Bengaluru: Many people now and then face a peculiar predicament when they need to dispose of old photos kept in the puja room and elsewhere in the house. Some of them are very particular about the hitherto practised traditions, by throwing them in a river or some other form of waterbody. Others are in the practice of placing them clandestinely at the premises of temples or some sacred trees. Irrespective of the methods adopted, no one bothers to think aloud about such environmentally harmful methods that pollute natural sources.
Photo frames project: Kiran Yadav has launched the Bengaluru-based Sampige Foundation to address the challenge posed by irresponsible disciples throwing God's photos wherever they wish. According to Kiran Yadav, Sampige Foundation is the first of its kind Non-Government Organisation (NGO) in the state of Karnataka to think of a photo frames project.
A respectful end to the photos: Kiran Yadav informs, "Basically, if you have seen, photo frames will be here and there everywhere. The old photo frames will be just thrown off everywhere. Those photo frames will be collected by Sampige, and we will give a respectful farewell...
...A garbage turned art gallery! For example, we will collect the frame, we will do a Shanti Puja for that frame, and later we will dismantle that frame. If the frame is good to use, we will use it, and we will make an art gallery. Especially, this art gallery is something that we do, like, we do this art gallery from the garbage space or a black spot, what we call it. We will change it into an art gallery. That is what our main concept is.
From distributing blankets: Kiran Yadav informs, "I started Sampige Foundation four years ago with three of my friends. Why we started was to help the needy or to help someone who required something essential. We started with donating blankets...
...Sapling plants and making seed balls: Later, we shifted to sapling plants. We have planted more than 500 saplings to date, and now we are into seed ball making, and we make around 500 to 600 seed balls every day for the last six to seven months. We do seed ball activities with corporate companies. We initially got our funding from them by doing this as a CSR initiative".
Green temples concept: Talking about the initiatives of Sampige Foundation, Kiran Yadav said, "The main projects that Sampige does are:
- We are into sustainability.
- We are into green temples. We will basically collect all the waste which is generated from the temple, which will be segregated into two aspects, that is, wet waste and dry waste. Wet waste, we will compost it and sell it as a divine compost. Dry waste, we will be sending it to the BBMP. Anything which can't be composted, it will be sent to the BBMP.
eCycle project: So these are the few initiatives that Sampige does. There are a few more initiatives like the eCycle project. We promote eCycling, and we do Sampige Oota, Annadana project, and a few other projects are in the pipeline. We have around 200 plus volunteers.
Ragi Kanaa in Malleshwaram: The next coming project is Ragi Kanaa in Malleshwaram. Ragi Kanaa is basically that project which will gather most of the people that is most of the people where music will be engaged. Farmers who are doing organic farming will be involved here. That is our main thing of Ragi Kanaa. And we are starting with Kannada jamming to promote old Kannada songs and to encourage artists.
Ganesh Chaturthi and Krishna Janmashtami: The next main project is to celebrate all the festivals that we have in the Hindu calendar. Most of the festivals are big festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi and Krishna Janmashtami. Those are the next projects.
A self-funded project: When inquired about the revenue model, Kiran Yadav said, "Currently, we are not concentrating on any revenue model. Basically, it is a self-funded project that we do. Funds will be raised from the volunteers and funds that we collect as CSR project initiators. We will be using those funds to make the other projects. So generally, our funding comes from the CSR.
Anytime we post any videos, it will at least cross 1.5 million: Talking about the response for this photo frames project, Kiran Yadav said, "We have a huge response. Anytime we post any videos, it will cross at least 1.5 million hits...
...A full-time national project now: So we are filled with requests, and we are taking this as a full-time project now. We have a proper recycling unit for this. And so we call ourselves India's first end-to-end religious ecosystem. A religious recycling ecosystem. So, for example, in Delhi, we also have a unit. We have, in the sense, the Delhi government has a unit where they collect all the wood photo frames. But we are special here. We take even flowers as they give. You have flowers for the deities or the photos that you have at home. You can give those flowers. We will do a compost of that. So this is our main project. Going forward, going by the potential, it looks to be going to be a national scale...
...Going into other districts and states: Currently, what we are planning is we want to go district-wise. The way we are doing it currently in Malleshwaram or Bangalore alone? We want to go it for other districts and other states as well...
...Already in touch with other states and Tirupati: Right now, we are concentrating only on Karnataka. But we are in touch with all the southern states. The next thing we are planning is to start one in Chennai, to be followed by one in Trivandrum. So these are the two states that we are concentrating on, apart from one in Tirupati...
Not thinking about North: North, currently, we don't think about it. But because we have a lot of learning to do before going to the north. Because the transportation will be a huge issue for us. Here south states, at least we can go for a good 300 to 400 kilometres, and we can do it. But when it comes to the north, at least we should travel for 1000 plus kilometres. And the transportation cost will be too high for us.
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