share with another culture, one where environmental norms are already established and people express their environmental ethics, however consumption habits increase societal environmental impact. Natalia loves children; during the pandemic, she tutored two children for ten months, testing her creative skills. Natalia believes that the future of sustainability begins by sowing the idea through education. During her participation in Project Green Challenge, she learned the importance of good communication with her team, despite the difficulties of the pandemic, and discovered that through small actions, big change can be created.

What five words best describe your PGC experience
Innovation, Creativity, Responsibility, Team Work

Quote
“I have learned the huge impact my actions have on pollution, climate change, fair work and trade in my immediate and global community. Not everyone has the same opportunities as us, and we must seek climate and social justice with our actions and activism.”

PORTFOLIO CAP 1CAP 2 SUMMARY

Sofia is a Junior who attends Edina High School in Minnesota. She joined Project Green Challenge along with her teammates Julia Domingo, Yeshe Jangchup, and Maria Goulakova, because she thought it would be a great opportunity to get involved in environmental activism. Before this challenge, she was not the most environmentally conscious person, but after learning all of these things throughout PGC, she has become aware of how much she was harming our planet before and strives to help heal our earth as much as possible!

“I now know the steps that can be taken to improve the state of our world and the main issues that are causing the harm. I felt like I couldn’t make a difference but now, instead of being scared of the world, the world feels like a work in progress. Now every news article I read, I can worry about the state of the world in a solution-based manner.”

Five words to describe the PGC experience:
Interesting, Informative, Eye-opening, Inspiring, Confidence-boosting

PORTFOLIO CAP 1 CAP 2 SUMMARY

Shivangi is an incoming freshman at the University of Delhi, India. She plans to major in economics and minor in legal studies. Born and raised in New Delhi, a city of wealth and slums, she would often find herself in the neighborhoods of Sultanpur, a historically red-lined sector of South Delhi without access to clean water or air, and the place where she was first exposed to entrenched inequality in society. Shivangi has always been passionate about social justice and education. Alongside teammates Jia Kapoor and Ishita Garg, PGC was her first dive into conscious living; this 30-day rigorous and riveting program broadened her perspective of issues surrounding climate change, an impending crisis that she believes has been downplayed for far too long. She hopes to employ the skills she gained during PGC and previous work experience with NGOs and NPOs in advocating for climate justice in her community. Upon graduation, she aims to gain experience to help implement economically efficient policy interventions. Fun fact: when not preparing for mock trials and MUNs, she can be found watching reruns of Suits.

“Every aspect of nature holds significance.We are not responsible for managing the world; it knows how to go with the flow. Rather we should learn how to manage ourselves so that we don’t disturb nature’s flow. We need to change ourselves first, the rest will fall in line.”

Five words to describe the PGC experience:
Revolutionizing, Meaningful, Enriching, Exhilarating, Rigorous

PORTFOLIO CAP 1 CAP 2 SUMMARY

Ariana is a young Peruvian university student in biomedical engineering, who resides in Lima, Perú. She likes animal and plant life, and takes good care of her animals and garden. At the age of 20, she belongs to the Q’umir Llaqta group, which seeks to represent a change in the ecological consciousness of Perú and the world. Ariana is representing her teammates Shirley Cantaro Ramirez, Angie Nicole Ramirez Florian, and Luis Valerio Cerna Ramirez in the PGC Finals.

“We want to raise awareness to stop climate degradation because it is an issue that involves every person on the planet to leave a healthy planet to future generations. There are solutions for the climate crisis; we must seek them, spread them and apply the solutions for a better world.”

Five words to describe the PGC experience:
Immersive, Extraordinary, Educational, Incentive, Wonderful

PGC PORTFOLIO VIDEO PRESENTATION

Addie Foote, Claire Abbott

Addie and Claire are juniors at Stillwater Area High School in Minnesota. Passionate about the environment, they enjoy being outdoors, hike, bike, kayak and co-founded an environmental conservation club at the start of this year before strengthening their commitment throughout Project Green Challenge. PGC changed their lives and flipped the perspectives they hold on themselves, their community, the world, climate change and human rights issues. Planning to later enter the STEM field, including biology and environmental sciences, the high school students plan to implement an on-site solar energy and efficient technology project at their school and throughout the district, using and sharing newfound information to challenge conventional thought and systems.

Five words to describe PGC: motivational, transformative, rewarding, enlightening, relevant

 

PGC PORTFOLIO VIDEO PRESENTATION

Néstor Villegas Alarcon, Milagros Rojas Lock, Alberto Rodríguez Bautista, José Hinostroza Gonzales

Néstor is a civil engineering student at the National University of Engineering in Lima, Peru. He is oriented toward environmental justice, raising awareness about the environment, volunteering and critical problems that affect us and the planet. He loves to train in martial arts, play soccer and be in nature above all. Milagros is an environmental engineering student, passionate about environmental education and always participating in various environmental causes. She likes to travel, sing, dance and swim in the ocean, her favorite place. Alberto is a fourth year mechatronics engineering student and coordinates many activities to promote environmental conservation. José is a junior and leads the environmental volunteering group RUA Perú UNI. After PGC, the team knows that even though the earth is facing many pressing issues, solutions to change behavior, industry and policy are within reach. They are focused on environmental education to promote critical thinking and sustainable practices among agents of change at the university and beyond.

 

Five words to describe PGC: demanding, innovative, continuous learning, enjoyable, teamwork

 

Cory Booker is the junior United States Senator from New Jersey. A member of the Democratic Party, Booker served as the 38th Mayor of Newark from 2006 to 2013, before being elected to the U.S. Senate in a 2013 special election. After receiving his undergraduate and master’s degrees from Stanford University, studying at the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, and attending Yale Law School, Senator Booker moved back to his home state of New Jersey to start a legal service non-profit for low-income families. He was elected to the Newark City Council at age 29 and then Mayor of the city where he still lives proudly to this day — fighting for justice, educational opportunity, inclusive economic growth, security, healthcare, affordable housing, green spaces and public safety, as a tireless advocate for those who have been left out, left behind, or left without a voice.

In the U.S. Senate, Senator Booker serves on the Judiciary, Foreign Relations, Environment and Public Works, and Small Business Committees, addressing pressing challenges such as lack of access to affordable health care and economic opportunity, environmental injustice, food insecurity, and a broken criminal justice system. He has introduced many bills aimed at tackling the climate crisis, developing federal policies to lift up low-income communities, indigenous communities, and communities of color, which disproportionately bear the burden of environmental pollution and exploitation, and ensure access to clean water and clean air for all. He is an original cosponsor of the Green New Deal and has introduced other critical legislation focused on improved air quality in schools, sustainable agriculture, endangered species, animal welfare, wetland restoration, renewable energy, farmers and more.