My Story

Intro

In India 350-400 million people are living below the poverty line and about 47% of India’s under-five population is underweight. Three in four people in India survive on less than US$1 a day and with so little money many people can seldom buy a nutricious meal per day. Karthiks motivation to start his own NGO started with a 5-year-old boy who ate only spicy pickle for lunch.

About Me

My name is Karthik Sunkara. From my childhood on I have seen many poor people who really struggle a lot to earn enough to pay for one meal a day.

When I graduate with an MSc in Microbiology, I sat with my friends in a small grocery shop chatting when a 5-year-old boy entered the shop and asked for 50grams of pickle. He was very cute and smart and I love children. I asked him whether he had his lunch already and he said no. I said “Its 1 o’clock why did you not have your lunch yet, did you have curry for your lunch?” He replied with a single word “pickle”. Again I asked “did you have curry for lunch?” Again he gave me the same reply “pickle”. Really I was surprised, how can a 5-year-old boy have spicy pickle as his only meal per day. Than I started surveying how the people are living and what are the problems they are having. In so many countries people cannot effort one meal a day.  I have observed and thought about many people, and really I don’t understand what the government is doing?

I am postgraduate in Microbiology and during my studies my lecturers and classmates used to encourage me a lot to continue with a PhD. This would have opened up a bright future for me, but I decided not to join a PhD program or to work for a microbiology lab or pharmaceutical company. When I started thinking of people and their needs, I thought I have to do something for them. I decided to search for a job in NGOs and finally joined the CEE-Centre for Environment Education. After a while thought that I should start my own NGOs, which I finally did with my father (late). My organization is called Sri Sunkara Swamy Naidu Welfare Organization. Financially my father has not given me anything but he has given me a very good education and a good soul to think of people and to serve the people. Now I would like to give the same what my father has given to me to the poor children. Our main mission are health, education and environment. During the past one and half years my friend and me have started a vermicomposting business and trainings on organic farming.

My Venture

Initially we have set up a vermicompost business. Our main objective for the production and marketing of vermicompot is to change the cropland to pure fertile soil. Nowadays we cannot see anywhere a pure fertile land for crop, as our farmers have stopped using organic manure for farming and instead there are increasingly using chemical fertilizers. Due to this chemical fertilizers the soil has become even more infertile and earthworms, which are a good activators to make soil fertile, have been killed. So we have decided to change the system and to educate farmers on the usage of organic manure (vermicompost) and we asked the farmers to setup vermicompost units. At present we have set up 25 vermicompost units and we are getting aroung 200-250 tones of vermicomost per month. Lately we have started exporting the vermicompost to Malaysia.

My NGO also raises general awareness about environmental issues for example on the use of plastic bags.