I am not a rich man; I am a common man who has only two hands to help the people around me, but because I am a Rotarian, along with Rotary I have thousands of hands to help those in need,” says Hari Kishan Valmiki, a member of Rotary Club of Secunderabad, RID 3150, founder of several Rotary Egg Banks and his family charity the Valmiki Foundation.
Passionate about promoting nutrition through eggs for India’s malnourished children, especially those living in orphanages, senior citizens, and other underprivileged people, Valmiki’s efforts go back to 2003 when he set up his Foundation, and later the Egg Bank in 2017, when he couldn’t find the required funding support to buy eggs at a subsidised rate for the 45 children in his orphanage.
When he couldn’t find a single donor then, his Rotary club came to his rescue, and with its help, he not only helped his own orphanage but organisations beyond his RI district of 3150.
He soon struck a partnership with the National Egg Coordination Committee (NECC), the largest non-government organisation of poultry farmers in India.
We will teach these vendors 100 different kinds of egg recipes. If they only sell boiled eggs or bread and omelette, they will not make much money.
Coming to the latest in his egg- promotion journey, in which 50 egg carts have been given to unemployed persons in the North East, Valmiki says he was recently contacted by the NECC which wanted to promote the intake of eggs in the North East region of India where there are many challenges associated with nutrition and income generation. The organisation wanted to give 50 pushcarts to non-employed people, through which they could earn a livelihood by selling dishes made from eggs to the local people.
“But the challenges they faced were the fabrication of the pushcarts, identifying bonafide and worthy beneficiaries capable of working hard and sincerely. They were looking for a trusted partner and approached me as they were aware of the work done by me through the Rotary Egg Bank,” says Valmiki.
Now began the real challenge and hard work for this Rotarian. For almost a year the Egg Man, as he is fondly known in Rotary and other associated circles connected with food and nutrition, travelled tirelessly across all the ‘Seven Sisters’ of the North East to “rope in partners, convince leaders, inspire caring hearts and build belief to start Egg Banks in the four NE states of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura. Everything had to be done at the grassroots level and the involvement of the local Rotary leaders was essential,” he says.
The total funding required for these 50 egg carts, ₹25 lakh, was given by the NECC. Valmiki then identified Rotary clubs in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Manipur, and the local clubs raised ₹5 lakh that was needed to fund the burner stoves, utensils, electric bulbs and stools for each push cart. Of course, the funds required for his extensive travel across the North East to identify the opportunities came from his own pocket.
The search began for the beneficiaries who would be given the egg carts, and it was here that Rotarians from the local clubs did the needs assessment in various localities. They identified and shortlisted the beneficiaries by evaluating their eligibility and ability to run a petty business by working smartly and diligently. “Once they were identified an agreement was signed by them on a ₹200 stamp paper saying that they would not sell the push carts given to them. If for some reason they could not run the venture, they would hand over the egg cart to the Rotary club which would then identify a new person.” One was happy to note that gender equity has been kept in mind and half the beneficiaries are women!
Valmiki adds that each beneficiary was given ₹16,000 to help them get the venture up and running. He is very excited about the coming days as “we have plans to teach these vendors 100 different kinds of egg recipes. If they only sell boiled eggs or bread and omelette, they will not make much money.”
An expert at forging partnerships, Valmiki has roped in the International Institute of Hospitality Management to teach these egg cart operators interesting egg recipes so that there will be great value addition to the dishes they offer. Valmiki estimates that these vendors will be able to generate daily sales of around ₹10,000, of which their profit can be between ₹2,500–3,000.
In order to kick off this project egg banks have been established in all the four states with help from the local Rotary clubs. The project was officially inaugurated by RID 3240 DG Dr Kameswar Singh Elangbam, who came down to Guwahati from Meghalaya, while Dr Ezhil Annamalai Kumar, chief operating officer of NECC, and Valmiki came from Hyderabad. For the hitherto unemployed 50 vendors from the four NE states, it was a day of hope and new beginnings.
Dr Kumar thanked Rotary for helping them do all the groundwork, and said even though the NECC had funded the cost of the pushcarts, they had no clue how to go about getting them fabricated in these states or transporting them to reach the beneficiaries. Valmiki acknowledged the hard work put in by assistant governor Vikash Bajaj, a member of Rotary Club of Guwahati Metro who volunteered to take up the challenge of identifying a local fabricator and meeting the deadlines by chasing and getting the best pushcarts made on time. Another Rotarian, Dinesh Manglunia, added value by narrowing down on the best deals for vessels, burners and other items.
Fahmina Rahman, one of the beneficiaries from the Harijan Basti in Guwahati, thanked the Rotarians and others for giving hope to her and her family by providing this livelihood opportunity and promised to work hard with sincerity to make the venture a success and justify the trust that had been put in her. Valmiki said this was only phase-1 of the project, and in the next phase 100 more such egg carts will be given to beneficiaries in the other NE states.
Valmiki’s egg stories are making waves and since he comes from Hyderabad, and is well known here as the ‘egg man,’ Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi, who runs a charity of his own, and is constantly on the lookout to encourage and promote social welfare projects, soft-launched this project in Hyderabad, a day before it was formally inaugurated in Guwahati. An excited Valmiki told Rotary News: “He has been monitoring our Foundation for some time… we had earlier taken 500 orphan children on a joy flight and he had seen that news too. So the Chiranjeevi Charitable Trust invited us first to understand the magic of the egg bank, and during that discussion he asked us to bring a placard of the egg bank and the pushcart initiative in the NE, and he unveiled the placard in his office.”
He also thanked Rotary News for carrying the first article about his initiative in September 2020(https://rotarynewsonline.org/reaching-eggs-to-the-nutritionally- deficient/) after which several Rotary clubs and others had started asking for his help and partnership for doing egg-related projects.
Apart from another 100 egg carts in rest of the northeastern region, Valmiki is now working on establishing the first egg bank in Africa “with the help of African Rotarians and Rotaractors. As we all know, there is a lot of malnutrition in African countries and eggs are an excellent source of rich nutrients. Before I became a Rotarian, I was both an Interactor and a Rotaractor, and I know the power of the youth in taking forward such work for the poor and underprivileged people. The beauty of Rotary is that when you want to work on something good, you are not alone, so many pairs of hands will join you.”