ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2025
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. This year, 60,000+ young leaders applied to join the Class of 2025 on 7,000+ campuses across 170 nations. 290+ campuses worldwide (less than 5%) were selected to host the 4,500+ Millennium Fellows.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT DIZA SHARMA, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2025.
Ashoka University | Haryana, India | Advancing SDG 12 & UNAI 6
" Watching the progress of poverty in my country, I felt the need to bring these issues to light. It is easy to look away from the homeless and the poor, but looking at them, acknowledging their struggles and seeing them for who they are is empowering. My project aims to expose the deep-rooted structural inequalities reflected in waste segregation practices. Those from lower socio-economic background, sanitation workers, and slum dwellers are unfairly forced to bear the burden of improper waste practices. I am committed to changing this reality, to help affected communities achieve a basic standard of living. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: Little Upcyclers
Little Upcyclers is a community awareness project led by Millennium Fellows Diza Sharma and Gauri Unnikrishnan which seeks to teach children about reducing waste production through creative reuse. The project aims to teach waste upcycling to children in Asawarpur (a village near the college campus). During the Millennium Fellowship period, Project Little Upcyclers will hold a minimum of three best-out-of-waste activity sessions. During these sessions, the kid will be provided with waste items from their day-to-day life and craft supplies to make useful and creative materials with our guidance, while also learning about the benefits of upcycling used objects instead of immediately disposing of them.
About the Millennium Fellow
Diza Sharma is a third-year Economics and Public Policy student at Ashoka University in India. She is passionate about poverty, inequality and environmental action, with a focus on making environment solutions inclusive for low-income and marginalized communities. Through her Millennium Fellowship project, she is working to highlight inequalities in waste disposal practices to advocate for fair and sustainable systems. Beyond the fellowship, Diza hopes to pursue a career as a global policy maker and economist, leading initiatives that address climate change, global hunger and reduce worldwide poverty.
