Nupur Bhalla

00:00
So my name is Nupur Bhalla and I'm a sophomore so I'm currently 15 years old and I live in San Diego, California. So growing up the environment has always been, you know, nice here. We have a lot of beaches, parks. it's always been nice good weather but with that growing up I've also seen the effects of climate change especially California has a lot of wildfires so that's been especially something that I've been a witness to as I've been growing up so that was one of the things that always made me really interested in just environmental science and climate change just to know like how that works and then I've also been a part of like some like extracurriculars where I've been focusing on environmental science and like ecology which kind of had my interest towards the science behind it and all that really just made me want to dive deeper in and you know start climate change advocacy which I started doing my freshman year of high school.

01:12
In my freshman year of high school I started working with a non-profit called SanDiego350 and specifically in that I am a part of a youth campaign called Youth v. Oil and in one of our weekly meetings they publicized the program and were encouraging others to apply so I looked into it and it sounded really cool because I was never I was never really familiar with the policy side of climate advocacy only like you know protests and like planning events and all that so I thought it was really interesting and I really wanted to apply because it seemed really cool so through Youth v.

01:47
Oil I did apply and I got in which is really nice. I wanted to focus on environmental and climate education as my main part because I felt like it was most important at least from what I thought to be educating students. One of my biggest challenges that me and my mentor Sandy worked on was just you know being able to get through them instead of meeting.

02:11
I had a meeting with the superintendent which is really cool and And also something that I had never done before was give a public comment, which was really like nerve-wracking, but it was a really cool and nice experience to just present everything that I've been working on. And it was really nice. But overall, I did not get my resolution passed as the district already had passed something similar to that, but they did pass the board policy I proposed, which is 6142.5, which was really, really nice.

02:41
I think it was super cool to see all my hard work actually be implemented through my school district. And it's something I'm very proud of. And I could not have done without the help of the program. Being a changemaker, it's honestly, those are big things to say, but it's just, it's really nice. And it's just cool to think that, you know, you actually made a difference.

03:06
And I think climate change is something that's such a big part of our, like, at least my life since I've been working with it. and it's affecting like everyone around us so just to be able to make some small impact on everyone else in my community is just a really cool thing and then for advice for other people who maybe want to potentially do the CYCP program and be a change maker is honestly not to stress too much about you know what you're going to do to give yourself credit for like you're doing such good things and just to take it slow and to not like overwhelm yourself about like what ifs or like just potential things that could happen and to just take it slow and do what you're really like do what you really love and put a lot of effort into it not try to rush things up so I think that would be my biggest thing to say.

03:53
I'm still involved with the non-profit I was talking about SanDiego350. So that's something just whenever I can get time to just attend meetings or just go to protests and rallies and just help out in any way possible is always something I'm going to be able to do and plan on doing. And then something else that really sprung from my CYCP experience was that I really wanted to start something where I could help people in my own way in different places.

04:25
So I just recently filled out paperwork to start a non-profit climate at initiative and that is like very in the makings right now but i'm really looking forward to really building on that and you know possibly getting help from ten strands and through the CYCP program because that was just such a great resource for me and just build on that because i really wanna the CYCP program was a really great way and it just shed light on me like oh i really want to keep doing this so that's kind of what i'm looking to do right now and i'm really excited to see what's going to come from that.

04:58
I've always been really interested in that. As well as that, I've always been interested in computer science, technology, and engineering. So I feel like for me, it would just be finding a way to bridge and find a, I guess, like a center between both of those, like with engineering and environmental science, and just find, you know, something that where I combine those two and really help out that way so I could do both things that I love but definitely definitely will be pursuing environmental science in any way.

05:37
I really really love the program I thought it was really good I really liked how we have these monthly Thursday meetings and we were able to collaborate with all the other like youth and people who are my age it was just really nice to like hear their stories and to just you know share our experiences throughout the program and through our climate change advocacy experiences.

05:57
And I think it was just a really good experience for me and I think it just helped build my confidence as I was really able to take everything I worked really hard for and put that out and really say it to people who matter in my community and that was just a really good thing to see happen.