Blooms of Spring – April News Digest from Rainmatter Foundation
These weeks of April witness the bloom of flowers. Konna (Cassia fistula) hangs like golden chandeliers across Kerala for Vishu, palash sets central India ablaze as the “flame of the forest”, and mahua begins its quiet predawn shower of flowers that tribes gather for food, drink, and income. In our ecosystem of partners, April has felt similar – different solutions coming into bloom at once, from climate data tools and reports to youth programmes and community-led conservation, bringing along silver linings of hope for our collective future.
Team updates
Built shift: Getting honest about how India builds
15 practitioners, researchers, architects, and policy thinkers from six organisations sat together for a “built shift” un-conference in Bengaluru to honestly dissect why India’s construction ecosystem is struggling to deliver regenerative buildings. Akshatha Narayan (Thesis Lead for Buildings at Rainmatter) shared that the group agreed to move beyond government enforcement, and work towards demonstrating what “good” looks like within existing work using levers like HVAC, ESG pressure, insurance risk, and consumer demand. The group aligned on creating an open, credible system that combines scientific datasets with validated case studies so that insights can feed into narratives, financial models, and policy tools. Four working groups – Data & Information, Activating Data, Building Process, and Governance – emerged to carry this agenda forward and turn shared diagnosis into coordinated action.
Get in touch with Akshatha if you are working around any of these focus areas.
Reimagining livelihoods in Bhimpur (MP)
Tanmay Mukherjee (Strategy Lead – Entrepreneurship and Platformisation) spent two days in the Bhimpur block of Betul, deep in tribal Madhya Pradesh, with the NATURAL CAPITAL team and their Green Chakra initiative, which is helping farmers shift to natural farming through a for-profit model. Engaging with Korku and Gond communities, he observed how villages largely sell raw produce like millets, maize, niger (jagani), mahua, while traders capture most value by selling finished products at market rates. Through a demonstration of a portable oil expeller, he showed how local processing can reduce household oil spends (~₹15,000/year), create small enterprises (like soaps and snacks), and generate useful by-products (nutrition for children, cattle feed). The savings and earnings can recover the machine cost within 3-4 months. To learn more, check out Tanmay’s LinkedIn post here. Reach out to him if you are in the livelihoods and enterprise space and want to reimagine the approach for ‘Local Communities aligned to their Local Ecology’.
Hyperlocal climate governance
At the 5th Bharat Soka Gakkai (BSG) Sustainability Conclave, conversations explored how climate action must move beyond policy and become a shared societal effort.
As a panelist, Ripu Daman Singh (Thesis Lead – Changemaking) spoke about the importance of hyperlocal climate governance, where communities become active co-creators of resilience across issues like water, agriculture, waste, and livelihoods.
A key reflection from the conclave was that the climate crisis is now a social and behavioural issue in addition to environmental. And solving it will require trust, participation, and collective ownership.
Partner updates
Paani Foundation – Aligning with government for scaling rural resilience
Farmer Cup by Paani Foundation is a Maharashtra-wide competition where farmer collectives work towards economic and ecological prosperity, and it achieved an institutional breakthrough.
Building on years of groundwork, the efforts led to the Government of Maharashtra deputing 1,200 officials full-time for four months. The officials will undergo a 2-day residential training with a structured framework to consistently focus on farmer mobilisation, group formation, and sustained on-ground support across all talukas.
The ambition is bold but clear: enable 15,000 groups of farmers across Maharashtra and ensure at least 1.5 lakh farmers participate in this season’s Farmer Cup.
CEEW – Launching CRAVIS, an AI-powered climate risk platform
The Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW) launched CRAVIS – the Climate Resilience Analytics and Visualisation Intelligence System – an AI-powered climate intelligence platform. The platform is designed as an open digital public good, aiming to bridge the gap between complex climate science and actionable, on-ground decision-making. CRAVIS brings together more than 40 years of climate data and future projections to map district-level risk across 279 indicators, from extreme heat and heavy rainfall to drought patterns. With an agentic AI layer, varied users like policymakers, planners, journalists, bankers, and citizens, can ask questions in conversational language and receive source-backed, district-specific insights within seconds.
Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy – Tracking Parliament through The Green Hour
Vidhi’s latest issue of The Green Hour analyses the Monsoon Session 2025 (21 July–21 August 2025), examining how Parliament engaged with environment and climate questions. It breaks down 303 MoEFCC questions out of 8,895, themes like pollution, wildlife, and forests/afforestation, and how the government acted on 12 Standing Committee recommendations. Also, a Green Hour Online Bulletin tracks key regulatory moves fortnightly. Policymakers, environmentalists, journalists and students of climate and environment studies can explore the full set of updates via the newsletter and subscribe to The Green Hour on Substack to receive regular briefings on environmental law and policy in India.
Asar – ‘Simplifying Science’ brings climate research to communities
The ‘Simplifying Science’ programme by Asar turns rigorous climate science and research into everyday language and narratives that connect it to the impact on the environment, health, and wellbeing.
They create multilingual stories that can be carried by regional media to reach communities most affected by climate change – agricultural workers, construction labourers, fisherfolk, urban poor, and more. The team works directly with researchers to produce long-form articles in English, commissions expert translations into regional languages, and then disseminates them via trusted regional media partners.
In April, they picked the study “Anatomy of Moist Heatwaves in India During the Summer Monsoon Season” by Dr Akshay Deoras and colleagues. In a span of 14 days, at the onset of harshest summer, they were able to garner 43 media coverages across 6 regional languages. It even drew attention of the former Chief Scientist of the WHO who reposted one of the coverage.
By tracking coverage, reactions, and policy uptake, Simplifying Science is building a model for how rigorous climate science can meaningfully enter public and policy discourse.
To deep dive into the coverage report, click here.
Palluyir Trust – People’s Biodiversity Register for Sirudavoor
Palluyir Trust, in collaboration with Madras Naturalists’ Society, completed the People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR)* for Sirudavoor, an ecologically rich but encroachment-threatened landscape near Chennai. Over the past year, the team worked closely with village youth to document biodiversity across seasons, building a living record of local species and ecological relationships. The completed PBR was handed over to Ms. Mita Banerjee, IFS, PCCF and Member Secretary, Tamil Nadu Biodiversity Board – a major milestone that anchors community knowledge within regulatory conservation processes. Palluyir is now working to initiate PBRs in four other eco-sensitive hotspots around Chennai, scaling this model of youth-led ecological documentation and stewardship.
* Mandated under the Biological Diversity (BD) Act, 2002, the People’s Biodiversity Register (PBR) is a repository of flora and fauna species, local livelihoods and traditional knowledge of utilising medicinal herbs and plants. It is an informal inventory of information, a locally maintained database and a means to protect intellectual property rights.
WCS India – Urban biodiversity and responsible media
WCS-India delivered sessions on “Urban Biodiversity and the Media Narrative,” across four Mumbai colleges to more than 310 media and communication students. The sessions introduced Mumbai’s forests, mangroves, wetlands, and marine ecosystems, while exploring how unmanaged waste, free-ranging dogs, and leopards intersect in complex human-wildlife interfaces. Students engaged with real-world reporting dilemmas and learnt how framing can either sensationalise or deepen understanding of human-wildlife interactions. In parallel, WCS-India also engaged with IFS officers at the Chandrapur Forest Academy, as part of their training programme on conflict issues. These engagements are helping shape both future media professionals and forest officers to respond to human-wildlife interactions with nuance and responsibility.
Swarathma – ClimateJam concert series kicks off
ClimateJam is a culture project by folk-rock band Swarathma in partnership with Rainmatter and educational institutions. It aims to reframe climate action through live music, humour, and hope. In a planned 10-campus series, the first one took place at KREA University where ClimateJam was woven into a course called “Engaging with the Environment” and included a creative showcase by the students. The second in the series took place at the BML Munjal University as part of their Policy Conclave that also saw a competition on creative communications of policies. In both the jams, Swarthama’s songs, lyrics, and music created an electric atmosphere for students and triggered a sense of belonging – with nature, climate change, society, and our roles as active citizens. Swarathma is exploring collaborations for ClimateJam with institutions and organisations to deepen climate connections through music and build agency among youth across campuses. Reach out to Jishnu at [email protected] if you wish to collaborate!
A Rocha India – Anti-snare drives and reframing conservation
A Rocha conducted an anti-snare drive in the Kodihalli Range of Bannerghatta National Park with 25 trained volunteers and 10 forest department staff, focusing on forest-farmland edges where poaching pressures are high. Volunteers walked alongside forest watchers, gaining an in-depth understanding of how simple wire snares, often made from brake cables, can cause severe injury or death to wildlife moving through shared landscapes. Participants’ reflections highlight how proximity to Bengaluru can mask the reality that a rich forest ecosystem, with elephants, sloth bears, civets, and leopards, lies barely 30 minutes away. A Rocha also works on animal sign-based surveys that document species presence in both park and human-dominated areas, revealing how wildlife use and walk through spaces beyond formally protected forests. Through classroom engagements with urban students and public-facing installations at cultural festivals like Sixth Sense, A Rocha is reframing conservation as something embedded in everyday environments, not just distant wilderness. Find out more about A Rocha and the ongoing anti-snare drives here on Instagram.
Socratus – Launching an Art & Crafts Experience Centre
As part of the Neighbourhood Initiative, Socratus launched an Art and Crafts Experience Centre to spotlight the craft processes behind Channapatna’s lacquered wooden toys and artefacts – the art and the artisans themselves. Visitors can explore interactive exhibits, close-up displays, and live craft demonstrations that make the journey from raw wood to finished toys. The presence of artisans, who explain materials and techniques, shifts how people value everyday objects, turning casual curiosity into deeper appreciation. For Socratus, the centre is a way to use physical spaces to bring people, materials, and stories together and where serendipity and community can emerge around crafts. It is the fourth in a series of centers around rivers, textiles, and everyday materials. Find more information about all the four centres here.
Goonj – Gram Swabhimaan & cross-pollination
Through Gram Swabhimaan gatherings, Goonj brings villages together to reflect on their strengths, local resources, and shared responsibility, shifting the focus from “what is missing” to “what do we have”. The process creates space for conversations through community meetings, school sessions, youth interactions, and partner-led engagements.
A recent SoTH Alliance visit to PRADAN’s work in Jharkhand led to an interesting exchange of ideas. Goonj adapted PRADAN’s 5J exercise (Jal, Jangal, Jameen, Jan, Jaanwar – the interconnectedness between people, nature, and livelihoods) into its own community meetings, while several organisations in the Alliance continue to learn from and build upon the Gram Swabhimaan approach in their own regions.
Dakshin Foundation – Where Care meets the Coast
On small and ecologically sensitive islands like South Andaman, menstrual waste is rarely spoken about, yet it poses a growing environmental challenge. Through community partnerships and open conversations, Dakshin Foundation’s Andaman & Nicobar Environment Team (ANET) has been working to make menstrual health more sustainable while reducing non-biodegradable waste.
The initiative has trained Youth Ambassadors, ASHA and Anganwadi workers in partnership with the Wandoor Panchayat, helping introduce sustainable menstrual products to more than 1,200 women, who have now shifted to eco-friendly alternatives such as menstrual cups, cloth pads, and period panties. It brought together environmental conservation, public health, and conversations around a taboo subject that is still too often treated as taboo. This effort was recently recognised through the 5th Samir Acharya Memorial Award for Conservation of Coastal and Island Ecosystems.
Also, in their ongoing work to build care and concern for their place among children, the team collaborated with 13 children from the Junglighat community to launch a book, Riya’s Little Island. Set against the beauty of the Andaman Islands, this tale explores the delicate balance between worry and wonder – something we all carry within us. You can access the full PDF of the book here.
The Climate Brief – Making climate impact visible in everyday life
In April, The Climate Brief continued its YouTube series on India’s climate and energy choices, from rooftop solar and “life hacks” for summer to biogas, heatwave responses, and voting in 40‑degree heat. Each episode translates complex topics and science into everyday stories, helping viewers connect climate systems with their own lives and decisions. If you haven’t caught our latest episodes yet, they’re on @TheClimateBrief YouTube channel and worth your time.
Opportunities
Green Stories – Environmental documentary projects
Green Stories is a mentoring and pitching forum dedicated to wildlife and environment documentaries from Asia. The applications are now open for 2026 from filmmakers, producers, and production houses across Asia working on documentary projects with an environmental focus. Up to 16 feature-length and six short documentary projects will be selected, spanning themes such as ecosystems, climate and environment, wildlife conservation, and people and community. Due by 30 June 2026, submit your application via an online form and include a visual clip (email or postal submissions are not accepted). To apply, click here.
IDR – Northeast Media Fellowship
India Development Review’s Northeast Media Fellowship is a 10-month programme for three young fellows from the Northeast, who work with IDR’s editorial team to tell grounded stories from the region. Fellows travel within and beyond their states to report on livelihoods, education, health, gender, and more, producing written and multimedia content that informs policymakers, funders, and nonprofits. The last date to apply is May 15th 2026. Organisations working in the Northeast can write to [email protected] to connect their work with the fellowship.
Until next time, may your roads be auspicious | śubhāste panthānaḥ santu
Team Rainmatter Foundation
Roots & Resilience – March news digest from Rainmatter Foundation
The month of March was about roots – in soil, in storytelling, and in community.
We engaged with people building change from the ground up. Saw immense potential in youth undergoing regenerative farming fellowship. Created frameworks to enable tribal self-governance from on-ground learnings. Got the non-profit ecosystem to build intuitive tech tools with responsible AI use. Saw resilience taking shape through creativity and spoken word at student showcases.
Partners continued to deepen place-based work – a new guide on better reporting on human-wildlife interactions, coexistence conversations where all place-owners came together to learn, and 14 Jagah Fellows telling India’s climate stories from the places the world has looked at too quickly.
Across farmlands, classrooms, forests, and convenings, one thread stands out time and again: lasting change takes root when communities take ownership.
A Room Full of Conversations about ‘Place’
In Udaipur, about 13 philanthropic and civil society organisations sat together to ask a genuinely hard question – what does it actually mean to fund a place, not just a project?
The Unnati Funders’ Table, facilitated by Energiva Ventures, unlocked the co-creation of a shared roadmap for collective impact across rural landscapes. The team also presented the Unnati Framework that re-imagines place-based funding. That’s the kind of conversation we hope to have more of.
Our Strategy Lead for Entrepreneurship and Platformisation, Tanmay Mukherji, walked the room through Rainmatter’s Place-based thesis, our Rural thesis, the 6M Framework, and the Livelihood Network Map.
Young People Choosing Farming as a Future
Akshayakalpa has spent 16 years proving that small-scale farming can be dignified – 2,800 farmers, with monthly incomes around ₹1,00,000, and healthy soil to show for it. Now they’re passing that knowledge forward through a 9-month fellowship for young people who want to build a future in regenerative and financially profitable agriculture.
Fellows go deep on the practices that make this model work – composting, integrated dairy, soil health, natural pest management, mixed cropping, and water conservation – grounded in what’s already been proven at scale. Currently, the fellowship runs in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, and Telangana, with an opportunity to spread across India.
Our Thesis Lead for Rural, Vikas Hosoor, spent time with the first three cohorts of fellows this month. His takeaway? These young people have built strong foundations and are capable of farming sustainably in their own regions – but more than that they’re capable of carrying it forward and teaching others.
If you are an organisation focusing on sustainable agriculture in your region for your communities, these fellows are a proven resource.
AI, for Social Good
Bengaluru hosted the Insight Out workshop this month, brought together by Tech4Good Community and Oasis. The big question: can AI actually serve the social sector – beyond the noise?
Dr. Kailash Nadh, CTO at Zerodha and co-founder of Rainmatter Foundation, guided the room through responsible AI use and then made it real through ‘learning by doing’. Participants unlocked insights from their own data and mission, built intuitive tools and platforms, and worked through what it means to bring human judgement to the what, why, and how of AI.
Several of our team members and partner organisations attended this fun workshop to learn and build.
When Communities Own their Future, Things Change
Our partner Shivganga works with the adivasi communities in Jhabua, Madhya Pradesh, and operates on a simple but radical belief: change lasts when it comes from within. Their regularly conducted Baithaks (village meetings) and Tolis (local action groups) are more than participation mechanisms, they’re how decisions get made and followed through.
Communities voice concerns and then work on solving them together. The Tolis also act as bridges between villages and institutions (government bodies, larger orgs, etc.), ensuring plans stay grounded in local realities while successful ideas take root in more regions.
As part of the SoTH (Sense of The House) Alliance, Shivganga is now co-creating broader place-ownership frameworks that strengthen tribal self-governance. One such being through such baithaks and tolis.
Building Agency Early On
Slam Out Loud brought their ‘BOL’ showcases to Delhi, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Pune this March, and 400+ people showed up to watch children talk about nature, climate change, and the world they’re inheriting.
These children had moved from being passive students to active thinkers – kids who had opinions, made art from them, and shared it publicly with confidence. Watching children frame complexity better than most adults is truly humbling. Their artworks and performances left a lasting impression on our Climate Education & Communications Lead, Vartika Goel. She left with mixed emotions, hopeful about the futures children might shape, and uneasy about the weight our present continues to place on them.
14 Places. 300+ Applications. One Powerful Cohort.
The Jagah Fellowship – a collaboration between FactorDaily and Rainmatter Foundation – selected its first cohort of 14 from over 300 applications. These fellows are deeply embedded in their places, ranging from a coast, a forest, a river, a desert, to even a locked up space.
The fellowship is about telling stories as the jagah (place) itself – a practice of place-based storytelling and narratives that travel, shifting climate stories from extraction to stewardship, deficit to dignity, “I” to “We”.
Pankaj Mishra, founder of FactorDaily, will mentor the fellows through 2026. He put it better than we could: “Each fellow is carrying a place the world has looked at too quickly, too externally, too shallowly.” We couldn’t agree more. Follow Pankaj on LinkedIn to witness the journey.
Leopards, Bears, and the Conversations We Needed
In Devprayag and Rudraprayag districts of Uttarakhand, WCS-India, Titli Trust, and Asar brought together the place-owners. Forest officials, media, field-science experts, local communities, and students talked about something that doesn’t get nuanced attention: humans and wildlife trying to share the same land.
The meetings surfaced what field experience always does – that coexistence requires community action, trust-led collaboration, responsible journalism, and approaches that are rooted in science.
Reporting Coexistence, Not Just Conflict
The Climate Narrative Hub has launched the Human-Wildlife Interactions Reporting Manual, for journalists and storytellers covering the full spectrum of how people and wildlife share space.
Co-created with six partner organisations, the manual moves beyond one-dimensional conflict narratives. It acknowledges that while moments of tension and tragedy often dominate headlines, they are only a small part of a much larger, ongoing reality- one where people and wildlife continuously adapt, share space, and navigate risk.
Drawing from insights across media, research, and civil society, the guide invites creators to widen their lens. By doing so, stories can become not just more accurate and empathetic, but also more constructive, thus shaping public understanding, informing policy, and creating space for shared responsibility. Curious what more nuanced storytelling could look like? Explore the manual at ClimateNarrativeHub.org.
The Climate Brief Kept Asking the Hard Questions
The Climate Brief spent March unpacking the systems hiding in plain sight. Why do women pay more money and time to get around a city? What’s really at stake in the Nicobar Islands? Who is responsible when a city bakes in 46°C heat?
The episodes this month were about the roads we build, the policies we approve, and the people who bear the cost. If you haven’t caught our latest episodes yet, they’re on the Climate Brief YouTube channel and worth your time.
Welcome, New Partners
We’re glad to welcome five new partners into the Rainmatter network this month:
Common Ground Initiative – Collaborative initiative of 91+ organisations working to strengthen ecological, social, and economic wellbeing in rural India through decentralised, community-led governance.
Asar Social Impact Advisors – Builds sub-national ecosystems through multi-stakeholder networks across clean air, energy transition, commons governance, climate education, and narratives.
IIHS – ASSURE – Accelerating high-performance buildings to reduce resource consumption and improve productivity through technical assistance, capacity building, and innovative market mechanisms.
Thicket Tales – Connects classroom learning to children’s backyards through place-based education. Enables children to explore, map, and act on climate challenges in their local ecosystems.
Green Stories – Mentors filmmakers to create and pitch impactful wildlife and environmental documentaries from India and Southeast Asia.
Until next time, may your roads be auspicious | śubhāste panthānaḥ santu
Team Rainmatter Foundation
Nurturing Custodians of a Place: The Kendrapada Sandbox in Odisha
In 2023, a group of partners came together and took a collaborative approach to build a sandbox.
The idea was to test and create a place-based, ecosystem-led model that can build climate resilience and community stewardship.
What is a place, though? It is more than the sum of its parts, the geography, the people and all the elements it comprises – air, rivers, lakes, seas, soil, hills, bugs, birds, animals, plants, trees, and the people, their cultures, livelihoods, relationships, flow of money, and more.
Why was Kendrapada chosen?
With a population of about 15 lakhs across 9 blocks and close to 1600 villages, Kendrapara is a coastal delta district located between the Brahmani, Baitarani, and Mahanadi rivers, home to the Bhitarkanika mangrove ecosystem. It is highly vulnerable to cyclones and saline floods. Predominantly agrarian, with paddy, pulses, and fisheries, it is also largely rural and informal with significant job-linked migration.
Facing mangrove loss, saline intrusion, and human–wildlife conflict, especially around crocodile zones, Kendrapara has been a focus district for the government (with a rich political past) in Odisha’s coastal resilience programmes, emphasizing pond rejuvenation, mangrove restoration, and women-led adaptation.
The objective of this initiative was to evaluate if Kendrapara had the potential to emerge as a model for ecosystem-based rural resilience, blending conservation, livelihoods, and community leadership.
That’s how the Kendrapada Sandbox was formed, of a cluster of 205 villages from the larger district.
Kendrapada district map, Odisha (Source: Odisha Tourism)
Identifying the Problems
The first step of the Kendrapara Sandbox was deep sensemaking. Instead of coming in with pre-defined interventions, it was important to listen to the land and people. While we have witnessed multiple frameworks for this “ownership” discovery, Goonj’s Gram Swabhimaan approach was deployed in a DIY (do-it-yourself) format as part of the process and handed over to community representatives. The community contextualized the format for Kendrapara and went ahead to implement it.
Some of the critical challenges surfaced by the exercise were:
Ecological Degradation: The region was vulnerable to repeated cyclones, saline intrusion, and erosion.
Livelihood Insecurity: Traditional agriculture and fishing were becoming unsustainable, forcing seasonal and distress migration (even generational migration – plumbers from Kendrapara work all across India, and in the Gulf countries and West Asia).
Cultural Disconnection: Mangroves and water bodies, once integral to local identity, were now viewed as threats.
Institutional Fragmentation: Multiple schemes existed but there was limited local convergence and ownership.
Through participatory mapping, citizen juries, and informal dialogues led by the local organisations and facilitated by the sandbox team, the discovery process shifted the focus from ‘what is wrong here?’ to ‘what is happening here, really?’.
Bhitarkanika National Park
Community Ownership: People as Architects of Change
Instead of participating in projects, local actors led problem-solving. Bit by bit, the ownership took shape.
Women Climate Champions: Over 300 women across Odisha, including 100 in Kendrapara, were trained as Climate Champions under the ECRICC programme (UNDP, Mar 2025). They adopted resilient farming, led mangrove replantation, and shared knowledge through peer networks.
Self-Help Groups and Youth Networks: SHGs, youth clubs, and panchayat representatives formed the nucleus of action. They engaged in Citizen Juries, Climate Recipe exhibitions, and Gram Swabhiman dialogues—turning abstract consultations into tangible community voice mechanisms.
Cultural Re-framing: The narrative around mangroves shifted from fear to friendship. Community members began to see mangroves not as obstacles but as natural allies—providing flood protection, honey, crab farming etc.
Local Institution Building: Nature’s Club, a Kendrapara-based NGO, evolved into the core local institution—holding the space for external collaborations while ensuring the ecosystem remained locally governed.
Kanika Agarbatti Producers Group, Kendrapada
Over the course of 2 years, livelihoods diversified building resilience:
Agarbatti Producer Groups (PG) – 3 producer groups comprising over 150 women are making organic agarbattis (incense sticks) that are being sold to corporates like ITC
SRI cultivation – Saline-resistant rice varieties introduced in 84 villages were adopted by 7000+ farmers
Nalia artisan group – over 1000 families across 5 villages started making handicrafts using the Nalia grass
Waste to wealth tailoring – 150 women came together to form 7 tailoring clubs
Azolla cultivation – 5000 growers across 120 villages are providing azolla as animal feed and biofertilizer
Mushroom cultivation – 45 SHGs were trained on mushroom cultivation, who are using paddy stubble as the growing medium for mushrooms
Organic pesticides & fertilisers are being produced by over 5000 families
Nalia Grass Artisan Producer Group – Baghataila Village in Kendrapada
Key Actors and Orchestrators
The Kendrapada Sandbox brought alive place-ownership through several actors, enablers, solutions, and infrastructure:
Grassroots Stewards: Coastal agriculture reforms, mangrove restoration, and awareness drives led by Women Climate Champions and village youth
Civil Society Partners: Nature’s Club, WellLabs, Socratus Foundation, and Goonj
Government and Global Partners: Odisha Forest & Environment Department, UNDP, GCF, Kendrapara District Administration
Media and Cultural Amplifiers: Local influencers and journalists produced short films and reels during the Mangrove Patha Utsav 2024
Mangrove Patha Utsav 2024, organised by Socratus Foundation and Nature’s Club
Lessons and Takeaways
The sandbox is an example of true on-ground collaboration for any organisation working at the grassroots level.
Start with Listening: Real insight comes from community sensemaking.
Shift the Story: Change local narratives to build intrinsic motivation.
Identify & Strengthen Anchors: Facilitation models like Nature’s Club that played the role of ecosystem stabiliser ensure continuity.
Design for Emergence: Replace fixed project plans with prototypes that allow iterations and enable adaptive scaling.
Integrate Institutionally: Bottom-up (community-led) innovations have the power to influence formal government programs and systems.
The Result
The Kendrapada Sandbox brought together fragmented efforts and transformed them into a scalable, locally sustained climate resilience model. The journey evolved through iterative community-led experimentation: mapping, co-designing, celebrating, and transferring ownership. It helped communities realise their power–the power to change, build and sustain.
Our team gathered last week, on a cold January afternoon soaking in the warm sun, to reflect on how the past year had been for each of us. A few themes kept bubbling up.
2025 felt like the year climate impact got personal.
We could all recount examples of people in our circles, many outside the climate bubble, who were deeply impacted by climate change or pollution this year. We knew of friends who were suffering from a stubborn cough for months, acquaintances who were seriously considering moving out of the city they had lived in for years, and of far too many families with at least one member suffering from cancer.
Our own anecdotes weren’t isolated stories as much as fragments of a larger pattern. We felt something had shifted in public conversations around climate change, pollution, and the environment. This was visible across mainstream media, digital content creators, and even popular culture, like stand-up comedy1. The sheer volume of conversation certainly seems to have amped up especially around a few issues, such as air pollution, quality of life in our cities, and deforestation. The discourse may still miss the nuances or fall short of bringing out the full picture. For instance, we talk about air quality in Delhi and the destruction of the Aravalis without necessarily making the connection between the two. Or we talk about cancer without consistently examining food systems or the explosion of chemicals and microplastics2. So, while it’s undeniable that talking about climate has gone beyond the ‘climate bubble’, whether this growing visibility translates into deeper understanding of the crisis and pathways of action, remains to be seen.
The next obvious question was, so what next, what’s happening beyond the talk, the angst and the rhetoric?
We recalled examples of collectivising, most notably Delhi citizens coming out to protest the toxic air quality3, but also examples of people standing up to protect the last few wild spaces we have left – Kancha Gachibowli in Hyderabad4, Dhol ka Badh in Jaipur5 and Aravalis in Delhi6. We are seeing markers of governments, institutions, and corporations beginning to acknowledge these impacts, as they are becoming more and more undeniable. We saw hope in innovations from new players offering alternate solutions to problems that promise real change on ground. However, we also saw a trend of individuals choosing private solutions as a last resort to address the failing public goods. For instance, installing air purifiers to tackle air pollution or even moving cities to protect themselves7. Of course, these options are unevenly available, shaping very different realities for those who can opt out and those who cannot. And while it may not be structural or solving the root of the problem, it is what individuals seem to have control over. We may fear the long term outcomes of these pathways, but these are perfectly rational responses in a situation where systems and institutions are failing to respond fast enough and struggling to address these challenges in a structural way.
In fact, that seems to be a theme for not just climate change. All over the world, across many areas we seem to be in an era of chaos – wars, tariffs, and energy. As Rajesh aptly put in this piece8, we may be moving to a zone of polyconflict and not polycrisis. We are not in a crisis, a term that implies that it is temporary and we will at some point snap back or solve our way back into an equilibrium that we knew in the past. Our current situation may be better defined as a ‘polyconflict’ which will evolve to a new normal and a new future. We are already seeing signs of this, for instance several areas in the US have seen and are expected to have such devastating forest fires that they have been declared as uninsurable9.
What we remain curious to see is what the new normal would look like and believe that the actions and decisions that each of us – institutions, organisations and individuals – take now may well alter the course of history towards this and may indeed make 2026 a seminal year.
Notes from the field- Madhya Pradesh; September ’24
Early September, Sameer, Vikas and Akshatha from the Rainmatter team spent four days in Indore and surrounding rural areas where Rainmatter’s partner organizations are working actively in the climate space. The experience was both, inspiring and important for our work.
Some notes from the field trip in the words of Akshatha Narayana…
It was incredible to see how communities come together to solve their place issues with a strong sense of belonging and ownership; yet, there’s also a feeling of being lost in unfamiliar landscapes due to displacement. How young people can be the hope if they really understand their places better and be part of the solution-building. The intent of the trip was to understand Shivganga’s approach to place-based ownership and what comes after, to bring local organizations working with communities and young people to explore a coalition in Jhabua, Banswada and Bharwani, and to expand our understanding of the challenges, gaps and efforts of our partner organizations on ground.
Day 1 Overview
Day 1 began early at 7 AM, filled with curiosity about community ownership in Jhabua. Our first meeting with Maheshji introduced us to a collective of positive place owners actively engaged in various aspects of the village, including water management, soil conservation, agriculture, and health. We enjoyed locally grown Buttas while discussing their initiatives, which set the tone for a day of learning and connection.
Next, we visited a large lake that the community had successfully restored through their Halma traditions. Villagers from surrounding areas came together for 15 to 20 days to rejuvenate the lake, while others provided food and shelter. This collective effort resulted in improved groundwater recharge and better soil quality, positively impacting agricultural practices throughout the region.
After a delicious lunch with community members, we made several observations. The community lives harmoniously with nature, treating animals as family and showcasing rich biodiversity. We noted the importance of transferring traditional knowledge to address climate-related challenges and witnessed the market reaching the last mile, with a Tata ACE truck delivering essential goods to the village.
In the afternoon, we explored another village where Halma was used to solve local problems, such as constructing roads and conserving sacred groves. We learned about the tradition of inviting natural powers for guidance during tough times, which also fosters discussions within local panchayats to resolve legal issues. This approach emphasized the community’s commitment to collaboration and sustainable practices.
The day concluded at the Shivganga campus with a captivating skit performed by community members. The performance illustrated their struggles and collective efforts regarding Jan, Jungal, Jameen, Jal, and Janwar. We left feeling inspired by the sense of shared responsibility and the commitment to improving their community, further enriched by interactions with young leaders who led various focus groups.
Day 2 Overview
Day 2 began with an exploration of the profound impact of community collaboration in a hilly area near Jhabua. This region is carefully revived and conserved with an understanding of contours and water flow, showcases restored green patches and a resurgence of biodiversity. However, as we admired the landscape and enjoyed the morning sounds of nature, we were disheartened to see significant plastic waste, reminding us of the ongoing challenges of human existence.
Our next stop was the bamboo maker’s space and processing unit of Shivganga, where we witnessed the enthusiasm of school-aged children eager to learn and share their skills in bamboo crafting. We explored traditional methods of bamboo treatment and its various applications, prompting reflections on how education should empower individuals to pursue their interests rather than impose rigid paths.
After returning to the Shivganga campus for a breakfast with partners from Global Dev Incubator, TRIF, and Vaaghdhara, we focused on cross-learning and exploring potential collaborations. Nitinji from Shivganga emphasized the importance of creating awareness about one’s place in the community to foster a sense of belonging among young people. Initiatives like Gram Atlas and “Know Your Gram” were highlighted as efforts to bridge this gap.
Following lunch, representatives from various organizations gathered to discuss collaboration opportunities for Jhabua, Bhanswada, and Bharwani. The discussions centered around fostering ownership, understanding climate change in relation to social and economic security, and encouraging innovative, local solutions. As we concluded the day and set off for Bharwani, we reflected on the landscape we missed during our evening travel and felt a renewed sense of hope and urgency for the possibilities ahead.
Day 3 Overview
Day 3 started with a delicious breakfast as we headed to the last village in the Bharwani district. This community has faced displacement and a disconnection from their landscape due to the nearby Narmada river. With support from TRIF, the local collective is working to identify their challenges and potential solutions. During discussions, we recognized that losing connection to one’s place can also diminish confidence within the community.
After our discussions, we visited the village’s main market area to observe the entrepreneurial efforts of residents. Some villagers have started businesses, such as shops and shamiana services, while building their own houses. We were particularly struck by a beautifully constructed mud house next to a PMAY house, which was too hot to live in and being used for storage.
Next, we traveled to Bharwani city to visit the Youth Hub, a space dedicated to making knowledge, skills, and solutions accessible to young community members. This initiative, part of the Global Dev Incubator’s GOYN effort, aims to strengthen the local economy with a compendium of livelihoods tailored for the Bharwani district. Additionally, women leaders from Self-Help Groups (SHGs), who have successfully been elected to their panchayats, were receiving training to enhance their leadership skills and systemic thinking.
We then enjoyed a traditional lunch at the Youth Hub before continuing to Matla village, where we met a collective of women, known as local ministers, and the Sarpanch. They shared valuable insights about the community’s needs and priorities, emphasizing the importance of integrating these into the Gram Panchayat Development Plan. Their enthusiasm and commitment to their village highlighted how ownership and belonging can inspire collective improvement, bringing hope to our group as we set off on our journey to Khategaon, enjoying Poha as an evening snack along the way.
Day 4 Overview
Day 4 of our visit began with delicious aloo parathas and chai. Our first stop was a household in Khategaon that produces a natural fertilizer solution using five locally available plants. Initiated by women from Self-Help Groups (SHGs) and supported by Samaj Pragati Sahayog and HDFC Parivarthan, this initiative showcases the motivation of these women to turn their knowledge into a business, despite facing challenges in accessing market support.
Next, we visited the Sant Singhaji Educational Society, which focuses on nurturing young change-makers and entrepreneurs rather than adhering to a traditional curriculum. Here, students were introduced to community women and mentored on branding their natural fertilizer, improving packaging, and understanding market dynamics. It was impressive to see BCom students pitching the product and demonstrating their understanding of local industry opportunities, reinforcing the value of staying connected to their community instead of seeking prospects in cities.
As we began our journey back to Indore, we felt a mix of uncertainty about how to ignite imagination within the community, balanced by the uplifting interactions we had experienced with the young innovators. Once in Indore, we visited Raheja Solar, where we learned about solar drying as a method to reduce food waste, with promising implications for nutrition. We tasted various dried fruits and observed the ongoing testing processes, further highlighting innovative approaches to local challenges.
Our final stop was at Udhyam’s entrepreneur-in-residence, where we saw the creation of banana fiber food cups and Shakti Jhola bags made from upcycled railway cloth, enhanced with tie-dye techniques. These products exemplified creativity and sustainability. We also visited Tanmay’s tinkering space, which inspired thoughts about establishing a similar space at the Rainmatter Foundation for Friends of Rainmatter.
This visit rounded off our journey, prompting reflection on our experiences and the urgent need for action. As a result, we are now exploring the conceptual idea of a regional hub.
Energy: Focus on efficient, decentralised solutions
The question of energy has been a particularly knotty one to address in all of the climate puzzles. While a shift is certainly needed from fossil fuels to renewables, optimising resource utilisation is a crucial pillar to reduce strain on available resources.
At Rainmatter, we aim to take a systemic and holistic approach to understand this, and move towards solutions. We move beyond individual technologies and projects to delve into the critical ecosystem partnerships Rainmatter fosters, collaborating with organisations like Zodhya, Solar Square, and Sunday Grids, as well as academic think tanks, to understand and address efficiency across all levels, from optimising resource usage to empowering communities through decentralised solutions.
Supply-Side Challenges and Solutions:
Addressing the challenges on the supply side, especially the extraction of natural resources and concerns around end-of-life scenarios for renewable energy solutions, prompts interesting discussions on transitioning to sustainable solutions. We wonder what happens to solar panels after their use case is over. (Read: Solar Panels Are Starting to Die, Leaving Behind Toxic Trash , The Afterlife of Solar Panels) The availability of minerals for a complete transition and the government’s awareness of these challenges are focal points to consider as well. Can we even do a full renewable energy transition? These gaps shed light on the opportunities for entrepreneurs and organisations to fill.
Integrating Innovative Approaches:
Solar Square and Sunday Grids are two partners in the Rainmatter network working in the energy landscape. Solar Square, dedicated to rooftop solar installations for individual houses, societies, and industries, is transforming how we harness solar power; while Sunday Grids disrupts the traditional solar model with “digital solar,” a subscription service that grants access to clean energy without rooftop installations. By connecting consumers to existing solar projects, they empower individuals to save on electricity bills, contribute to India’s green energy transition, and embrace sustainability without upfront costs or installation hassles.
Navigating the Transition:
Acknowledging that a full transition to alternative energy sources may not be immediate, strategic planning at different levels is important. Raising questions about resource availability,open-sourcing land usage data and addressing challenges in electricity grid management can lead to open communication and exploration. The success of the decentralised microgrid in Gumla is a testament to just transition.
In the conversation around energy, the socio-economic impact of transitioning from fossil fuels to alternative sources is also an important area to consider. Emphasising on just transitions, we need to be mindful of potential unemployment and tax losses for states. India’s transition to renewable energy requires addressing the employment concerns of over 2.15 crore individuals currently engaged in fossil fuel and related sectors to prevent social and economic distress. Rainmatter believes that a holistic and ecosystem-oriented approach is needed while planning for this transition and while understanding and addressing the complexities of this transition.
Demand-Side Interventions:
Demand-side interventions shine a much-needed light on a crucial blind spot: our lack of granular data on how energy is used across different sectors. As individual industry demands for energy vary, incentivizing and encouraging smarter energy practices is the need of the hour. Imagine buildings crafted with materials that innately minimise energy needs, reducing reliance on external sources and shrinking our collective footprint as this article explores.
This insight highlights a significant avenue for entrepreneurs, organisations, and industries to innovate and incorporate energy-smart practices into our daily lives. Consider the savvy choice made by builders who are steering clear of all-glass structures. Why? Well, these glass buildings trap heat, prompting increased reliance on air-conditioning to cool the space, consequently escalating electricity consumption. This revelation not only underscores the potential for innovative practices but also introduces game-changing solutions such as the offerings from Zodhya. By leveraging Zodhya’s tools, buildings can achieve a remarkable 30% reduction in both energy bills and carbon emissions, all without any upfront investment.
As we navigate the intricate pathways of energy change, one thing becomes abundantly clear: a singular focus on technology is not enough. A comprehensive approach that takes into account energy efficiency, decentralised solutions, and just transitions to create a movement of sustainable progress is required, and is being pushed through the Foundation. By fostering collaboration, igniting innovation, and empowering communities, we envision the path towards a future where energy serves not just as a resource but as a catalyst for a thriving planet and equitable societies.
