Siddarth looks to combat climate change by enlisting help from Perth’s linguistically diverse communities
Gabrielle Becerra Mellet
PerthNow
A Year 8 Perth Modern School student is combatting climate change with postcards in easily understood language for Perth’s linguistically diverse communities.
Siddarth Sankara Subbaiyan has been supported by Millenium Kids and the City of Canning with $5000 seed funding to translate climate change information into Punjabi and Mandarin.
His postcards will be distributed throughout Canning libraries, the Hillview Hub, Canning River Eco Education Centre and through cultural ambassadors.
Punjabi and Mandarin are the two most common languages other than English spoken in Canning.
According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, 42.8 per cent rate of people in the city used a language other than English at home in 2021.
Siddarth said his parents were a part of his motivation to begin the project.
“My parents migrated here so they didn’t have much English-speaking skills,” he said.
“Climate change is an important issue for children because they are the future and their parents need to be able to help their children on this important issue.”
In a climate change leadership day, Siddarth led an event with the non-profit environmental organisation Millenium Kids where he shared his postcard campaign at public libraries.
He said he chose the project because of his personal interest in climate change advocacy.
“I really want the planet to be a better place in like 50 or 100 years,” he said.
“So it’s more about looking to the future and seeing how good the planet will be and that it’s not going to be destroyed.”
The postcard project is the result of eight months of work between Millennium Kids mentors, a graphic designer, and Siddarth.
His idea was first selected at Canning’s Changing Your World forum last year.
Siddarth said his postcards were only an initial phase of his project and he hoped to expand his delivery.
“As a next step of the project I’m thinking of spreading out (which) language I’m translating the climate messaging into,” he said.
