“Small actions could lead to big Changes”, this maxim has been a major driving force in Mr. Harsh Tiwari’s life who is professionally an engineer and also the Director of operations at Bindi International working tirelessly for child education and women empowerment. In an interview with The HULAHUL Times, Mr. Tiwari shared that he was born in an Airforce family and had an upbringing of a typical fauji kid with his major childhood memories of travelling and staying pan India, and studying in various parts of the country.  He mentions that his personality is shaped by the varied experiences he has had living in an Airforce family, and the life lessons given by his father are his major guiding force which naturally extends to his inclination towards social work.

Mr. Tiwari recalls that though, right from his college days he was a social enthusiast and would take active part in various social camps like blood donation etcetera but, never thought of following this path wholeheartedly and it was only in course of his one-year academic gap during MBA preparation that his father motivated him to apply for the SBI Youth for India Fellowship which eventually changed his life and perspective towards it for better. On being asked about his experience of that fellowship and how it shaped his narrative about rural development and social impact, he, with utmost gratitude expressed, “the seeds of the kind of work I do today were sown during this fellowship”.

He is an engineer by profession and have worked in corporate sector for a considerable period of time which he saw as an opportunity and a potential skill to be used for rural development when he joined the fellowship and, witnessed the issues and ground realities of the rural areas that needed urgent attention. He shared that due to the lack of formal experience in this area he would initially spend majority of his time talking to and trying understand people, their lives and their problems and would use his technical skills and proficiency in English language to help people in villages in their mundane tasks like helping them enrol in various government schemes, work related to Aadhar card, Ration card among others.

Furthermore, he labels his association with the SBI Fellowship as one the major learning and unlearning experiences of his life as when he would visit night schools in villages, he saw that children on their own were motivated enough to go to school and would bring their siblings along which was in stark contrast to what he saw in cities where children are mostly forced to attend the schools. Also, he recollects that 2015 was the year when the penetration of digital device was relatively less in India and almost negligible in rural areas but, they saw this as an opportunity to introduce digital devices to the children to break the monotony of conventional learning method noting the mobile nature of rural lifestyle. It gave them the exposure towards the outer world. However, this effort of digitalisation of education faced apprehension from teachers as they were not well equipped and feared being replaced by these digital teaching tools. Another important thing that he noted was that every place has its own context and dynamics and in order to work efficiently it was essential to know the problems of the people well before jumping to any solution. Upon asking about the cultural shift that he observed working in two starkly different settings- rural and urban, Mr. Tiwari said “people in urban areas actively rebut the government interventions and solutions at various levels whereas in rural areas, people choose to remain silent but such silent acceptance to readymade solutions doesn’t last long” thus, emphasising on taking decisions that works on ground.

Since his voluntary association with Bindi International in 2018, Mr. Harsh Tiwari has been currently working as the director of the organisation and bringing impactful changes in the society through various programmes like Solar Sakhi, ENRICHE etcetera.

Though, he is the formal face of the organisation and looks after the various operations and programmes but, with utmost humility gives all the credit to his hard-working team that gets all the research and survey done for the effective implementation of all-encompassing initiatives in the rural milieu.

Further in the conversation he threw light on his organisation’s day to day functioning which includes working on solar electrification, women empowerment, livelihood generation, child education and health care sector. Functioning of Bindi International under the directorship of Mr. Harsh Tiwari is majorly influenced by Gandhi ji’s idea of Gram Swaraj, focusing on sustainable development of rural areas through creation of sustainable energy sources through solar electrification in whichever area they work. He remarks, “why to follow the same development, why not turn the tables around and focus on rural development when majority finds place in rural India”

This is part of their Solar Sakshi initiative whereby they train women from remote villages as solar engineers in solar electrification technology in a 5-month training programme who function as service engineers in their home village. “This initiative has dual benefit – generation of active livelihood and positive psychological shift”, remarked Mr. Tiwari.

Mr. Harsh Tiwari joyously shared that their Solar Sakshi initiative is a non-negotiable stance whereby they sought to  train only women from villages which has not only empowered them but also changed the popular perspective about them by giving them the agency. “After every 5-month training camp it is so heartwarming to see women return back to their village as confident leaders”, expressed Harsh Tiwari.

Talking in much length about this initiative, he further said that the training camp is lead by master trainers who are women and better understand the social and cultural context and dynamics of these women so that they feel comfortable. Other than training them in solar electrification, this programme has subtly given time and space to women to ponder upon their aspirations which otherwise more or less aligned with that to their families, highlighted Mr. Harsh. And he remarked that it gives him and his team mates utter joy when the women trainees come to them and share their ideas and aspirations with them, which is empowerment in true sense. So far, they have trained 300+ women from 11 states and are successful in household electrification of 3000-5000 villages. Their exceptional work still continues with the aim to provide energy sources to rural household so that they can think beyond their energy consumption need and about other pressing issues.

Notwithstanding, the exceptional success of their initiative they initially faced and continues to face some challenges while selecting the trainees from the villages. Harsh Tiwari shares that major time in their initiative goes in convincing the people of the village to send women from their families to the training camps but they face a lot reluctance from the family members as well as women themselves who doubt engaging with the camp. Despite of all these challenges, Bindi international has been successful so far in convincing women and their families to let women from their village join the camp and bring tangible changes in their areas. To exemplify their success against all the odds, Mr. Harsh Tiwari shared a story of Thavri Devi from Rajasthan who was initially apprehensive of joining the training camp later became a living example and source of motivation for other women and people from her village when she brought solar electrification to her village and changed the fate of her village located in rugged mountainous terrain for good. Later, she received the Adi Sewa Gaurav Samman and was honoured by president Draupadi Murmu.  This success story of a timid woman turning into an example of empowerment, new found agency, and aspiration gives immense satisfaction to Mr. Harsh and his team that were able to bring positive change in someone’s life.

Bindi International has so far received many awards but on asking about the recognition that is dearest to Mr. Tiwari, he instantly said “the recognition that is dearest to me is the one received by Thavri Devi for her exceptional work”. He explained that the success or failure of the work they do, rests upon the change that is being created in the lives of these women who are centre of their work.

Bindi International has been consistently working on multidimensional areas but its director of operation further aims to push their limits and work more in southern part of India and collaborate more with the organisations that aim to work for similar causes to realise better results.

Lastly, on asking about a piece of advice he would like to give to the young minds aspiring to work in this field, he underlined on his ‘gradual’ approach towards life and asked the young minds to not consider social work as a picture-perfect activity as it unwraps multiple hardships on ground and try to understand the real issue and then come up with a solution. Moreover, he also highlighted that social work is not necessarily sacrificial in nature. Anyone and everyone having a goal-oriented mindset can come and make a difference as he truly have faith in the saying ‘Many drops make an Ocean’.