Climate Action

Earth Day Network India Announces Appointment of Education Director

Ranjana Saikia to lead nationwide effort Contact: Tim McHugh 202-518-0044 [email protected] January 15, 2016 (Kolkata, India) Earth Day Network’s India office is pleased to announce that as of today, Ms. Ranjana Saikia is Earth Day Network India’s new Director of Education. Ms Saika has a distinguished career that spans some three decades of working to build awareness about environmental issues among youth in both in formal as well as non-formal spaces. Her career began as a teacher in several schools across India. Ms Saikia’s last position was as Director, Youth for Sustainable Development Division at TERI, during which she made significant contributions toward sensitizing teachers and youth on issues related to water, energy, solid waste, air pollution, climate change, biotechnology, biodiversity, and other environmental issues. Ms Saikia has conducted the Climate Champions program in partnership with British Council India.  She has also put together inter-university competitions in India on water resource management.  Her waste-related programs have helped several schools turn into zero waste zones.  In village communities as well, Ms Saikia has built awareness about ‘green’ issues.  For the past several years, Ms Saikia has been a significant part of the School Educators Conference, and has conducted the Green Olympiad across India. Ms Saikia’s skills include the development of resource material and other tools to lucidly explain difficult-to-understand environmental technologies and systems to varied audiences – from those who are lesser privileged to those who already have some knowledge about cutting edge environmental issues.  She has authored several books and publications that include a book on Climate Change for high school students. This resulted from her visiting research fellowships at the Institute of Global Environmental Strategies in Japan. MsSaikia is a member of the GIZ (now BMZ) International Education for Sustainable Development Expert Network, Forum under UNESCO, and a Member of the National Advisory Committee, National Council for Science &Technology Communication, amongst several other distinguished positions.  She is regularly contacted to make presentations at high level seminars and other program, in both India and abroad. Ms Saikia has a Masters in History from Himachal University, Himachal Pradesh.  She also has a degree in Education from Guwahati University, Assam.

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About Earth Day Network The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, activated 20 million Americans from all walks of life and is widely credited with launching the modern environmental movement. Growing out of the first Earth Day, Earth Day Network (EDN), the world’s largest recruiter to the environmental movement, works with tens of thousands of partners in 192 countries to build environmental democracy and to broaden, diversify and mobilize the environmental movement. More than 1 billion people now participate in Earth Day activities each year, making it the largest civic observance in the world. For more information, visit archiveedn.wpengine.com