After a glitzy book launch attended by her teachers and friends on December 23, 13-year-old Shazana Shariff shows no signs of fatigue. It is around 11 p.m., and young author who lives in MRC Nagar is back home, after having walked her dog.
“The event marks a major milestone in my life and I am charged up to do even more,” says the Class VIII student of Chettinad Vidyashram who is author and illustrator of the book Little Shazu’s Farm Tale.
A 90-page comic book, published by Emerald Publishers, Little Shazu’s Farm Tale uses a setting to throw light on what has been happening in Shazana’s life over the last five years: The interactions with farmers in an effort to get to know more about their challenges, and in the process broad-base her understanding of climate change. Since the age of eight, Shazana has been working to uplift farmers, the mission resulting from a visit to a farm in Pulipakkam village, one that provided her with a ringside view of the plight faced by many farmers.
“For close to five years, every weekend, some of my friends and I would visit this village to help some of them buy seed, sow them and see it grow till the paddy is transplanted,” says Shazana.
She started the ‘Save the Farmer’ mission to create awareness about various government schemes that the community is entitled to and to help them increase their profitability.
Through her network of friends, she helped a few farmers come out of their debts with some funding support.
“We used to collect dry ration from my mom’s office and apartment communities to hand it over to them,” she says.
Many of these things figure in the book, which is aimed to inspire youngsters like her. “My book captures my personal experience combined with magic and fantasy,” she says, adding that proceeds from the sale of the book will go into supporting farmers.
With the book out of her way, the teenager plans to motivate more youngsters about Fairtrade, a movement to help farmers across countries. Shazana is an active influencer in Fairtrade.
“I talk to the public and tell them about the importance of helping farmers. I influence consumers by telling them to buy products that are under the Fairtrade band,” she says.
With magical grandpa (a character in her book) around her, Shazana is confident she would achieve a lot more than what she has so far.
