Sunil Deshpande

Founder

Sunil Deshpande is the founder of Sampoorna Bamboo Kendra [1], an Indian non-profit working on livelihood, tribal welfare, environment and arts & culture from Lawada.

Sampoorna Bamboo Kendra

Sampoorna Bamboo Kendra was started in 1995 by Sunil and Nirupama Deshpande in Lawada village in the Melghat forest region of Amravati district, Maharashtra. It trains tribal youth in bamboo craft, construction and product-making and has promoted an artisans' cooperative for marketing bamboo products. Its bamboo rakhis are made by tribal artisans and sold in India and abroad.

Sampoorna Bamboo Kendra reports the following, on its own site:

Sampoorna Bamboo Kendra has provided bamboo handicraft and bamboo housing training to more than 10,000 youth (SC/ST and others) across the country, of whom 3,622 were in the Melghat region of Maharashtra and 120 in Kutch, Gujarat.
More than 450 people trained by Sampoorna Bamboo Kendra are working and earning wages from bamboo handicraft and bamboo housing in Melghat, and the organisation has a team of 80 trainers.