GUWAHATI: Padma Shri Jadav Payeng from Assam has now become a part of the school syllabus of a leading school in the United States.
A chapter dedicated to Payeng has been included in the school curriculum of class VI of Greene Hills School in Bristol Connecticut.
"The students are studying about Padma Shri Jadav Payeng as a part of their ecology lesson. The primary reason was to inspire and encourage future generations of the country on how a single person can make a huge positive impact in the world if he or she has the right attitude and determination," Navami Sharma, a teacher of the school told Deccan Herald.
Padma Shri Jadav 'Molai' Payeng is an environment activist and forest worker from Jorhat, Assam. Over the course of past several years, he planted and tended trees on a sandbar of the river Brahmaputra turning it into a forest reserve. He is also known as the 'Forest Man of India’.
On Saturday, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal congratulated Payeng on twitter, hailing his exemplary and tireless contribution to the green mission.
Earlier, Payeng was featured in viral footage by popular video blogger Nas Daily in social media.
Payeng has dedicated nearly 42 years of his life taking care of the Molai woods – a forested area spread over 550 hectares of land. It is located along a barren sandbar of Majuli, the world’s largest river island in Assam, about 28 kilometers from Jorhat town.