From children to adults, everyone contributes in their own way to making the world a better place. This week, SocialStory interacted with 12-year-old Sri Nihal Tammana, who started an NGO, Recycle My Battery. We spoke to Komali Vundavalli, a class 10 student, who used her education to solve the problem of groundwater scarcity in her village.
We also spoke to Ravi Katapadi who dons different costumes to help raise money for children and saw how SaaS startup Icertis encourages its employees to volunteer for social work through its Seven Days of Humanity initiative.
12-Year-Old’s NGO Recycled Over 1.5 Lakh Batteries To Make Earth A Better Place
Entrepreneurship has no age and Sri Nihal Tammana proves this right. For the past three years, 12-year-old Nihal has worked to rid the world of battery pollutants to save it from fires.
An Indo-American, Nihal founded in 2019. The US-based NGO aims to promote and facilitate recycling through safe disposal and educate others about the process.
Nihal with the battery box
To date, he and his team of over 150 young children have recycled over 1,50,000 used batteries and educated over 1.5 million people on the importance of recycling used batteries.
Recently, Recycle My Battery has partnered with the government of Telangana and the battery manufacturing company Aloe Ecell for its operations in India.
Good deeds: how Icertis encourages its employees to volunteer for social work
SaaS company Icertis believes in the importance of giving back to the communities “where we live, work and play”.
Last year, the US-based company doubled down on its commitment to caring for its communities amid the COVID-19 pandemic and protests against racial discrimination in the US. While Icertis initially focused on supporting the surrounding vulnerable communities, it soon realized that was not enough.
Icertians helping children
In early 2020, she launched the ‘Seven days of humanity‘, where she granted employees of Icertis (also known as “Icertians”) one week of paid vacation (PTO) each year volunteer for a cause or organization of their choice.
This volunteer time is in support of anti-racism activities, and Icertians at all levels have used the benefit to volunteer, support, help, donate and protest.
How this Udupi ‘costume man’ saves sick children
Udupi, a coastal district of Karnataka, is known for celebrating the festival of Sri Krishna Janmashtami with grandeur. Every year on the day of the festival, many colorfully dressed troupes take part in the celebration and collect small amounts of money for their art from locals.
Thirty-seven-year-old construction worker Ravi Katpadi, a resident of Katpadi, a town near Udupi, is among one of these troops. However, Ravi took the opportunity to raise funds to help underprivileged children.
Ravi has been wearing amazing costumes since 2013. He dresses up in special costumes, entertains people and raises money, all for the education and health of children and poor people.
STEM courses helped me solve the problem of groundwater shortage in my village
I am Komali Vundavalli, a class 10 student from Zilla Parishat High School, Ponnekallu, Guntur.
There has been a growing problem of groundwater shortage in my village. I read how India made rainwater harvesting necessary and how these practices are now widely used and promoted within communities for easy and free access to clean water.
In the STEM for Girls program, we were often encouraged to explore science and solve problems. Seeing the problems around my village, I decided to reuse rainwater.
Through these courses, I learned to use design thinking methods to explore how rainwater can be purified and used in domestic applications. I also looked at how rainwater harvesting can be used to improve my village’s food production and water supply through sustainable agriculture.