By Chetan S | Climate Change Fund, Director
Angat is an inspiring entrepreneur, but he was not always this way. Three years ago he'd been very depressed. He was not sure what to do or why. Everything he'd tried had not worked. He lives in rural Bihar, in India, so the chances of getting a job are not that easy, and in any case, Angat was not even sure what he'd do. His father passed away and that broke his heart. His mother was supporting them by sewing and making clothes for people where they lived. It was watching his mother and trying to find out what he could do, to overcome his heartbreak and solve a problem for other people that one day in the market, as it began to rain, he got an idea.
He saw people getting wet in the monsoon downpour and they had bags that were also getting wet. He saw discarded tarpaulin, plastic sacks for rice, grains, food that had been sold wholesale. He picked up the plastic bags and went home.
That night he stayed up all night. Using his mother's sewing machine he tried to make a carry-all bag. But he failed.
When his mother woke up in the morning she saw the failed bag and sat down to help Angat make another. Hers worked.
Angat went back to the market and got enough plastic to make 10 bags. That night he made 10.
The next day he went back to the market, simply put his 10 bags down in front of him and waited. They sold within an hour.
Not knowing exactly what he had stumbled upon, why or how, Angat just kept making more bags.
Then one day on the radio he heard about The Climate Change Fund, a start-up grant to begin an enterprise that solved a problem and he knew he had a idea worth trying to scale.
Today, Angat sells over 200 bags a day, three different sizes, small, medium and large. He's made anoraks to protect kids from the rain, also out of the same plastic, back packs and he's working on a new cycle bag that can carry things on the back wheel.
Angat was shy and depressed, he's now quite jubilant and outgoing. We made a graphic novel story about him that was read by 100,000 kids in Grade 9 and Angat has been visiting schools to talk to kids about choosing to become an entrepreneur, how to make something out of nothing and he's also featured in The Children's Scrappy News Service.
Angat is happy now, and he's more than happy to share his story to inspire others to take a risk and become an entrepreneur.
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