The Sustainability Stories – Foreword

I remember celebrating more birthdays at orphanages than at parties – Always having to finish
all the food that I took on my plate. Through my early life, I learnt to empathize and enforce
positive habits. The social sensitivity in me comes from practices like these, inculcated through my
formative years. Understanding how crucial those experiences were, I conceptualised this book.
Through this book, we hope children inculcate these same values from a very young age, in a way
best know to them – through fables and fairytales.
We are at a point where the world is now restructuring and reconsidering what the youth learn.
We at Why Waste? decided to take a step towards this by introducing stories that inspire our
generation to not just love our planet, but also work towards a more holistic and sustainable
world. Thereby, shaping our futures.
This book is a series of fables that hope to help shape young minds to become eco-conscious.
“Breaking the glass ceiling and not trying to fit into the glass slipper.” That’s what we believe in.
I founded Why Waste? in 2015 as an initiative to change the mindsets of people towards natural
resources. Why Waste? is a team of like-minded youth who are taking water positivity to the world
stage by means of innovative education and ideas that bring about systemic change. We have
volunteers leading this movement across the globe, over 4 different continents.
Why Waste? was recognised as an “Ashoka Youth Venture” in 2016. Recently, we became India’s
largest youth-led movement (organisation) working towards water conservation. We were named
“Water Heroes” by Republic Media Network in a collaborative initiative with the Govt of India
(Ministry of Jal Shakti).
We hope to encourage the youth. Your voice matters and development doesn’t come only
with books. Wrapped in fiction and laced with morals, this book has more to it than the cover
offers! I would like to thank the entire creative team of writers & designers for putting together a
wonderful collection of inspiring stories.
Every single story talks about empowering the young minds, who chose to take lead and make
a difference. Simple stories like these can change the way the youth of our world grow up and
shape their mindsets. Taking instances of water preservation, these stories hope to imbibe a
conservationist mindset in our future generations,
After all, tomorrow may be far, but what we make of our children today is what we will
see tomorrow.

– Garvita Gulhati, Founder, Why Waste?