Deep inside Mumbai’s last remaining jungle – Aarey Colony – former music teacher Elijah Emmanuel is building a “kids’ hip-hop army”.

Aarey Colony is known as ‘the green lung’ of Mumbai, as its half-million trees help temper the city’s notorious pollution. But with a new development threatening its existence, Emmanuel knew he had to raise support from Aarey’s local community members, to protect it.

Today, through education and music, Emmanuel is teaching children living in Aarey how to rap and beatbox, and how to be themselves, fostering in them, in the process, a desire to protect what is natural, and good.

“This forest, and all our natural ecosystems, can only go forward if the kids are connected and they feel passionate about it,” he says.

View the original video here.

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