By Devanik Saha:
Project Survival Media (PSM) is a global youth journalism network dedicated to broadcasting stories of survival and ingenuity in the face of climate change.
Earlier, PSM worked with 93 youth journalists in the lead up to the landmark UN Climate conference in Copenhagen in December of 2009.
This year they have launched a new media series “Solutions4Survival”. It is a new media series designed to deal with a frightening new reality: the climate crisis is already underway, and our governments are failing to rise to the challenge. As our planet’s natural systems become increasingly unstable, people around the world are looking for ways to cope. They are looking for climate solutions.
Under the program , 15 teams will fan out the planet and report from various places on equitable climate solutions.
Team India is the 1st team to be launched as a part of it. The team consists of 6 people from various diverse backgrounds led by Ekta Jaju, Team India leader. Recently they travelled around rural villages in Lakshmikantapur, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal, India working on creating their first documentary on small scale solar power in rural villages in India where they had their orientation as well.
I was fortunate to be a part of the team as well and it was really awesome to see how solar energy has transformed the lives of communities in those areas and despite of being solar products being expensive, people have understood the long term impact value of it and made huge investments into buying that. We interviewed some shops and entrepreneurs who proudly told us that solar energy has helped them increase their profits and sales by upto 70-80% which was quite overwhelming to hear.
Currently the documentary is being edited and compiled and should be out sometime around mid September.
The team will cover many such amazing stories of tangible climate solutions that are being implemented by communities throughout the country.
For more updates and amazing stories visit www.projectsurvivalmedia.org.
Please contact at devaniksaha@projectsurvivalmedia.org if you would like to hear our story and help us in any way !