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Friday 15 January 2016

How One Entrepreneur is Applying The Bhutanese Principles of Happiness in Business and Creating Livelihoods

Image: Rushabh with Hans, a specially abled individual who also works at the workshop

A term coined in 1972 by Bhutan’s fourth Dragon King, Jigme Singye Wangchuck .The phrase was coined as a signal of commitment to building an economy that would work on increasing the country’s Gross National Happiness(GNH) instead of the western material development that was represented by gross domestic product (GDP). Could that same philosophy be applied to an organisation? Where happiness was the goal?

Meet Rushabh Gandhi, founder of Handmade Hope. A social entrepreneurship venture which nourishes individuals and organizations who are highly skilled craftsmen at creating artistic souvenirs. Then it bridges the gap between the market and the artisans increasing their sales and helping them achieve self sustainability.

A 16 day road-trip to Bhutan changed his perspective about a lot of things about his life, says Rushabh. He observed that the Bhutanese do not subscribe to the concept of accumulating wealth.

What strikes me is that Rushabh uses words like contentment, transformation , happiness – words which are not very commonly found in the vocabulary of entrepreneurs of today. You would mostly hear businessmen talk about investment, funding, gross sales, Facebook advertising and product updates. But Rushabh is not the ordinary entrepreneur.

Starting since the time he was a high school student Rushabh has worked in the social sector for more than 10 years. It is evident from the number of organizations he is still associated with. He is guided by his mentors like Nipun Mehta – founder of Service Space, Srijan Pal Singh- Adviser to Late Dr. A.P.J Abdul Kalam, Jayesh Patel – founder of Manav Sadhana and Amitabh Shah – founder of Yuva Unstoppable.

But what does this young and focused entrepreneur have to teach us about building a sustainable social enterprise?

I tried to understand his approach with a visit to his very lovingly created workshop – The Paper Ashram in Vadodara.
I had first met Rushabh when he visited my college as the media team member of the What Can I Give Mission – a mission undertaken by Late Dr APJ Abdul Kalam.

Image : Rushabh Gandhi when he was working with Dr Kalam’s team.

His simple goals and efforts to make a sustainable and socially responsible business is what motivated me to take a short trip to Vadodara to visit his workshop.

How did it all start?
I met a young boy called Rahul at Fatehsingh Ashram, Vadodara, an orphanage. Rahul was a creative young spirit. A few Sundays later, I found Rahul missing from the Ashram. I met him a few days later to find that he had been selling cigarettes and tobacco products to pan shops to earn a living.

A dilemma faced me, as I wanted him to leave selling cigarettes but I also understood his need to earn money. Rahul promised me to never tread path of cigarette selling again, if provided with an income source. After putting in a lot of thought, an alternative solution began taking shape in my mind.


We met after a week and asked if he could make greeting cards. Always eager for new things, Rahul expressed his wish to learn making greeting cards. He was taught by a friend, who was an expert at arts and craft.

5000 greeting cards were created and were sold within a span of two months. During this phase, Handmade Hope was born to plug the lack of proper space and a channel to fulfill their need of self sustenance. A well planned, organized, set up that helped people to achieve economic independence.
“Wherever I have been, people ask me this question about the challenges that I faced. I believe one faces challenges when one is going beyond his/her capacity of growth.

Can you tell us about the products?
We started with Paper bags made of used newspaper. We have close to 50 different sizes and types of brown paper bags today. The second category is stationery of different types like diaries, notebooks.

In the process of community building, we come across as many individuals and organizations who are highly skilled craftsmen at creating artistic souvenirs. We are currently working with Manav Sadhana Foundation, the only organization operating out of the Gandhi Ashram to bring out their hand embroidered diaries.

Can you tell us a bit about the business model of handmade hope?
We work on an order based system. Every month we try to tap in new retailers who would make the shift from plastics bags to paper bags.
Then the production responsibilities are distributed amongst the artisans at the Paper Ashram. From the very beginning I have tried to make this a sustainable model. So that even if I am not here to handle the operations the team should continue growing. Right now we have trained our first level of members who are either families or individuals who make the paper bags and stationery. They have also been trained to take orders and distribute it in their localities and then collect back the produced items and deliver them.
We pay them a salary decided on the per bag rate. In our organization we also have students from various colleges who regularly work/intern with us.
I am slowly starting to move towards the marketing and partnerships side and let my people handle the operations.

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