Start-ups are on the verge of becoming the most successful segments of a nation, and with women empowerment coming into serious action with women around the world growing bigger day by day in all the fields one such woman is Nupur Agarwal who breathed life into a ghost village by starting a cottage industry for plantable stationery
Villages are considered the backbone of the nation, but it seems like it’s only shown in words. with villages being abandoned and villagers being treated bad, Nupur Agarwal founder of Kisan Window (KIWI), is a superhero but without a cape, always goes an extra mile to fulfill any sort of social cause, after she returned to India after completion of bachelor’s in Business Administration from Lancaster University in the UK in the year 2014, Nupur initiated a movement to reach all kinds of people regardless of their caste, creed, and religion. She’s not just a founder of a single firm, she also founded Evolve Foundation with the pure aim to uplift farmers and the rural population of India. At Evolve Foundation the company creates Smart Sustainable Village by empowering the people of the village by creating various opportunities in the field of education, employment, and health care in the village itself. Nupur believes that one has to find the purpose and build a business around that. You should never stop, growth is an important factor, and there’s always a need to respect human capital around us. Humans are the center of any type of economical activity, always stepping into any kind of business which is economically and environmentally sustainable. She is also a mentor to the Atal Innovation Mission, the government of India’s flagship to encourage a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship, a change-maker at Global Action of poverty, and is also associated with Social, Ethical, and Emotional Learning, developed by Dalai Lama in collaboration with Emory University in the US. In 2014 she began Deharadun Drum Circle when saw the huge discrimination between caste, religion, and creed. According to her, it’s universal that acceptance comes only when people express their hearts. As a part of the movement, people would join with any of the musical instruments or just clap and groove to express themselves, without knowing any information as to who they are, where they come from, what’s their gender or even their name. The movement has seen the involvement of more than 20,000 people across the nation and is still growing. The initiative, Nupur says “ I do not have a role to approve anything as a founder here and that is what makes it truly a movement”. Nupur sternly believes action and development must and should begin in rural India. In spite of major migration from rural to bigger cities, 67.2% of India’s population still resides in rural India, according to a United Nations Report published in 2015. This inspiring woman began her journey to create smart and sustainable villages in 2016 and founded the Evolve Foundation. The foundation adopted an entire village called Tauli Bhud, a village in the Deharadun district of Uttarakhand, home to the Jaunsari tribe, believed to be the descendants of the Pandavas. Four years ago, it was a ghost village as most of the younger crowd had migrated to metropolitan and cosmopolitan cities. Generally, the reasons for migration are livelihood and income generation, education, and healthcare. The fewer older people there earned in a livelihood as farmers. In order to make it a smart and sustainable village, Nupur wanted to introduce eco-friendly products that can be used by everyone, everywhere. After nearly four months of looking at ways to harness and channel all resources, they started a cottage industry to produce plantable stationery. Operating on the B2B model, some of its clients include Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), the Election Commission of India, Uttar Pradesh Government, Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce, PricewaterhouseCooper, and startups like Clovia and Flipkart, among others. The Foundation has also designed badges for the BJP government during the 2019 general election. Additionally, it has worked with the international non-governmental environmental organization Greenpeace and designed postcards for the that are United Nations as well. But her resolve is strong and she is emphatic that the sustainable model can be applied to any industry. Her achievements include, at Evolve Foundation creating Smart Sustainable Village by empowering people by creating employment, education, and healthcare facility within the village. Kiwi Kisan Window is a Health and Wellness Food Brand which is a Farm to Market model. At Kiwi, they not only empower the farmer economically but also socially by providing them with organic farming skills. In all my enterprises, she makes sure to have a very inclusive approach, as of her “ One can come up with products which are eco-friendly with an inclusive approach. But people’s greed makes them feel that welfare and business cannot go hand in hand”.
It might take a village to raise a child, but when the village is deprived of its soul; the people, and culture. Nupur exemplifies how one can give it a fresh lease of life. Women like her are gifts to society and the nation, they chose to never stop at any point in their lives, making lives beautiful around them.
