Founder, President, Green Hope Foundation
Kehkashan Basu is the founder of the Green Hope Foundation, which is a youth led global social innovation enterprise working on Education for Sustainable Development, Children’s Rights, Peace and Environmental Protection by empowering young people and building effective partnerships with all stakeholders of civil society , policy makers and institutions.
Winner of the 2016 International Children’s Peace Prize, Kehkashan Basu, born in 2000, has been impacting the global fraternity with her work on children’s rights, peace and disarmament, climate justice, gender quality and social upliftment. Kehkashan joined the World Future Council as a Youth Ambassador in 2012, when she was just 12 years old. She is now the youngest Councillor at the World Future Council.
In 2013, at the age of 12, she was elected for a 2 year term as UNEP’s (United Nations Environment Programme) Global Coordinator for Children & Youth and a member of its Major Groups Facilitating Committee and she is the youngest person and the first minor, ever, to be elected into this position in the history of UNEP. She is a United Nations Human Rights Champion, a National Geographic Young Explorer, one of Canada’s Top25 Women of Influence and has been named as one of the Top100 SDG Leaders in the world in 2020.
Her internationally acclaimed work on sustainability has resulted in her appointment as a Climate Reality Mentor, a One Young World Ambassador, Honorary Advisor for the NGO Committee on Sustainable Development – New York, Global Teen Leader at We Are Family Foundation, members of World Oceans Day Global Youth Advisory Council and EarthEcho International Youth Leadership Council. She is also the youngest member of Canada’s Women in Renewable Energy forum and the Council Lead at Toronto-St.Paul’s Constituency Youth Council.
Kehkashan is the author of “The Tree of Hope” which was launched at the United Nations in New York, during the 2015 UN Children’s Summit. The book tells the story of young people taking actions to mitigate climate change. Her blogs have been published by the Huffington Post, UNICEF and many other portals.