Since 2017

Mahadev Foundation

Our cause

Much of the farmland around Bangalore is worn out. Years of eucalyptus and hard farming took the life out of the soil, and the families who live on it grow little of their own food.

We think that this land can come back. Mahadev Foundation repairs land that people gave up on, teaches what that takes, and works with the village around it. Then it brings city people to the work, to learn, to give their time, and to buy the clean food that the farms grow. We take care of the earth and of the people, and we share fairly what the land gives.

What we do

The Foundation works through three wings. Each speaks to different people.

Samam: the soil

Samam begins with the soil. It brought one exhausted farm, Taranya, back to life, it teaches what that took, and it now works with the village around the farm, Subraya Nagenahalli in Doddaballapura. Most of its work is done by volunteers.

samam.mahadevfoundation.org

Nirvana Tribe: art and culture

Nirvana Tribe puts on performing-arts events in the city, and makes films about rural artists and the instruments and crafts that are being forgotten. The people who come to its events can buy clean food from the farms there, so the art also brings the city to the village.

Nirvana Tribe on Instagram

Samagram: green business

Samagram is the Foundation's initiative for entrepreneurs. It helps green business ventures to start and to grow. Its first business is Secret Table Cafe, in Bangalore.

What we have done

Taranya: a farm that came back

Taranya is a farm in Subraya Nagenahalli. Eucalyptus plantations had exhausted the land, and nothing grew on it. Samam's members and volunteers took it on. They mapped where the rain ran off, dug a pond and trenches to hold the water, and planted. Today the farm grows food, and people come to see it on a Taranya visit.

Dry, bare farmland under a flat sky, with a line of trees far off.
January 2023: bare land, with nothing growing on it.
A deep gully cut into red soil, with grass along its edges.
The rain ran off and cut a gully into the soil.
A bank of red soil, cut open, with a thin dark layer at the top.
A cut through the ground: little topsoil was left.
A map of the farm on a satellite photo, with arrows for the flow of water and notes on broken bunds.
The site analysis: where the water runs, and where the bunds are broken.
The same map of the farm with the planned pond, trenches and bunds drawn in blue.
The plan to hold the water on the land.
A drone view of a new pond in bare ground, beside a dirt track and green trees.
The pond, newly dug.
Still water in a pool on the farm, with the sky and trees reflected in it.
Water stays on the land now.
A pond full of brown rainwater, with grass and trees around it.
The pond, full after the rain.
A drone view of the farm with planted beds, paths and trees, beside a green field.
Planted beds, from the air.
A drone view of the farm, its plots and trees, among other fields.
The farm among the fields around it.
A hand holds up a groundnut plant with the nuts on its roots.
Groundnuts, pulled from the soil.
A sunflower in flower in a green field.
A sunflower on the farm.
A drone view of the farm: green plots, paths and trees.
Green plots and paths, from the air.
A drone view of the farm today, with planted plots, paths and tall trees.
Taranya today.

With children, in schools

We take the soil into schools. Children look for leaves and seeds, draw what they find, sit in a seed circle, and sow and plant with their own hands.

Children sit on a tiled floor round a sheet of paper and lay leaves on it.
A leaf collage, made in a group.
Girls and a teacher sit round a sheet of paper with leaves and crayons.
Leaves, sorted and stuck down.
Children in a school courtyard bend over a sheet of paper on the floor.
A collage takes shape.
A group of children sit close round a sheet of paper on a tiled floor.
Work in the courtyard.
Children kneel round a large sheet of paper on the floor and draw.
Each group makes its own sheet.
A child's drawing of leaves, flowers and a sun on white paper.
A drawing of what the children found.
A child's drawing of a tree, flowers and seeds on white paper.
Trees, seeds and flowers, drawn.
Children in school uniform sit in a circle on bare ground round seeds and leaves.
A seed circle in the school yard.
Students in uniform crouch round seeds and leaves on red soil.
Seeds and leaves, laid out on the ground.
Students sit in a circle on the ground, and one has a hand up.
Hands up for a question.
A man talks to a group of children outside a school building.
A lesson in the open.
Children and an adult plant seeds by a green fence in red soil.
Planting along the school fence.
A woman and two children press seeds into the soil by a fence.
Planting together.
Children on a path, one with a green bucket, listen to a woman.
Seeds from a bucket.
Children search among green plants on a slope.
Looking for leaves on a slope.
Children pick leaves from low plants.
Gathering leaves.
Adults and children crouch in a circle on the grass round pots of soil.
A circle round the seeds.
An open hand holds one seed, with a pot of red soil behind it.
One seed in the hand.
A close view of a seed on an open palm.
A seed, close up.
Children lean over small pots of red soil on the grass.
Sowing in pots.
A woman pours seeds into a child's hands while other children watch.
A handful of seeds.
Children in yellow and red school shirts hold pots and seeds on a lawn.
Each child sows a pot.
People in silhouette stand under a tree against a grey sky.
The end of the day.

Workshops on the land

Samam teaches what it learns at Taranya. People from the city come for a day on the land: they hear how water and soil work, test the soil, and dig the trenches that hold the rain.

People with spades dig a trench in red soil in a dry field.
Learning by doing: a trench dug along the slope.
Two men in a field. One holds up a jar of soil and water, with the soil settled in layers.
The jar test shows what the soil is made of.
Volunteers dig a trench across the slope.
A talk in the field, before the work starts.
A demonstration with water and soil.
The group gathers under a tree.
Everyone gets ready to work.
A walk across the land.
Work with branches and rope among young trees.

In the village

Samam's camps take volunteers to Subraya Nagenahalli for a weekend. They go from door to door to hear how families live and work, and what they hope for. What they hear decides the first small changes that we make with the village.

Volunteers sit in a circle under a tree before the outreach.
Volunteers meet before they go from door to door.
A man with a beard and an orange scarf stands in a field.
A farmer from the village.

Contact

To talk about our work, write to mahadevfoundations@gmail.com.

To give your time, see Samam's call for volunteers.