Varshini Prakash
The Girl Who Was Named for the Rain
Born in Massachusetts around 1993 to parents from southern India, Varshini Prakash co-founded the Sunrise Movement in 2017 and led it as executive director until 2023. The youth-led group's sit-in at Nancy Pelosi's office helped make the Green New Deal a central demand of Democratic climate politics and pushed Joe Biden's 2020 climate plan further.
- 19 min listen
- Climate organiser
- Sunrise Movement co-founder
- Green New Deal
Varshini Prakash’s full 19 min audio biography, The Girl Who Was Named for the Rain, is available on Lyfestori for iOS. Listen to a free preview below.
A life in brief
Varshini Prakash: life and timeline.
In December 2004 a middle-schooler in Acton, Massachusetts, watched the Indian Ocean tsunami batter the coast near Chennai, where her grandparents lived, and tried to help by donating cans of food. Varshini Prakash found her answer years later on a bus to a Keystone XL protest. She led the fossil fuel divestment fight at UMass Amherst, co-founded the Sunrise Movement in 2017, and in November 2018 helped direct the sit-in in Nancy Pelosi's office that put the Green New Deal on the national agenda.
- 2004
The tsunami
In December, the Indian Ocean tsunami devastates the coast of Tamil Nadu, where her family has its roots. Watching the coverage at home in Acton, Massachusetts, she feels small and powerless and gathers cans of food to donate.
- 2011
UMass Amherst
Graduates from Acton-Boxborough Regional High School and enrols at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, thinking she might become a doctor.
- 2013
Forward on Climate
In February she rides a bus to Washington with about sixty UMass students for the rally against the Keystone XL pipeline. A speech she gives soon after, to about a hundred people, makes her fall in love with organising.
- 2015
Graduation
Graduates from UMass Amherst after two years leading the campus fossil fuel divestment campaign, while already planning a national youth movement with Swarthmore organiser Sara Blazevic.
- 2016
UMass divests
After a student sit-in in April with dozens of arrests, the UMass Foundation announces in May that it will divest its roughly $770 million endowment from direct fossil fuel holdings — the first major public university system in the US to do so.
- 2017
Sunrise is launched
Co-founds the Sunrise Movement with Blazevic and other young organisers, aiming to treat climate as a political fight rather than an environmental niche.
- 2018
The Pelosi sit-in
On 13 November, more than two hundred young people occupy the corridor outside Nancy Pelosi's office demanding a Green New Deal. Fifty-one are arrested, and congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joins them.
- 2019
The Green New Deal resolution
On 7 February, Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey introduce the Green New Deal resolution. TIME names her to its first TIME 100 Next list that year.
- 2020
Inside the Biden campaign
After Sunrise's candidate Bernie Sanders loses the primary, she joins the climate panel of the Biden-Sanders Unity Task Force. Biden's revised plan adds a 2035 clean-power target and $2 trillion over four years. In August she co-edits the book Winning the Green New Deal.
- 2022
Inflation Reduction Act
After Build Back Better stalls in the Senate, the Inflation Reduction Act becomes law in August with roughly $370 billion for climate and clean energy — the largest climate investment in US history.
- 2023
Stepping down
Leaves the executive director role after a period of restructuring at Sunrise. Training director Aru Shiney-Ajay succeeds her in September.
- 2025
Back at UMass
Returns to UMass Amherst in February as activist-in-residence at the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy, teaching classes and leading a workshop for student activists.
Major achievements
Varshini Prakash: major achievements.
- 01
Co-founding the Sunrise Movement
Launched in 2017, Sunrise grew from a small group meeting in Brooklyn and Philadelphia living rooms into a national youth movement with chapters across the country.
- 02
Making the Green New Deal mainstream
The November 2018 sit-in in Pelosi's office turned a phrase from the activist margins into a Democratic litmus test within three months.
- 03
Raising Biden's climate ambition
On the 2020 Unity Task Force, she helped push the campaign from $1.7 trillion over ten years to $2 trillion over four, plus a 2035 target for carbon-free electricity.
- 04
Winning divestment at UMass
The campaign she led for two years ended with the UMass Foundation pulling its roughly $770 million endowment out of direct fossil fuel investments in 2016.
- 05
Recognition
Named to the 2019 TIME 100 Next list and co-recipient of the Sierra Club's John Muir Award the same year.
Turning points
Varshini Prakash: defining moments.
- December 2004
Watching the wave
The tsunami that killed around 230,000 people across the Indian Ocean hit the coast of Tamil Nadu, close to her grandparents' city of Chennai. She has described feeling alone and powerless in front of the television. That feeling, she says, is what she has spent her career answering.
- 2013
A crowd on the National Mall
At the Forward on Climate rally against Keystone XL she stood among tens of thousands of people demanding action and, for the first time, did not feel alone. A terrifying speech during finals week followed. She threw herself into divestment organising.
- November 2018
Occupying the Speaker's office
Targeting a Democratic ally was a risk. But when Ocasio-Cortez walked into the protest, the story went national within hours. Sunrise was no longer obscure, and the Green New Deal became the frame for the climate debate.
- 2020
Working with Biden
Sunrise had backed Sanders, and many on the left were surprised when she joined Biden's task force. She argued the point was to increase his ambition and timeline — and the revised plan was more aggressive than the one he had run on in the primary.
What you’ll take away
Lessons from Varshini Prakash’s life.
- 01
Pressure your allies too
Sunrise's breakthrough came from sitting in the office of a sympathetic Democrat, not an opponent. Movements gain leverage by refusing to let friends settle for less.
- 02
Story moves people, not just statistics
She and her co-founders concluded that climate science had failed to break through as politics. They built a movement around young people's lives and futures, not charts.
- 03
Build a bench, not a brand
She counts training a cohort of young organisers — many of them women of colour — as her most important work at UMass, and Sunrise was led by others after she stepped down.
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FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Varshini Prakash.
Who is Varshini Prakash?
An American climate organiser who co-founded the Sunrise Movement in 2017 and served as its executive director until 2023. She is best known for helping bring the Green New Deal into mainstream Democratic politics.
What is Varshini Prakash doing now?
She is no longer Sunrise's executive director; Aru Shiney-Ajay succeeded her in September 2023. In February 2025 she was activist-in-residence at the Ellsberg Initiative for Peace and Democracy at UMass Amherst, and she continues to speak on climate organising.
What is Varshini Prakash's role in the Sunrise Movement?
Co-founder and its first long-serving executive director. She helped direct the November 2018 sit-in at Nancy Pelosi's office that made Sunrise nationally known, and led the group through the 2020 election.
How old is Varshini Prakash?
She is in her early thirties. Reported as twenty-five at the time of the November 2018 Pelosi sit-in, she was born in 1992 or 1993.
Where did Varshini Prakash go to college?
The University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she graduated in 2015. She led the campus fossil fuel divestment campaign, which won a commitment to divest in May 2016.
Did Varshini Prakash write the Green New Deal?
No. The 2019 resolution was introduced by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ed Markey. Prakash and Sunrise built the pressure that put it on the agenda, and she later co-edited the 2020 book Winning the Green New Deal.
Where is Varshini Prakash from?
Massachusetts. She grew up in Acton, a town about thirty miles west of Boston, the daughter of immigrants from southern India; her father's family is from Tamil Nadu.
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19 min · one sitting