Following her passion she took the less travelled road; the story of Shilshila Acharya’s fight against plastic bags.
Shilshila Acharya was all prepared to become a doctor. It is a big dream for a middle class family to be able to afford the price tag over an expensive course like MBBS. In 2005 Acharya was awarded a full government funded scholarship. She made a phone call and denied it. This event would go on to change and define her as a person. In that phone call, she pleaded her father to let her pursue her dreams of studying environmental science. It was an odd thing to leave a fully funded scholarship and to opt for a paid course. Her relatives and teachers thought it was a wrong decision, but Acharya was adamant.
Acharya was a second year student in 2006, when the tragic helicopter accident happened that killed the top environmentalist of many countries including Nepal. She felt a sudden void and the urge to have to do something from her side when she was capable. She realized that she had to buckle up and work hard to cover the losses. When she was awarded the Chandra Gurung Memorial Fellowship, it got more personal.
Singh made the courageous decision to travel to Kathmandu to realize her dreams. Worst nightmares awaited her in the capital of Nepal.
Later on she travelled to Norway and was exposed to a completely different lifestyle. While away from home, the urgency to work and contribute had slowly faded away. She was in Amsterdam airport when she met a stranger who seemed very interested in knowing about her. When she opened up about her scholarships, he exclaimed that she was milking the entire system! He told her that she was blessed and must now share it with the ones who do not have it. It was already time to give back. The urgency of doing something returned back again.
After returning back to Nepal, Acharya began volunteering and met many like minded youths. She realized that she loved working and action. She campaigned to plant trees on the 9.1 KM 6 lane highway which was being filled with grasses. While the response was enthusiastic, she realized that an organization was needed to maintain the sustainability of the work she wanted to do. She met Prashant Singh who offered her a platform to work and deliver. She agreed and started working at Himalayan Climate Initiative.
Acharya realized the problem of plastic bags and the problem of trafficked women. To provide a single solution to both the problems, she campaigned to remove plastic bags with cloth bags in Kathmandu, which were made by underprivileged trafficked women. It was launched at Bhatbhateni and many other supermarkets joined along. 47 lakh plastic bags were consumed in one single day in Kathmandu which would require a government level intervention if it were to really work out. Another campaign No Thanks I Carry My Own Bag started to make people aware of their responsibilities towards the environment.
The efforts were slowly being realized when the traders protested and a petition was filed in the supreme court. It favored the green side, but the earthquake struck and the campaign hit a slowdown. The entire team was back to square one. Later on the efforts to ban plastic bags all over Nepal started when the change in government happened.
Shishila Acharya’s fight against plastic bags has begun to take shape again. Hamri Bahini has been registered in the name of the six women who were making cloth bags for the campaign during its inception. Acharya has an even bigger dream to realize, to put Nepal in a Green Economic Development path. Her fight continues.
Shilshila Acharya denied the coveted MBBS scholarship to study environmental science over a phone call with her father. She chose a path which was not expected of her. But she followed her passion. During one of her travels in the airport of Amsterdam, a brief conversation with a stranger provided a completely new perspective to her. Acharya was young, still believing that she was yet to receive much more in life, but it was already time to give back. Shilshila Acharya is the CEO of Himalayan Climate Initiative (HCI).
