Garvita - India

In India in 2015, several cities faced a severe drought crisis and children in 100 million homes in the country lacked access to water. Garvita read about these issues and wanted to take action. She founded an initiative called ‘Why Waste?’ to educate people and take action on reducing water waste in our every day lives.

Why Waste? operates as an international organization changing mindsets, optimizing water usage and preventing water waste. Their work includes education initiatives to change structural behavior around water targeting everyone from school students to office goers to grandparents through their teams across the country. Garvita’s work and initiatives have reached hundreds of thousands of people across India and Why Waste? influenced the mindsets of about 2 million people, saving over 4 million liters of water through its chapters globally. BBC World Service called Garvita the “Greta Thunberg” of India - a force to be reckoned with.

Garvita, also launched Lead Young, an initiative aimed at empowering school students to address problems that they are passionate about. This initiative has reached over 600 schools across the country and impacted over 2.5 million students.