The amalgamation of Trekking and Cleaning
The founder of Trekker Warrior is Tarun Babbar. He was born in Alwar Rajasthan in the Aravali mountains but he grew up in the hustle of Delhi in a middle-class family. He focused on his education and career until late 2010. The eureka moment came when he moved to the US and had an opportunity to live in California in 2014. In California, he was bombarded with the opportunities to go for hikes and mountain biking every weekend.
But in 2015, when he moved back to India, he began missing his time in nature. Consequently, he started taking frequent weekend trips to Uttarakhand for hiking and trekking. Soon he began pushing himself more and more towards mountains and as a result, he became a certified mountaineer.
Birth of the idea:
In the process of going to the mountains and rejuvenating himself, Tarun realized one thing: that we take a lot from nature without giving anything in return. He saw a huge chunk of trash lying around in the mountains, which made him feel bad. He never understood the reason why someone would come to adore the nature of nature and in return ravish the place with the footprint of their trash.
This wounded Tarun to an extent that he decided to do something about it. He followed the quote, “if you don’t like something, change it…”. On his trip to Munsiyari and a trek to Khaliya, he made up his mind that he would clean whatever was possible for him and initiated by picking trash. Not caring about what others are doing, he thought of doing his part as gratitude to mother nature who gave him heaven-like Earth to live. In the process, he observed that it was having a profound impact on the people around him. They started volunteering their help in their own little ways and offered him snacks or even home-baked cake. He knew people were appreciating his effort, and it gave them some inspiration to offer their tiny bit to nature.
After returning to Delhi, he reconciled with his friends from mountaineering and they decided to take the initiative to mingle trekking with cleaning mountains. With an unfathomable desire to give back and preserve the majesty of the Himalayas, they conceptualized and launched “Trekker Warrior”.
First cleaning insta story: https://www.instagram.com/p/B6qXNV4BaHP/
Challenges:
The biggest challenge for a non-profit organization is to get motivated individuals who are willing to contribute and actually contribute. There were a lot of people who came and appreciated their efforts and volunteered to join them, but they hardly did anything beyond that. Hence finding people who believe in the cause and actually commit with time and resources was the prime concern and the biggest challenge.
They have tried to solve the problem by being more upfront when someone reaches out to them. They made themselves clear and asked if they truly intend to work with them as well as do they really have time. They even asked for the demonstration of past efforts or something that portrays that they are passionate about environmental conservation.
His team's combined love for mountains and preserving them kept them motivated all through.
Presently, they are doing quite well as a young, online first non-profit organization. They have hired 2 interns, received more than 30 people in their community, and a lot of traction on social media. They have also done cleaning drives in more than 10 locations till date. Their friends have also started contributing help in terms of going for treks and cleaning mountains.
Suggestion for readers
Tarun said, “If you feel passionate about giving back, you don't have to leave everything to do it. You can combine your everyday lives with little acts of kindness and be a better human being.”
