Do you feel responsible for our future? Are you tired of waiting for a breakthrough at climate conferences? If you are already taking action yourself, you are our ClimateChamp and we want to get to know you! Answer our questionaire to become a part of our new blog series, take your chance to be nominated as a Climate Champ.

What is your name? How old are you? And where do you live?

My name is Saurav Dhakal. I’m 33 years old. I live in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. But I frequently travel around the mountain communities of the country.

 How does climate change affect your everyday life in your community?

We live in the mountains and so climate change affects us very closely. Right now I live in the capital city without electricity. But Nepal does have a plentiful water supply. People in the mountains generally don’t have much access to basic needs such as food, electricity, drinking water, healthcare or education. So it becomes very hard to adapt especially in the face of growing climate change.

 What trigger event led you to start fighting climate change?

As a journalist, I’ve worked on different stories related to environment and climate. Gradually I realized that the stories related to these issues did not get much attention in the media. Then I started a new approach to make those issues prominent. Basically, I make stories accessible to the mainstream via my websitewww.storycycle.com

How exactly do you fight climate change?

“Story Cycle” helps storytellers from different communities to develop, produce and disseminate their own stories. These films allow people to explore different topics, including how the changing climate is impacting them and their families, how they are coping, and what they need to do in order to adapt. We listen and capture multimedia stories from the community and disseminate them to the world via our website (www.storycycle.com), our partners in mainstream media agencies and public showings. We also use other conventional ways such as multimedia magazines, MMS, and DVD clips for distribution to communities without Internet access. A story cycle is complete when stories flow from the source to the masses and then return to their origin. Recently, I visited 22 districts in Upper Hills and in the mountains of Nepal. I collected thousands of photos, videos, stories and anecdotes about the vulnerability and struggles of Himalayan communities. I want to create an extensive multimedia database from all this. It is supposed to be a tool for the government of Nepal and the people of the world to showcase the plight of the Himalaya and Himalayan communities as a result of climate change. Such communication tools will also help Nepal in international climate negotiations.

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Do you feel responsible for our future? Are you tired of waiting for a breakthrough at climate conferences? If you are already taking action yourself, you are our ClimateChamp and we want to get to know you!

Global Ideas is one of the world’s most comprehensive TV & multimedia projects on climate protection. We want to find people, who are not prepared to accept climate change, but take action against it!

We need you imaginative people with clever projects who are ready for duty to combat climate change all around the world. We may cover the consequences of climate change but our clear focus is on potential solutions. To date we have produced more than 1000 video documentaries, features, reports, analysis and web specials in 5 languages. We have a steadily growing online and social media audience, including almost 60,000 facebook fans and more then 1000 twitter followers.

So answer our questionnaire below and send it to us. Some pictures of yourself and your project – perhaps even a movie clip – would be great too. Please send them to coolerworld@dw.de and we give you the platform to show to the world that you are a real ClimateChamp!