Not many 13-year-olds travel to Korea and the US on official assignments. So when Yugratna Srivastava, Asia-Pacific representative of the Junior Board of the United Nations Environment Programme, rattles off the names of presidents and prime ministers from the world over and says they were “pleased to meet me”, one is not exactly surprised. “I had the attention of the premiers of the world when I addressed the Summit on Climate Change at the United Nations General Assembly,” says Yugratna, now back in Lucknow.

This wasn’t her first international conference. Her stint with the environment began over three years ago in Muzaffarnagar, where she studied in St Francis School, Shamli, a student of class VI. A Patna-based NGO, Tarumitra, took note of her academic excellence and initiated her into the UNEP. Then a trip to Korea opened up a whole new world. “I participated in the UNEP-TUNZA’s International children’s conference held last year in June in Norway, in which I got elected by 107 countries into the Junior Board representing the children of the Asia-Pacific region,” she says. “In February this year, I went to Nairobi for a presentation and a UNEP agenda meeting. I also assisted in organising an International Children and Youth Conference held in Daejeon, South Korea, from August 17-23, 2009.”

She’s a chip off the old block—her father is a PhD in botany and her mother holds a doctorate in zoology. Now a class IX student of St Fidelis School, Lucknow, which she joined only a year ago after the family moved to the city, Srivastava—says her mother Roshni—has always been a topper in her class. “I feel world leaders are not paying as much attention as they should to the cause of the environment and all progress is at the cost of ecological balance,” says the little UN delegate, who will become a member of the youth board of the programme on turning 14.

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