When Kalyan Akkipeddi reached the age of 30, he decided he had to do something different. He says, “We always used to talk about what we can do for other people but it was only talk all the time.”
He had a well-paying corporate job at that time. The first thing he did to set his plan in motion was to resign his job.
After quitting, he travelled all over India to understand poverty and the people who were affected.
He set up an interesting condition for himself — that throughout the journey he shouldn’t have to pay for his food and accommodation. “So, in the interest of survival, I started travelling through rural India, because I felt it would be easier to make friends in the villages and get food too,” he says.
The lay of the land
His travels lasted for two-and-a-half years. He discovered that some of the tribal communities he visited were happy. They were content with their life. It was then that he realised that instead of spending energy on eradicating poverty, we should work to create abundance. It was more about empowering.
Kalyan went to his hometown, Anantapur district of Andhra Pradesh. He travelled through 166 villages and finally chose to settle in Tekulodu village as the one he would begin his work in. He worked on blending in with the villagers and documenting their life. He would arrive early in the morning and leave late at night. The villagers saw this and offered him a place to stay. Kalyan made it a habit to eat in a different house every day. This way, he was able to understand 100 families in 100 days. He worked with the families in their fields too. One family that he worked with for eight months was able to increase its earnings from Rs. 6,500 per annum to Rs. 14,000 per month!
This gave Kalyan hope and he purchased 12. 5 acres of land to “to set up a demonstrative rural community that is ecologically sustainable, socially cohesive and economically viable… to be built by the villagers, for the villagers.”
Ten families joined him in his endeavour. They began by digging eight ponds on barren land. As luck would have it, the day they finished, the heavens opened up and the tanks were filled. Today, the village is energy self-reliant, WiFi enabled, and has consistent water supply. And they grow their own food too. Soon, they plan a biogas plant. One of his friends helped them set up a wind turbine. The villagers are trained and can now install the systems themselves.
This is known as the ProtoVillage. They have built an eco friendly visitors centre, where they are now staying. They will soon start working on building homes for themselves. The whole project is crowd-funded.
