Why People Love These 6 Australians Who Made Way Into Indian Slums

As contrary to what you may think, 35,000 slums in India do not have access to electricity. Stunned, are you? Despite contributing to our economy, sweating it out in the urban workforce, their lives after 6 pm drown in darkness. Six young Australians are working towards changing this disgusting state.

Pollinate Energy is a start-up, founded in 2012, run by six under-30 Australians who quit their jobs to make a difference in lives of slum-dwellers who are the base of our economic pyramid.

Monique Alfrif, Emma Colenbrander, Katarina Kammorley, Ben Merven, Alexi Seller and Jamie Chivers have taken some decisive steps benefitting the urban slum communities devoid of electricity. They are producing affordable lighting products for the urban slums in India and looking to create sanitation products as well as cooking products in the near future.

• The company sells solar-powered lamps to thousands of slums in India devoid of electricity
• They worked for free for the first year to drive the project.
• The start-up was in $50,000 debt in the beginning.
• They turned the tide in their favor and now employ 45 local employees from the slums. The salaries exceed the workers' expectations.
• For the slum dwellers, the lights are an expensive initial investment, but in the long run, it saves them money.
• Pollinate Energy is not-for-profit, any profit made by it is injected back into the business to serve more slums in cities across India.
• They have their head office in Bangalore and Melbourne.

Find out more about Pollinate Energy at www.pollinateenergy.org

The post first appeared in KenFolios - Only interesting stories.