Schools from Assam, Arunachal honoured at Wipro Earthian Awards 2024 promoting sustainablity

Two schools from the Northeast - one from Assam and another from Arunachal Pradesh - were honoured by Wipro Limited during the 14th edition of the Wipro Earthian Awards 2024, for promoting sustainable action and thinking. 

The event took place at Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, on February 22.

The awards are a conclusion of an annual programme designed to foster integrated sustainability education and recognise Indian schools and colleges that actively promote sustainability.

Winners from the Northeast region included:

1. North Guwahati Girls High School, Assam: The team presented projects on biodiversity and waste. They found that while the Northeast is conducive to biodiversity, urbanisation and infrastructure growth are harming it and that the imbalance could affect future generations. 

For waste, they noted the lack of awareness in disposal habits and initiated a paper recycling project to improve their environment.

2. Global Valley School, Roing, Arunachal Pradesh: The team examined how development in their valley impacts solid waste management and found that modern waste from commercialisation is not absorbed by natural environments. They highlighted the absence of local recycling industries leading to waste burning and environmental degradation.

Anurag Behar, Chief Executive Officer, Azim Premji Foundation, and Narayan P.S., Global Head of Sustainability and Social Initiatives, Wipro Limited, and Managing Trustee, Wipro Foundation, felicitated the winning teams with certificates and cash prizes.  

Narayan P.S., Global Head of Sustainability and Social Initiatives, Wipro Limited, and Managing Trustee, Wipro Foundation, said, “The annual Wipro earthian awards is the culmination of the 14th edition of Wipro’s long-running program that seeks to ignite interest and foster learning in young minds on humanity’s unique relationship with nature. Bringing students and teachers together from schools spread across the country, the Wipro earthian program is designed to generate action-based learning that celebrates the underlying connectedness of the individual with the larger fabric of community and nature. We continue to be inspired by the spirit of resilience and optimism we see in our young citizens as they get ready to face the multiple challenges of sustainable development the world faces.”  

The program is one of India’s largest sustainability education programs for schools and colleges. The 2024 edition of this program received over 1,500 project submissions, of which 23 winning and 43 shortlisted entries were selected by an independent jury. 

The teams from the winning schools demonstrated a deep understanding of biodiversity, waste and water, through a combination of activity-based learning programs and written essays.

Since 2011, Wipro earthian has engaged with over 50,000 schools, 4,000 colleges, 2,00,000 students, and 40,000 teachers. This year, participation remained high with more than 1,500 submissions from schools and over 700 from colleges.