Climate Change Problem Solvers

About the project

This project is one of the 2022 WISE Awards winners.

Context and Issue

The problem Reap Benefit is trying to solve is the lack of skilled and committed youth at the community level engaging to solve local climate and civic issues. Lack of first mile active citizens or climate and civic change makers who have the skills, data, and solutions to solve hyper local climate and civic issues at a neighborhood level.

India’s public sector is seriously understaffed, 3.8% of the workforce is constituted by public officials in India; pitifully low compared to 13.5% in the US and 28% in China. Most instances of climate and civic resilience are tied to its hyperlocal context making the government’s ‘one-size-fits-all’ solutions ineffective and significantly affecting India and the world’s 2030 agenda.

There are no skilled citizens to fill this gap, with 370 million youth available but under skilled. According to a UNICEF report, 53% of adolescents in India will not have 21st-century skills to thrive in the evolving global world. This makes it imperative to create a human capital of skilled change makers who can solve these issues and make communities more resilient at a hyperlocal level.

Solution and Impact

The solution - Reap Benefit is building an ecosystem of micro actions, such as crowdsourcing local data, building and implementing local solutions, joining local campaigns all rooted in local neighborhoods. Our technology platform empowers youth to track their skills thus developing active citizens nurturing critical thinking, problem-solving, and leadership skills but help leverage local data and solutions turning insights into impactful advocacy in building resilient communities. We have a two-fold approach:

Bottom up grassroots mobilization using the Reap Benefit technology platform.

Top down adoption by Government and CSOs through our versatile open source technology “Samaaja” infused with AI capabilities.

Impact - 54.3 million liters of water, 1.7 million units of electricity and 187 tonnes of waste have been saved by 1 million+ Solve Ninjas who have taken 105,000+ actions, crowdsourced 5.6 lakh data points, started 3413 campaigns, and built 552 civic innovations to address local climate and civic issues. 50 Solve Ninjas have started social initiatives and 4 of them have registered their enterprises. 14 out of 28 states have been reached in India, and a total of 1.6 million youth benefitted from the solution.

Future Developments

We aim to build a nationwide movement of 10 million action-oriented Solve Ninjas by 2030. Reap Benefit will focus on youth from underserved communities and vulnerable climate districts in India. We will reach these youth through our direct approach of building bottom up grassroots and digital communities, partnerships with civil society organizations, educational institutions etc.; but we would also integrate our technology and our know-how in a top down manner with government bodies.

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