|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
Dublin High School senior and climate justice advocate, Divyansh Agrawal, was recently recognized as a finalist for the 2025 International Children’s Peace Prize.
Agrawal is among the top three youth leaders who were selected from over 200 nominations for the “world’s most prestigious youth prize,” according to KidsRights, the international children’s aid and advocacy organization that hosts the competition.
Joining Agrawal in the top three are Aeshnina Azzahra Aqilani of Indonesia and Bana Alabed, a Syrian native living in Turkey.
The annual recognition is awarded to a youth leader who is fighting for children’s rights. This year, the winner will be announced Nov. 19 in Stockholm, Sweden.
“We’re all more connected as people than we think we are and more connected to the world than we think we are,” Agrawal told Pleasanton Weekly. “It’s really up to us to start to realize that and once we realize that, then we can actually come together to …help keep our earth in a way that’s sustainable and stable, not just for us but for every other life on the planet.
Agrawal is the founder and CEO of the Junior Philanthropists Foundation, a youth-led organization that works with legislators to lobby for climate justice legislation.
He has even represented the organization at the United Nations Climate Change Conference of Youth.
Agrawal has also helped pass 18 major environmental bills in California through grassroots advocacy and influenced federal decision-making for clean water access and CO₂ reductions, according to the KidsRights website.
At the international level, he has also developed climate education curriculum that is reaching approximately 20,000 students in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the website states.
“Being a finalist for the International Children’s Peace Prize will allow me to continue the work that I’m doing and will allow me to maybe have even more impact and more meaningful impact,” Agrawal said.
At the root of Agrawal’s passion for climate justice is his life-long love of nature, he explained.
By middle school age, Agrawal became involved in policy through competitive debate, later combining policy with his passion for nature as a way to solve the problem of climate change.
In addition to legislation, Agrawal suggests that meaningful change requires a psychological shift.
In his perspective, overconsumption is the cause of climate change and environmental degradation. People, therefore, need to understand that they can be fulfilled within themselves without overconsumption, he said.
“This year’s finalists, Nina, Bana and Divyansh, have risen to extraordinary challenges, advocating for environmental justice, war-affected children and climate action,” Marc Dullaert, founder and chair at KidsRights said in a statement. “Their work exemplifies the spirit of the International Children’s Peace Prize and inspires us all to join the fight for children’s rights.”
