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December 15, 2019

Earth Company Runs Mentorship Sessions For Indian Impact Hero Finalist

As part of its efforts to provide greater support to exceptional Asia-Pacific leaders who have been shortlisted as Impact Hero finalists, Earth Company ran a two day mentorship session for 2018 Finalist Ramnath (Ram) Chandrasekhar in Ubud, Bali on 25-26 April 2019.

Ram is a celebrated Indian conservation educator & filmmaker who is committed to preserving and protecting India’s natural heritage by pursuing projects that inspire and empower India’s youth to become environmental stewards. In addition, he and his partner Rachita have created the Earth Ambassadors program under the organization Trust for Environmental Education (TREE). Earth Ambassadors are Indian youth who receive training and support to work with their local communities on issues related to conservation and environmental responsibility.

 

Bolstered by the success of their efforts so far, Ram and Rachita were looking to scale up and expand their work with a series of ambitious programs. These included a 3000 kilometer nature and conservation awareness raising Walk Project, building a nature center, creating an Earth Mentors program for Earth Ambassador alumni and expanding their school-based photo-storytelling and filmmaking workshops.

 

In order to get a bit of guidance on their next steps, Ram and his partner Rachita travelled from Chennai, India to Bali, Indonesia to meet with the Earth Company team. Over the course of several days, the Earth Company team worked with Ram and Rachita to better understand their work and their plans for the road ahead. Reflecting on the workshop Ram notes that:

“The Bali meeting came at just the right time for us. We were feeling a bit down because our Walk Project was being delayed because of some health issues. The discussions with Earth Company helped us transcend our sadness over this and realize how much we still could do right now to set ourselves up for success.

In addition, our meetings helped Rachita and I prioritize our work.  We have put many of our expansion ideas on the backburner and will now focus our energy and time in the next 2-3 years on solidifying the Earth Ambassadors Programme, developing the Nature Center and on organization developmental steps like improving our administrative and compliance procedures, creating a website, developing a fundraising strategy and forming a Board of Directors. Thank you so much again. We left Bali with smiles on our faces.”

 

Earth Company is pleased to offer this same opportunity for all Impact Hero Finalists. While we do not yet have the financial capacity to cover travel and accommodation expenses, if you are able to travel to Ubud, Bali, we will make the time to work with you on key priorities, areas of concern or need. We are also considering offering online mentorship opportunities for Impact Hero Finalists.

 

If you would like to find out more about Ram and Rachita’s work, please contact Ram: [email protected].