Meet Sourabh Potdar: An Engineer Who Help Villagers Come Out Of Poverty

Meet Sourabh Potdar: An Engineer Who Left His Comfortable Life And High Paying Job To Help Villagers Come Out Of Poverty!

Sourabh Potdar is an engineer who had a well-paying job. But when he saw the SBI Youth For India Fellowship advertisement in the newspaper it struck him that he didn't want to settle down like a regular person and give a little monetary help as charity. He would rather make some real contribution at the grassroot level. He somehow convinced his family and his fiance about his plans.

His Efforts Having a great interest in trekking, Potdar decided to take a project of rural tourism with BAIF where he was expected to market the village to attract more people to the village as tourists. The project was sponsored by Dorabji Tata Trust. He would go to various schools, colleges and seminars in the nearby cities to educate people about the lesser known place called Jawhar near Thane District, Mumbai.

Since there was not much to sell, he then started working on making the village more interesting. He partnered with various organizations to study their pattern to attract tourists. He started giving lodging facilities to the visitors along with tribal dance and singing performances to attract more people.

Going an extra mile

When he saw that people were not supporting him much in the project, he went to a nearby area and saw various Warli painting artists who were living in poverty. He met Sadanand Nakra, a hearing and speech impaired Warli artist. Nakra carved and painted Ganesha idols for a Sahukar in Jawhar for which he got a meager wage of Rs. 75 every day for 9-18 hours of hard work. He had a family of four to support and it was very difficult for him to earn his daily bread and butter.

Potdar was determined to help the artist, so he researched and found out that Mumbai had a good market for Warli paintings. He grabbed a couple of Sadanand’s paintings and went to Mumbai where he received a positive response. Potdar also connected Sadanand with various clients and managed to sell his paintings for around Rs.1,50,000. Gradually Sadanand’s business picked up and now he has clients across the country.

Earlier he had a small house with no facilities. Now he has purchased a television, bed, cupboard and other basic necessities and the credit goes to Potdar for his efforts.

Thus, Potdar could have easily given up his first project when he got no support from the villagers but he took it as an opportunity and did not give up. That is how we can identify real heroes. They don’t give excuses, they constantly look for solutions. Humanity can surely do with more such heroes.

Why do we always fail to respect true Heros ?

I think he demands nothing from us but let us give him some respect and a little bit recognition. 

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