Srishti Jain Kawatra is the co-founder of Feeding India, the first and largest not-for-profit organization fighting hunger in India. Srishti started her career in digital marketing and consulting after getting her undergraduate degree in business studies in Delhi. After hearing about a colleague’s experience at an Indian wedding about how much food was wasted, she realized a duality that exists within India’s food system problems. On one hand, India is a country with the highest number of hungry people, and on the other hand, it has a huge food waste problem. The issue is not that there is a lack of availability, but rather a lack of access and awareness. To solve this, she approached the problem with a business management mindset. This marked her transition from the corporate world to entrepreneurial social impact work.
“The intention at the beginning wasn’t to start an organization, it was just to solve a problem….It started with an idea and now has snowballed into something so big, none of us could have imagined.”
Feeding India, which started in 2014, is now an organization with over 26,000 volunteers working across 181 cities in India, and has served over 120 million meals. In 2019, they merged with Zomato, a for-profit tech-startup, to accelerate Feeding India’s social impact. This form of public-private partnership when paired with community engagement is incredibly unique, but also effective. They were able to tackle the problem on a community and institutional level via their community fridges and “magic wheels”.
“Going to companies and knowing what they’re best at, and telling them to do that for us….that ensures you get the best product, the best quality, and you get that and you create value for that organization to partner with you…It’s a win-win situation for them, they’re just giving us what they already do” and in turn, it creates value for them.”
Feeding India has changed India’s food system. Through public participation via their volunteer program, they’ve learned that a sustainable volunteer model means understanding what motivates people and leaning into that to create a place where they want to help.
“People cared about the cause, second they cared about developing themselves personally and professionally, and third they just want a sense of belonging.”
Moving forward Srishti hopes to continue improving the quality of Feeding India’s impact and increasing their reach in India, especially to other parts of the country that are struggling with hunger. Her personal hope is to also help women have more equal opportunities in pursuing their entrepreneurial interests.
Reflection
From a public health perspective, Srishti has achieved what many of us aim to do. Instead of putting a band-aid over the problem, she has addressed the roots of India’s food system problem and has been effective in creating systems-level change.
In public health, we are taught the importance of increasing awareness, empowering communities, and establishing partnerships in order to effectively and sustainably protect the community and the health of the public.
As we saw in the webinar, these are the methods Srishti used, despite not coming from a public health background, to establish Feeding India and create credibility in the communities she serves. Where the greatest impact came from and what ultimately created systems-level change is the concept of “connected capitalism” -
“Where you go to people who do what they do [best] and ask them to contribute.. It’s a sustainable way to develop a system.”
This is where public health can learn from a business model. Public health partnerships need to also incorporate private partnerships. Funding is often an issue in public health. Waiting for grant cycles and depending on donors can slow or prevent impact. As we saw with Feeding India, they circumnavigated that through a private partnership. By looking more broadly at industries for partnerships, more freedom, opportunity, and sustainability could be woven into public health initiatives. Just because one approach is the traditional way of doing something, doesn’t mean it continues to be the most effective.
Most importantly, Srishti’s story is a reminder for all public health practitioners (and anyone) that the solution to the problem can be simple. Similar to a design mindset, a business mindset is also this.
You have your products, you have your solutions, you’ve tested it out, and now you need to scale that.. [to scale that, you needed more investment and this is where] public and private sectors needed to come together to scale this impact exponentially.
Writing by Emily Zheng, Public Health Innovation Analyst at Orange Sparkle Ball
Emily is a Master of Public Health student at Emory University's Rollins School of Public Health. She is part of the Behavioral, Social, Health Education Sciences department and is also pursuing a certificate in Social Determinants of Health.
