LEAP Club – Partnering for Environmental Justice

The TISB LEAP club has recently taken part in an event with the Environmental Justice Collective at University of Texas at Austin, who introduced the basic principles of environmental justice and the relevance in the modern world, along with sustainable lifestyles, COP26 and policy making. LEAP introduced the club and the work being done, as well as talking about sustainability in India. We reached out to the LEAP team to get a better understanding about what this might mean for the club.  

Environmental justice is a really important concern in today’s world – Siddhant, Grade 12 

The LEAP team initiated the new collaboration, reaching out to the UT Austin’s Environmental Justice Collective. They did so because of the importance of justice and policies in today’s world – something that the team wanted to build knowledge about. “We decided that we would do a discussion-based event so people from both our organisations could have conversations on environmental justice and become more aware of what it really is”, says Siddhant, who really enjoyed discussing ideas during an international event. “Because it was an international event, it would also serve to introduce perspectives of sustainability and environmental policies in different cultures”, says Siddhant. 

Often certain groups and communities have been discriminated against in the implementation of environment-related policies. “Achieving environmental justice would require stopping these discriminatory practices and ensuring that policies are framed by considering the impact on the people most affected by them”, says Siddhant, and highlights the importance of switching from individual awareness and changes in lifestyles, towards more collective action to ensure that voices of people are heard and to influence policy decisions. 

Bringing an Indian perspective to the meeting was done because some people in the western world have a preconceived notions about India being very polluted developing country. “Due to media, things like 'Delhi having hazardous air quality' is a common thing to hear for a foreigner”, explains Konik, one of the LEAP club leaders. “Hence we wanted to bring out a different perspective on this by raising awareness on how practices like using buckets instead of showers, and ‘kabadi walas’ who collect old paper for recycling are ingrained in Indian culture”, says Konik, whose team also mentioned environmental actions in India, such as the world’s largest beach clean-up in Versova Beach, and the ecological movement ‘Rally for Rivers’. 

LEAP hopes to make communities more aware of environmental policies that can impact them. The team has a promising relationship with UT Austin and is planning to nurture this relationship by conducting similar conferences in the future. Rahul, one of the leaders in the LEAP team explains: “We believe this partnership has given us a foothold in a different part of environmentalism that we were not very active in.” Therefore, LEAP hopes to implement more projects and webinars related to environmental justice, and national and international policies, to mobilize more people and create a larger impact in these areas. 

LEAP is entirely student-led and is always open to numerous ideas for environmental and sustainability projects. “The work we do isn’t for ourselves – it's for our environment, for the people around us and for the people after us”, says Shrishti, and invites anyone who cares about taking a step towards a better future and safer environment.  

For more updates and information, follow the LEAP club on Instagram.