Shahbaz Ahmad

Shabaz is a master’s in social work graduate from IGNOU and has been engaged in social impact work since 2012. Having witnessed grave injustice and issues such as domestic violence, gender discrimination, malnutrition and child labour, he decided to start Sky Trust with Zahida for the betterment of marginalised communities. As GreEntrepreneurs, they created awareness about climate action, renewable energy among 400+ individuals. An initial study had revealed that farmers and fruit growers in these areas were observing climate change like unexpected weather changes, increasing temperature, dry soil, less water in rivers and ponds. Other effects included health issues (fever, cough, throat infection) and water shortage. Zahida and Shahbaz launched Climate Friends Fellowship, where capacity building of 10 young interested women on climate change and renewables was done and safe spaces of discussion were created in order to increase awareness and promote the adoption of renewable energy at a community-level. The second fork of the project originated from the finding that lack of livelihood opportunities is a problem plaguing the young people of the area. During the field assessment, the majority among the surveyed individuals inferred that they would want to adopt solar energy but the solutions are very expensive and not easily available. Hence, training of young people on manufacturing of solar lanterns can generate livelihood opportunities and eventually make solar lanterns easily available at reasonable prices so people can adopt solar energy in communities. So in partnership with Bindi International the solar enterprise program and Solar electrification program were started. Having impacted 670 members of the community and counting, Zahida and Shahbaz hope to continue bring the community along on their journey of climate with the help and collaboration of new stakeholder such as other organizations, local administration and local groups, because they believe meaningful change can only happen with the involvement of the community.