Climate Warrior 

Climate Warriors is a school-based movement that turns children into the agents of climate action. Launched on World Environment Day, 5 June 2025, in Jalgaon, it is built on a single, tangible principle: refuse. Not recycling after the fact, but refusing single-use plastic at its source.

At its heart is a clear, countable commitment adopted by each school, three rules: no plastic tiffin, no plastic bottle, no plastic book cover, and in their place, steel tiffins, steel bottles, and simple newspaper covers. In our sessions, we speak to children of the ocean as something that belongs to each of them: the ocean is my nation. From that sense of belonging comes care, and from care comes the choice to refuse.

Single-use plastic has become woven into the everyday life of schools, in lunchboxes, water bottles, book covers, and packaged snacks, and much of it ends up in drains, soil, and ultimately rivers and oceans. Awareness campaigns alone rarely change this, because the habits are formed early and reinforced at home.

Climate Warriors works where habits are actually formed: with children, in their schools. By treating schools not as audiences but as institutions capable of setting their own policy, and children not as recipients but as change-makers, the programme turns a daily routine into a daily act of climate responsibility, one that children carry home to their families.

• The three-point school commitment — schools adopt a plastic-free policy: steel tiffins, steel bottles, and newspaper book covers.

• Awareness sessions — interactive sessions with students and parents on plastic, waste, and climate, building a sense of ownership.

• Food literacy (Anna Saksharta Yatra) — workshops responding to parents' concerns about children's demand for packaged food, connecting plastic, food, health, and environment.

• Institutional engagement — working with school leaders, the district administration, and the municipal corporation to anchor the movement in the city's systems.