Sustainability is not an abstract ideal. It is a daily practice, rooted in place, people, and persistence.
Mitravinda Javvadi – XI T of Delhi Public School R.K.Puram , received the UNESCO CIPP Award for Pioneering Sustainability (2025–26) under the Youth Innovation: Collaborating to Improve and Protect our Planet campaign, selected from over 35,000 youth participants worldwide. The recognition affirms a project shaped less by spectacle and more by scale:
“Building Sustainable Communities—One Park, One Pocket, One Planet.” (AI video)
The core idea is deliberately modest. A pocket park,sometimes no more than a bench, a few trees, a herb bed, and a composting corner,can become a living classroom and a civic anchor. By integrating green spaces with zero-waste systems, the model demonstrates how environmental action can be local, inclusive, and economically viable. Children learn where food comes from, households close the organic-waste loop through composting, and communities rediscover shared responsibility for public space.
What this experience has taught her is simple but bracing: behaviour changes faster when people participate, not when they are instructed. Youth leadership, supported by elders and local institutions, proved to be a powerful catalyst. Measuring outcomes,waste diverted, compost produced, habits pledged,added accountability and trust. Challenges such as land access or initial reluctance were real, but not insurmountable; partnerships and persistence mattered more than funding alone.
This journey reaffirmed her belief that sustainable development does not begin in policy documents alone, but in neighbourhoods willing to experiment, learn, and repeat. The award is an encouragement to continue refining and replicating this model, and a reminder that meaningful change often begins quietly,seed by seed, community by community.
