Full of tech sense, the 15-year-old innovator is making great impact

se people to the experiences of children with special needs so that they understand and see things from a lens of empathy and understanding," says Jeya.

A Tinker Champ in the making

Born in Delhi, Jeya moved to Bengaluru at the age of five. An introvert with not many friends, she spent most of her time surrounded by books. "Nothing like a good read. I have always found myself drawn to the world of books," says the teen whose favourite author is Sudha Murty. But it was in Grade 7 that she first discovered Atal Innovation Mission. "It began with a message that landed on my WhatsApp school group about a Tinkerpreneur encouraging students to teach their peers about entrepreneurship. This got me intrigued," says Jeya, who began exploring the field and soon prepared a masterclass on digital skills. "Teaching students about basic PowerPoint or Excel was the beginning of my journey as a Tinker Champ." Now a Class 10 student, she create resources like boot camps, YouTube lives, and workshops to teach students from Class 6 to 12 on digital skills, innovation, entrepreneurship, and business through peer mentoring. Till now, they have impacted over 5000 students.

Supporting children with intellectual disabilities

Over the years as a Tinker Champ, she noticed a gap: the lack of attention to intellectually challenged children. "Instead of just focussing on the resources for the intellectually challenged children, the bigger problem is the stigma around them." It's something that she witnessed firsthand in her apartment. "Such children are often mocked and made fun of. From the bird's eye view, the bigger issue is the stigma and not the resources they lack," she adds. This motivated her to start Khwahish with a mission to support children with intellectual disabilities by addressing the societal stigma and providing them with necessary resources.

"I found lack of education to be the root cause as many people have no idea about intellectual disabilities, which often leads to insensitivity," explains Jeya. She began by creating a website to share her mission and vision, and started reaching out to specialists in the field. That's when she found Dr Anamika Hui, an audiologist and speech-language pathologist who works with children with intellectual disabilities, and confirmed that stigma is a huge issue. Meanwhile, Dr Anamika also cautioned her that it's a close-knit community that isn't open to the idea of collaboration. "She told me even if I intend to empower them, I will face some resistance. I took her advice seriously and started connecting with more special educators and special schools in Bengaluru to build trust," informs Jeya.

SDG 10

While interacting with one such school - Buddhi Special School - the teenager had an epiphany that to shift the perceptions of children with intellectual disabilities from sympathy to empowerment, she needed to display their talents well and "make people know what they have to offer". Inspired, she conducted an art activity and collected their artworks for a virtual reality art exhibition. "Seeing people's surprise at the children's talent was eye-opening and confirmed that there was genuine interest, which led me to conduct my first awareness session with the help of Dr Anamika." By showcasing the talents of children with intellectual disabilities, Jeya aims to create an inclusive world. "My focus is on SDG 10 - reducing inequalities by creating an inclusive world, which can be achieved by sensitising people and changing their view on other people, who might be a little different from them."

Soon interest grew, and she began organising more awareness campaigns in residential areas as well as schools. Through Khwahish, she wants to support special schools and children and work on providing accessible learning resources and guides for parents and guardians. In just a few months, she has already impacted over 120 students. "I often ask children to picture a child with an intellectual disability, and they usually imagine someone helpless or vulnerable. This is the perception I want to change," she emphasises.

A long journey

Her journey hasn't been easy as the 15-year-old had to face a lot of criticism initially with many doubting her qualifications to work with or raise awareness about children with special needs. "I was told that working with specially-abled children or even spreading awareness about them required a certification. And I had no authority to speak on them. But I stood my ground and told them that one needed passion and the drive to conduct awareness campaigns more than certifications." Many adults dismissed her effort as a mere project due to her age and she even found many students indifferent to the cause. "Since special schools and regular schools are different, not many meet children with special needs daily. Hence, it's hard for them to understand them or know how to behave or react." She often uses the example of braces to make children understand the concept. "I tell them that if they had never seen braces before, they might mock a friend wearing them. But it’s just something normal. The same logic applies to children with special needs. However, changing perceptions takes time," adds Jeya, who believes early intervention is crucial as young minds are easy to influence as they are still far away from rigid beliefs.

Despite the challenges, Jeya has found support from a few people who have become her collaborators. "They believed in me and the cause and were always ready to help," she says. However, she acknowledges that changing perceptions is a long journey. A crucial moment in her mission was her visit to Buddhi Special School in Bengaluru, where an interaction with the coordinator, Mrs Rekha, deeply impacted her. "She told me that these kids have no idea how much stigma they will face the moment they step out into the real world. Most kids are mocked and bullied. Some kids, who need special care, are separated from their parents and stay in the premises all the time since their parents don't have the training or the skillset to take care of them. That's why special schools become important." Realising the challenges that these children might face in the real world, Jeya wants to step in and pull the plug on this by creating as much awareness so that these kids feel equally safe in the outside world. "I want the awareness impact to go into thousands for neurotypical people, especially children so that the world becomes more inclusive."

Jeya, who calls herself a bibliophile, calls awareness a two-way learning process. "When you are spreading awareness, you are in turn learning a lot in the process," says the teenager. She began Khwahish with a passion for working for children with intellectual disabilities and is on a mission to make a more inclusive world. "It's important to go with the flow, and have a growth mindset where you do not quit."

turned out to be a complete failure, but she persisted and kept improving the technique until she could make sheets in varied colours and patterns. "Recycled paper reduces energy and helps stop deforestation. With around 1.3 billion population, India generates an average of 1000 gms of kitchen waste per day, if everyone starts recycling vegetable peels into paper, each one can contribute to the lessening of Ecological crisis," reads one of her Instagram posts.

Growing up amid the lush greenery of her grandmother's home in Bengaluru, Manya felt closer to nature. But seeing waste pollution as a constant menace, she started raising awareness on environment preservation. "Born in Bengaluru, I see the beautiful Garden city slowly transformed by heaps of garbage dumped on the roadside and how the quantity of waste is increasing every passing day has been a matter of huge concern. This scenario always had made me think for a permanent solution as to how the flower and plant waste can be utilized in an eco-friendly manner," she said.

As young as eight, she started raising awareness through blog and poetry. She understood the power of words, and ended up authoring five books on environment and nature. While she kept relentlessly championing for environment preservation, she took it a notch higher when she made handmade paper from vegetable peels. "Making one paper a day keeps deforestation at bay, in my opinion. It’s an easy sustainable option to wet waste management," she said in an interview.

In 2020. she was awarded for her project SUNSHINE, an eco-friendly initiative, where she created DIY vegetable paper to promote environment awareness among kids. So far, she has produced over 300 sheets of colourful paper made from vegetable waste. "Instead of chopping trees for paper, let's recycle the kitchen waste to eco-friendly vegetable paper. Let's all together join hands to restore our earth," Manya said, adding, "8 trees are sacrificed for 1000 pounds of paper! Now with around 8-10 onion peels, I can make 2-3 A4 size papers. A 1/2 kg of Peas husk can make 3 A4 size sheets! 2 -3 baby corn husk makes around 2 A4 size sheets! These colourful vegetable papers are just like any other handmade paper. You can write, draw, paint, fold and create art out of it."

The Water Heroes awardee in 2020 by the ministry of JAL Shakthi, Manya is also the editor of her kid's journal Sunshine Fortnightly. Moreover, she received the India Book of Records for being the youngest to write a book on nature. "I believe nothing in this world is a waste until you consider it one."

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