The girl who won’t give up

Annie Ribu Joshy likes to smile. In her words, no day in her life goes without a smile. She tries to spread that smile to everyone through her ventures. A Class XI student at Amrita Vidyalayam, Thrissur, she is an anti-drug activist, writer, blogger and an orator. She gives motivational training to students and has been selected as the world’s youngest anti-drug activist.

Annie stole the limelight when she challenged Prime Minister Narendra Modi on a YouTube video, asking what he could do to wipe out drug mafia from the country. The video went viral, elevating Annie’s status to the next level. “That happened when I was in Class X. The video turned out to be a turning point in my life. It caught the attention of everyone, including the Prime Minister. He acknowledged it in one of his speeches,” recalls Annie, who currently works on two of her other campaigns — V Can and Chilsmo.

On the day we interview her, Annie has a session with students of Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Thrissur, as part of her ‘V Can’ campaign, which aims at helping students overcome addiction and develop a positive attitude. “It is a government-approved project. It is an effort to create a permanent solution to the drug menace and erase negative thoughts,” she says. 

“I am going to tell them who they are and how they can change their thoughts for the good,” adds Annie. 

“I prepare for my classes. I read a lot and make my own module. My mother, a freelance financial journalist, who also researches in this field, helps me with that.” Is it a motivational class? “Motivation should come from inside, right? I just navigate people,” she smiles.  

Her other campaign Chilsmo, which is against smoking, follows an interesting mode. The person who accepts the challenge should eat one full green chilly with a vow that she or he will never smoke and can further challenge 10 friends. The person should post a 60-second video of that too. If you have thought that she chose green chilly to equate the burning sensation it gives with the aftereffects of smoking, you are wrong. “I chose chilly as it contains Vitamin C and folic acid. So, consuming it indirectly improves your health,” says Annie, who is planning to conclude the campaign in a grand event. In the beginning, people were hesitating to eat a chilly, but gradually, it hit the right notes.

Why did Annie become an anti-drug activist? The reply lies in her life. “My inspiration is my own life,” says Annie. “My dad passed away when I was four. He was an alcoholic. I was too young to understand his loss. On the funeral day, I was running here and there. I realised the gravity of this issue when I grew up and learned that it repeats in other people’s life too. People had died due to alcoholism and smoking and no one was brave enough to come forward with a permanent solution. This realisation encouraged me to blog about this menace and thus began this journey,” says Annie. She first raised her concerns via social media and then set up a blog. She picked blog as she loved writing.

She talked to experts and attended classes to get hold of the subject. Annie believes that the change should begin from one’s attitude and that is what she does through her sessions. It is a slow process. 

“The session begins with a two-day training, which includes mind reprogramming. We remove all negative thoughts through scientific methods. Then, there will be a three-month training to reinforce it. It is like permanently removing weeds from a garden,” she says. 

“Our thoughts can influence our life. We create our destiny. So, it is all about changing our thoughts. All bad addictions can be get rid of by changing the neural wiring of our brain.”

Although Annie follows a module, she improvises the pattern according to the audience. “I respond according to the need of the crowd. What makes me happy is their affection after the session,” says Annie. Annie will be travelling to Tamil Nadu in November for her classes.

Apart from spearheading these campaigns, she is quite active in other areas as well. She works for the welfare of tribal people and for the deaf and dumb. 

She has also written two novels which are yet to be published. “I wrote the first one when I was in Class X. It is a scientific thriller. The second book is based on my works,” says the girl, who dreams of a drug-free society.