Youth For Rights: Meet Dhruv from India

Meet Dhruv Bhatt, a young HRD from #India working at the intersection of child rights and environmental rights. He is one of the 40 young human rights defenders who took part in the 2023 Vienna Youth & Child HRD Conference, organised by the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders and the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Learn more about young human rights defenders on our website: srdefenders.org/young-hrds/
#YouthForRights
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CREDITS:
Footage: Office of the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Defenders
Music: 'Clean ecology' by Evgeny Bardyuzha, via Pixabay
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TRANSCRIPT:
[Video opens with a cutout photo of Dhruv smiling, against a light blue background where the title appears: « 90 seconds with a young Human Rights Defender ». Dhruv is wearing a sand-coloured shirt over a black and red T-shirt and has clear frame glasses.]
Interviewer: Can you introduce yourself?
Dhruv: I am Dhruv, 18 and I am from India.
Interviewer: Why did you become a Human Rights Defender?
Dhruv: So, I grew up in Nigeria and India, countries where children are at risk from the direct impacts of climate change. In 2013 there was a flash flood in the state that I come from in India, Uttarakhand, and it wiped off an entire village from existence. And that really touched me because there were so many lives lost, so many futures and voices lost, and this is the reality of so many children around the world. Through my work I try to bridge the gap between child rights advocacy and environmental advocacy, find the intersections and advocate about taking action for the security of children today and the ones that will come in the future generations.
Interviewer: Is there anything you are particularly proud of in your work?
Dhruv: I work with an organization in the US called Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Program and as part of their initiative I work to mentor young people from different parts of the world and I have been involved in mentoring girls from Nigeria and Nepal who are working on the intersection of menstrual health and how that is impacted by climate change: period poverty, sustainable menstrual products… I feel very proud about that because menstrual stigmatisation is really prevalent in my society as well. I wish to continue [working] in this field.
[video fades to light blue and the hashtag #YouthForRights appears, along with the URL to the UN Special Rapporteur’s website featuring more content about young Human Rights Defenders. At the bottom of the page feature the credits for the video.]

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