2023 SES YOUNG SCIENTIFIC EXPLORER – Mya-Rose Craig

PROUDLY SPONSORED BY PETER AND JUNE FELIX

Mya-Rose Craig, also known as Birdgirl, is a 21-year-old British-Bangladeshi birder, race, and environmental activist. Her passion for birds led to her setting up her charity Black2Nature when she was 14 years old, which organises free nature camps for inner city visible minority ethnic children and campaigns for equal access to nature. Mya-Rose fights to stop climate change and biodiversity loss, ensuring global climate justice, all of which are interlinked. She has published three books, We Have a Dream, Flight, and her memoir Birdgirl, in which she describes growing up with a mother with severe bipolar disorder, how that impacted her own mental health and how birding helped. At 17 she is the youngest Briton to be awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Science, and to see half the world’s birds.

Mya-Rose is committed to saving the planet and everything on it, whilst respecting indigenous peoples, and highlighting Global Climate Justice as it intersects with Climate Change Action.

2023 SES PIONEERS WITH PURPOSE – Just a Drop

PROUDLY SPONSORED BY CRAIG COHON

Just a Drop is a water, sanitation, and hygiene organisation that works in six countries to deliver life-changing projects. They work in Uganda, Kenya, Zambia, Nicaragua, Cambodia, and India. As well as providing clean, safe drinking water, they also provide latrines, education, training, and menstrual hygiene management. Due to their provision of WASH services, they ensure that women and girls around the world can stay in education, be safe, and be economically active. All their projects have sustainability and durability at their core.

As well as contributing to the UN Sustainable Development Goal 6, Just a Drop impacted a total of 12 out of 17 of the UN Sustainability Goals. They also measure the carbon footprint of their programmes across the world and the organisation itself and are a carbon-neutral organisation with a strategy to become net zero.

Donations to Just A Drop can be made via their website.

2023 SES EXPLORER OF THE YEAR – Preet Chandi MBE

Preet Chandi, also known as Polar Preet, is an Army officer, physiotherapist, and endurance athlete, with an iron will that has led to her making history and breaking barriers in the world of adventuring. In 2023 she broke two Guinness World Records, for the longest solo unsupported one-way polar ski journey for a woman, and the longest solo unsupported one-way polar ski journey overall. In 2022 she became the first woman of colour to complete a solo expedition on the continent.

Preet has always been fascinated with how much the human body can endure. Her first ultra-marathon (50 miles in the Peak District) left her feeling very achy and sick, but she had already caught the bug. The scale of her adventures started to grow and her definition of what is normal began to change.

Preet aims to inspire as many people as possible and share the message that no matter where you’re from or what your starting point in life is, you can smash the glass ceiling into a million pieces by creating your own definition of ‘normal’ on your journey to success.