India is a water-stressed country, and Maharashtra is particularly vulnerable—16 percent of its land is drought-prone, and erratic rainfall patterns have deepened water insecurity in both urban and rural areas. While much of the public discourse focuses on agriculture, domestic water consumption and urban infrastructure play a major role in groundwater depletion and inefficient water use.
It is in this context that the Youth Engagement and Water Stewardship (YEWS) programme was launched—a collaborative initiative hosted and anchored by Higher and Technical Education Department (HTED) of Government of Maharashtra and supported by Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (ACWADAM), United Nations Children's (UNICEF) and the Centre for Environment Education (CEE), implemented by Advanced Centre for Water Resources Development and Management (ACWADAM).
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed on April 20, 2022, with a common goal to sensitise and mobilise the youth of Maharashtra—especially college students—around the urgent need for sustainable water management and climate resilience. With young people increasingly recognised as agents of change, the programme aims to channel their creativity and energy into local water stewardship.
A state-wide programme rooted in collaboration
Established in March 2023, YEWS began as a pilot programme in 13 districts across Mumbai, Thane, Palghar, Pune, Ahilyanagar, Satara, and Kolhapur from Western Maharashtra; Beed, Jalna, Latur, Dharashiv, Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar from the Marathwada region and Nagpur from the Vidarbha region. The programme targeted a mix of urban (60 percent) and rural (40 percent) youth, reflecting the insight that urban populations—despite having greater access to water—often lack awareness about its scarcity and tend to misuse their resources.
One may wonder why more urban youth were included as compared to rural in the programme. This is because while we think that water is mainly used in agriculture, most of the decline in water sources happens due to mismanaged domestic water consumption. Also, the rural youth seem to be more aware of the water situation than youth in the cities.
The programme aimed at reaching over 7.1 lakh students and save 28 million cubic metres of water in three years of the programme—roughly equal to the monthly water demand of a mid-sized city.
Youth in action: Building awareness through Green Clubs
Through an extensive outreach network involving college principals, faculty, and government officials, the YEWS programme has since established 1,483 Green Clubs in colleges across the state. These clubs serve as a platform for students to organise water-related activities, conduct audits, lead awareness campaigns, and initiate local conservation measures.
A student from a college in Kamptee, Nagpur, shares “When we went to teach in a rural school, I felt a sense of responsibility rise in me when I taught the school kids about water conservation, and it also helped improve my public speaking skills.”
The green clubs have enabled students to connect the dots between climate change, water use, and community action. From cleaning wells and streams to conducting campus water audits and outreach in schools, students are leading from the front. Ritvikesh Jeure, a green club member from Dharashiv, says, “I used to always see the well littered and full of algae when I used to visit the temple. After joining the green club and learning how important it is to keep our water sources clean, I was motivated to clean this well and I planned to clean the well with my classmates.”
Students started coming up with innovative ideas like that of Rohan from a college in Latur, who started irrigating his watermelon farm with drips and bathing under a lemon or neem tree without soap to save water. “Rohan is a very enthusiastic and initiative-taking student. He just needed a little push, which was provided through Green Club, and then he was unstoppable," shares a proud faculty member from his college.
Digital tools for building knowledge and daily action
In World Water Week last year, more than 100 colleges from all districts performed water audits for the campuses undertaken by their students. The audit helped students understand where their water came from, how much water was wasted by them, how much the college was paying for getting a good water supply, and how they could help the situation by encouraging sustainable use of the available water.
To keep students engaged beyond the campus, a mobile app was developed under YEWS to track their everyday water-saving activities—like turning off taps, fixing leaks, and avoiding wastage. The app quantifies water being saved through each activity with the aim of developing a conservation mindset among the users at the individual level. The app gamifies conservation by awarding points and ranking users via a leaderboard, encouraging healthy competition among students between colleges and districts.
So far, over 5.5 lakh students have registered on the app, reporting savings of more than 19 million cubic metres of water—enough to supply Pune city for over two weeks.
Building climate literacy through online learning
Another initiative by MahaYouth for Climate Action (MYCA) under the program provided a free, online, self-paced certificate course on the themes like climate change, water, energy, biodiversity conservation and waste management to form a foundation for the students around these topics. Some of the institutes across the districts have also incorporated credits from this course into their academics to broaden the knowledge base of their students.
The program has received excellent response over two years, with more than three lakh students having enrolled for the program, with a certificate generation of around two lakh students across the state.
Creating future leaders
The YEWS program has not only undertaken these activities, but also opened opportunities for creating future leaders like Jiya Ambale from Rajaram College, Kolhapur, to attend an international conference in Nepal and mentor others based on her learnings by arranging a workshop for the students from various colleges in Kolhapur, Satara, and Sangli districts.
Jiya conducted a series of lectures about YEWS program advocacy, setting goals, research, networking, public speaking and mental health awareness for the students. When asked about her journey, “I'm incredibly proud of myself. It all started with me joining the Green Club in my first year of college. I was enthusiastic about climate action, and being selected for the UNICEF youth advocacy training workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal, with changemakers from eight countries, was a dream come true,” she says, adding, “I learnt so much, and it was truly inspiring. Coming back, I felt a responsibility to share what I had learnt. I was thrilled to take forward the advocacy training to 47 young changemakers at my college, Rajaram College Kolhapur, and then to students at Ashokrao Mane Institute of Pharma, reaching a total of 100 people. It felt amazing to see them engage and learn. These experiences have shown me that I can make a real difference.”
This success was not a linear journey, as bringing about social behaviour change on such a vast scale in itself is a humongous task. But when the students start taking credibility for their own future, it proves to be a measure of success for the program and owes to its name—Youth Engagement and Water Stewardship!
Acknowledgement
Water scarcity in various regions of Maharashtra has highlighted a critical need in raising sustainability awareness amongst the public. UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund) in collaboration with Government of Maharashtra has come forward with this initiative of Youth Engagement and Water Stewardship (YEWS) empowering the next generation to conserve their natural resources. Mobilisation of college youth through various activities is the prime crux of this program.
Involvement and support from Principal secretary and Directors of Higher and Technical Education Department (HTED) of Government of Maharashtra has been highly appreciated during the outreach to almost 1500 colleges across the thirteen districts of Maharashtra.
We are grateful towards UNICEF Maharashtra for leveraging this program in the state along with technical assistance from partner organisations like Advanced Center for Water Resources Development and Management (ACWADAM), Center for Environmental Education (CEE) and Why Waste. Last but not least, thanks are also due to the enthusiastic participation of colleges, faculties and students whose dedication has been instrumental in making this campaign a success.
Rajeshwari Bhosale has completed her Masters in Geology from Fergusson college Pune and works as a researcher at ACWADAM.