Prasiddhi Singh has always had a bond with nature. Admiring the rustling of leaves and the waves of the seas is second nature to her. And so, rather than an ‘environmentalist’, she would like to refer to herself as a ‘nature lover’ first and foremost. But her journey into nature conservation started when she was just four years old in 2016 when Cyclone Vardah hit the shore of Tamil Nadu. The devastation and the number of trees uprooted were a trigger for her. ‘I realised that I have to do something because trees have always been like my friends. So I decided that I should start participating in several tree plantation rights. For two years until 2018, from the age of four until the age of six, I gained experience. Then I launched the Prasiddhi Forest Foundation with the mission to plant 100,000 trees by the end of the year 2022.’
Prasiddhi has successfully achieved her target and has planted 110,000 trees in more than 79 different locations. But that’s not all the Foundation does. ‘We have multiple different initiatives. We have tree plantation and nature-based solutions. We have different women empowerment and community-based projects. And most importantly, we have two major missions. Our first is to keep planting trees to enhance biodiversity until it becomes our culture. The second is to bring people together and keep spreading awareness until it gets translated into our literature. We believe in both action and awareness. On the ground, we support the livelihood of farmers. We do special biodiversity rejuvenation projects. We have beach cleanup and plantation projects. And when it comes to awareness, we have exclusively curated workshops for various different age groups, such as climate literacy workshops. We also give social internships to college students.’ Prasiddhi also has an initiative called the Green Pillar, where climate education courses are provided for students and schools who are willing to make a difference.
Prasiddhi is also the recipient of the very prestigious Prime Minister National Child Award or the Pradhan Mantri Rashtra Bal Puruskar. ‘It was indeed a very proud and motivating moment for me. When I got to know about it, I quickly went and planted a tree to celebrate. When I had an online conversation with our Honourable Prime Minister, he shared three sankalpas with me. The first was to be regular in whatever I do, the second was to stay true to the promise I have made to the nation, and the third was to stay humble. In fact, even I say, if we will stay humble, we will never stumble.’
Prasiddhi is also the child ambassador of the Green Tamil Nadu Mission, a flagship mission of the Tamil Nadu Government. She connects with more than 200 schools, giving away one sapling to each student so that they can plant trees in their homes, nurture them and gain a sense of how they actually grow.
She also believes that all of nature’s problems are interconnected. ‘We might feel that Antarctica is distant, but it is connected to us. Out there, the permafrost is melting, but eventually, those glaciers lead to the sea level rise, which then comes to the coast, which then impacts coral reefs, which impacts fish first, then fishers, then entire economies. So, it is important that we stop plundering and polluting nature's resources and take casual action, because if we do not, there are predictions that we might lose more than one million species in the next few decades.’
Prasiddhi has inspired and mobilised more than 60,000 people across 20 different countries. These are individuals, groups, companies, NGOs, farmers, villagers, even individuals and nature enthusiasts. Her motto is, ‘Dream high, higher than the sky. Think deep, deeper than the ocean and act like trees, bees and seas.’