Hello! My name is Mahuya Barua. I currently attend Bravo Medical Magnet High School and am the new Youth Rep for Los Angeles. I was thrilled when I was nominated to be a Youth Rep! As an ACE Youth Rep I will inform and encourage students to take action within their school and community. I will take the lead by doing projects and sharing ideas that will inspire others to follow. I will show others how important it is for us to bring about a change to help our environment and stop global warming. Making little steps at a time can lead to a big change.I want others to actually understand how the choices we make today will impact our future. I will provide students with advice, support, and motivation to improve our environment.

I want to make a change in my school by informing and encouraging everyone to contribute to the green cause. Therefore I decided to take action by being the president of Campus Beautification Club at my school. Campus Beautification Club has become one of ACE’s focus action team this year. Our first event was an ACE Assembly for this year which had more than 500 attendees in two periods. My club officers and I have occasional meetings with our ACE Educator to plan out events and project ideas. We are working to make our recycling program more efficient by collecting paper and bottles and cans from all the classrooms by ensuring that all teachers have two boxes for recycling. We also request teachers to leave their recycle boxes outside their room if they can’t stay on Friday afterschool, our recycle collection day. Our next goal is to start recycling Styrofoam plates and eventually ban Styrofoam plates at Bravo. We are currently setting up the Styrofoam recycling program with Bureau of Sanitation. We are also participating in the Biggest Loser Competition which 20 teachers have signed up to participate. This is our first time entering a competition so we are extremely excited and hope for great results!

Another project we worked on was making a DOT mural hoping to collect and post at least 100+ DOTs. Keeping to a theme of environment, we decided to create a tree to put up on the walls of the hallways at Bravo. Every day, students, teachers, the administration, and even parents, get the opportunity to post their DOT on a colorful leaf, flower, or bird, onto the tree, therefore adding on to our tree. As our tree grows each day, so does our determination to helping make the world a more eco-friendly place. We also made “Light Out!” signs that are posted in all the teacher’s classroom to remind them to turn off lights whenever it’s not in use. The signs have famous sayings and pictures that attract them to the light switch. I have attended one leadership training and enjoyed it tremendously. Not only that, my club has recently won a starter grant from ACE. I am very excited for all our upcoming projects and looking forward to a productive year.

Climate change is a significant and emerging threat to everyone on this planet. Global warming is leading to shorter, warmer winters, rising sea levels, and pollution which is detrimental to our future. This is an issue we cannot avoid or leave for the next generation to find a solution. We must take responsibility and bring about important changes that make a difference and set the stage others to follow. I want to take action now to inform others of the impacts of climate change in our daily life and encourage everyone to contribute to make abetter environment for all.