Rashmita Kalet

After starting work with Patang, Rashmita, who is from Nua Adhapara village in Sambalpur, got to know the relationship between forest conservation and its impact on climate change. Passionate about forest conservation, she wanted to uphold community and individual forest rights and that’s how her journey as a changemaker started. As a part of her project, she supports farming families in taking up organic farming and using organic manure. She has created a youth group consisting of school students where she conducts activities to raise awareness on the issue, promotes small-scale farming and teaches kitchen gardening methods to children as well as their households. During the tenure of the project, Rashmita has connected with around 700 people from the community, and continues to reach out to more. This has led to promotion of consumption of locally grown food at household level, reducing food crisis, thereby contributing to low carbon footprint. By involving varied stakeholders, including government officials, Rashmita hopes to effect large-scale change at the community level. Rashmita hopes that this trend of change continues, and she is able to take more people along in her journey, especially more children, simply because of their sheer zeal for making a change, which fuels Rashmita’s passion even further.