Shweta Mishra Mahanta, Founder at Earthful Foundation

Great Companies: How did you get your idea or concept to start an NGO?

Shweta Mishra Mahanta: For, any thing going as waste and I always used to think of materials it is made of. It pained to think of that we will dig the earth further to obtain more material for making newer products when we could always reuse these. The concept of Reuse, Reduce and Recycle touched my heart. I realised how much material is wasted in unsegregated waste due to unawareness of solid waste management and the present system of waste disposal. This gave me the idea to start this NGO. The essence is effective use of natural resources.

Great Companies: What are the various activities done by Earthful Foundation

Shweta Mishra Mahanta: Presently, solid waste management and awareness about it is the main activity in our Organization. We conduct awareness programs in schools and demonstrating programs in Events. Other than this, we handhold societies to adapt waste segregation at source.

Great Companies: What makes Earthful Foundation different from hundreds of other NGOs?

Shweta Mishra Mahanta:

Earthful Foundation has a mission to do good in the world in some way like every other organisation. Part of what makes us unique is not just what field it serves, but what it stands for & what it wants to achieve. And the ideas, goals, resources, and the people working are of great inspiration for helping us to establish our organisation uniquely.

Great Companies: What are the struggles and challenges you face?

Shweta Mishra Mahanta: To run a program successfully there has to be a system and each and every part of the system has a specific role. Waste management is also a system and people, societies, housekeeping workers and municipalities, all of specific roles and there has to be a balance and coordination between them. This becomes a major drawback in any implementation as this coordination is seldom perfect.

Great Companies: How do you plan to grow in the future? What does 5 years down the line look like for Earthful Foundation ?

Shweta Mishra Mahanta: We wish to develop models of environment friendly societies. These models then can be replicated and the work can spread across India. We see ourselves performing a major role in new Clean India Movement

Great Companies: If you had one piece of advice to someone just starting out, what would it be?

Shweta Mishra Mahanta: Have a vision, feel for the cause. We start a new venture because we wish to bring some kind of change, we need to believe in the cause and ways to address it.

Website : https://earthful.org