Varshini Prakash

Varshini Prakash (born 1992/1993) is an American climate activist and executive director of the Sunrise Movement, a 501(c)(4) organization which she co-founded in 2017.[1] She was named on the 2019 Time 100 Next list,[2] and was a corecipient of the Sierra Club John Muir Award in 2019.[3]

Varshini Prakash
Born1992 or 1993 (age 29–30)
Massachusetts, U.S.
EducationUniversity of Massachusetts Amherst (BA)
Known forExecutive Director and Co-founder of the Sunrise Movement
Political partyDemocratic

Early life and education

Prakash was born and raised in Massachusetts to parents from Southern India;[4] her father was from Tamil Nadu.[5] She first became aware of climate change when she was 11 while watching news coverage of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami which impacted Chennai, where her grandparents lived.[6][7] Growing up, she wanted to become a doctor.[6]

Prakash went to college at the University of Massachusetts Amherst where she began organizing around climate issues.[6][7] In late 2015, devastating floods in South India seized her attention, having caused flooding up to the level of her grandparents' apartment in Chennai.[4][5] To help combat climate change, Prakash became a leader of the school's fossil fuel divestment campaign. Prakash also worked with a national organization, Fossil Fuel Divestment Student Network. In 2016, a year after she graduated, UMass Amherst became the first large, public university to divest.[6][8]

Career

In 2017, Prakash launched the Sunrise Movement, an American youth-led political movement and 501(c)(4) that advocates political action on climate change, with seven other co-founders.[6][9]

In 2018, she became the Sunrise Movement's executive director after the group organized a protest occupying U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office asking that a congressional task force be established to address climate change.[6]

As part of her work with the Sunrise Movement, Prakash advocates for proposals like the Green New Deal.[10] In 2020, the organization endorsed U.S. senator Bernie Sanders in the Democratic Primary for the presidency.[7] Prakash was named as an adviser to Joe Biden’s climate task force in 2020.[11][12][13][14] She is also an advisory board member of Climate Power 2020, a group that includes Democrats and activists advocating for increasing the interest American voters take in climate action.[13]

Prakash is co-editor of the book Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can, released August 2020.[15][16][17] She also is a contributor to The New Possible: Visions of Our World Beyond Crisis.[18][19] Prakash appeared in Rachel Lears' 2022 documentary film, To the End, which focuses on the effects of climate change. The film debuted at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival[20][21] and was presented at the Tribeca Film Festival in June 2022.[22]

Recognition

Prakash was named on the 2019 Time 100 Next list of emerging global leaders.[10] She was a finalist for the 2019 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award from the University of California, Los Angeles.[23] She received Dickinson College's Rose-Walters Prize for Environmental Activism with a college residency in the 2021–2022 academic year.[24]

References
  1. Pascoe, Alley (May 2021). "Who Will Save The Planet? Meet The women Rallying For Climate Justice". Marie Claire Australia. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  2. "TIME 100 Next 2019: Varshini Prakash". Time. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  3. "Sierra Club Announces 2019 National Award Winners". Sierra Club. September 16, 2019. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  4. Prakash, Varshini (September 17, 2019). "Older generations broke the climate. It's up to young people to fix it". The Boston Globe. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  5. Prakash, Varshini (December 22, 2020). "Varshini Prakash on Redefining What's Possible". Sierra Club. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  6. Solis, Marie (November 18, 2019). "How a 26-Year-Old Activist Forced the Democratic Party to Get Serious About Climate Change". Vice. Photos by Nathan Bajar. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  7. Adabala, Srihita (March 26, 2020). "Meet Varshini Prakash, Leader of The Sunrise Movement". Next Generation Politics. Archived from the original on October 31, 2020.
  8. Elton, Catherine (March 3, 2020). "Varshini Prakash Is Trying to Save Boston From Climate Change". Boston. Metro Corp. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  9. Hyland, Véronique; Rougeau, Naomi; Vadnal, Julie (June 6, 2019). "27 Women Leading the Charge to Protect Our Environment". Elle Magazine. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  10. Inslee, Jay (2019). "Varshini Prakash Is on the 2019 TIME 100 Next List". Time. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  11. Specter, Emma (October 26, 2020). "Why 2020 Is a Climate Election". Vogue. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  12. Rathi, Akshat (September 15, 2020). "The Activist Trying to Bend the U.S. Congress Toward Climate". Bloomberg.
  13. Teirstein, Zoya (May 20, 2020). "How Climate Leftists and Moderates Are Working Together to Beat Trump". Rolling Stone.
  14. Calma, Justine (May 14, 2020). "How the climate movement is trying to fix Joe Biden". The Verge. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  15. Ottesen, KK (September 22, 2020). "'Adults are asleep at the wheel' in climate crisis, says co-founder of youth-led activist group". Washington Post.
  16. "Nonfiction Book Review: Winning the Green New Deal: Why We Must, How We Can by Edited by Varshini Prakash and Guido Girgenti. Simon & Schuster, $18 trade paper (256p) ISBN 978-1-982142-43-8". Publishers Weekly. June 2, 2020. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  17. Stephenson, Wen (October 12, 2020). "The Hardest Thing About the Green New Deal". The Nation. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  18. The new possible : visions of our world beyond crisis. Philip Clayton, Kelli M. Archie, Jonah Sachs, Evan Steiner, Kim Stanley Robinson. Eugene, Oregon. 2021. ISBN 978-1-7252-8583-5. OCLC 1236337736.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) CS1 maint: others (link)
  19. "Varshini Prakash on Redefining What's Possible". Sierra Club. December 14, 2020. Retrieved April 23, 2021.
  20. Dennis Harvey (January 23, 2022). "'To the End' Review: A Doc on Pushing For Climate Policy Change". Variety. Retrieved May 20, 2022.
  21. Leslie Felperin (January 23, 2022). "'To the End' Review: Rachel Lears' New AOC Doc at Sundance – The Hollywood Reporter". Hollywoodreporter.com. Retrieved May 20, 2022.
  22. Jill Goldsmith (April 19, 2022). "Tribeca Festival 2022 Lineup With Jon Hamm, Ray Romano, Bryan Cranston – Deadline". Deadline.com. Retrieved May 20, 2022.
  23. "Previous Candidates: Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award". UCLA Institute of the Environment & Sustainability. The Regents of the University of California. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
  24. "Sunrise Movement Leader Varshini Prakash to Receive Dickinson College's Rose-Walters Prize for Environmental Activism" (Press release). Dickinson College. April 28, 2021. Retrieved March 10, 2023.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.