From facilitating mushroom agritech business to empowering rural Punjab: top SocialStories this week

Each city or place in India has a compelling story to tell. This week, SocialStory delved into some unusual places to understand few such stories.

While 26-year-old corporate professional Vrinda Sharma helped us understand the lack of animal shelters in Faridabad; scientist Dr Sosang Longkumer gave us an insight into business of mushrooms, and the condition of farmers in Nagaland.

We also spoke to RoundGlass Foundation to learn about their initiatives aimed at empowering the women and children of rural Punjab.

Meet the 26-year-old feeding 200+ stray dogs in Faridabad every day

Vrinda Sharma, a 26-year-old corporate professional based in Faridabad, claims to be the youngest person to run a shelter in her city. For Vrinda, caring for strays became a part of life since her childhood. As a single child, she would surround herself with stray dogs, looking after them while growing up.

But it was during her college days that she understood the lack of quality care available for stray animals in Faridabad, she tells SocialStory.

According to her, Faridabad doesn’t have many facilities when it comes to taking care of injured or abandoned dogs. Locals are generally apathetic towards the situation of stray dogs and are unreceptive to the idea of taking care of animals.

She started by feeding stray dogs on a daily basis without fail. The number of animals to feed went up during the COVID-19-induced lockdown. But Vrinda soon realised that a shelter home was the need of the hour and launched a charity Me and My Human Foundation in 2020.

How RoundGlass Foundation aims to build a holistic environment for rural Punjab

Born in Colombia, South America in the middle of two civil wars, Dr. Natalia Vega was nine-years-old when she fell in love with learning. One day, as she was teaching her three-year-old sister the alphabets, Natalia was puzzled by the fact that despite being taught, her sister could not remember the letters, and this set the course of her life later on.

Forty years later, Natalia still gets excited when she watches children learn. Today she is associated with RoundGlass Foundation as the project lead of Learn Labs to enable children to become changemakers.

In Punjab, where she arrived in 2017, she made it a mission to empower women and teach men how to support them to succeed. “Women in Punjab are brilliant and I have the honour to experience it in my daily life,” says Natalia.

RoundGlass Foundation was started in 2018 by entrepreneur and philanthropist Sunny (Gurpreet) Singh with the goal of improving the quality of life of people in under-served communities of Punjab by building self-reliance and co-existence while focusing on ecological sustainability.

How this mushroom agritech business is empowering women and farmers in Nagaland

Apile works as a farmer in the tiny village of Virazouma in Nagaland’s Chumukedima District. The 43-year-old is a member of the Sevi Self Help Group that is spearheading a booming mushroom cultivation movement in the state. 

She, along with the others in her group, has been working with Konger Agritech (Konger), an organisation that is facilitating farmers to have profitable harvests by guiding them from “spawn to market”.

Konger was founded by Dr Sosang Longkumer, a scientist who was working with the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). An expert in farming methods and techniques, he founded Konger, the only organisation in the country that produces shiitake wood dowel spawn. 

How Coca-Cola India is making every water drop count

Water stewardship has long been a business imperative for The Coca-Cola Company.

“Sustainability is and will always be at the heart of our operations. We have always focused on creating a sustainable business and better-shared future to make a positive difference in communities and our planet,” says Devyani Rajya Laxmi Rana, Vice President - Public Affairs, Communications and Sustainability, Coca-Cola India and Southwest Asia.

Over a decade ago, Coca-Cola set a pioneering goal to replenish the water used in its beverages, consume it efficiently, and treat the wastewater from its production processes. 

In 2021, it globally launched a new holistic strategy to achieve water security for its business, communities, and nature — at all its operational locations by 2030 by sourcing agricultural ingredients for its products.