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  Rishika Das Roy, 17 years
  Kolkatta, India

  Rishika is a student at the High School for Girls in Kolkata,India. She is very passionate about communicating the issues of climate change within her community.

  Rishika is very concerned about the plight of the residents of the Sunderbans (a fragile eco-region bordering West Bengal, India and Bangladesh) and the impact of Climate Change on their lives. Through research and field work she intends to make an incisive study on the Sunderbans - the humanitarian impact of Climate Change on the region and to highlight the problems and solutions and the positive stories and the incredible challenges which the people of that region face.

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  For the people of the Sunderbans, life is a daily fight against the tide. Here, a relative of mine, Sungata Das, who is 70 years old, is preparing to lose his third home to the rising sea in as many years. To try to protect themselves, Sungata and other villagers have constructed a long, earthen embankment; it also serves as an artificial reservoir to trap fresh rainwater for consumption and irrigation. In the past, the embankment protected the villagers and their cultivable land during high tide. However, because of the effects of climate change, the sea level is now higher than it used to be and tropical storms are more frequent. During such storms, the embankment is easily breached by the waves.

   

  The effects of these events are disastrous for the people of the Sunderbans. Many are left homeless. Environmental refugees from submerged islands move to other islands, which are already overcrowded. Saline water makes agricultural land useless for at least three years. Fresh drinking water is contaminated. My people are often forced to drink salt water and to venture into partially submerged creeks in search of food - where they are vulnerable to crocodile attacks. Nature used to give us food and crops, now it undermines our human rights, destroys our homes and threatens our lives. Each evening when we go to bed we pray to the Goddess Bono Bibi: Hey mata praan dao jobon dao (Goddess give us life).

  
  

   

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