From IT firm to tribal hamlet: How one man is empowering women in Odisha

Cutting out middlemen and agents, Vat Vrikshya connected the tribal women to women entrepreneurs from other villages. A skill development training was organised

For decades, Durga Puja celebrations at the Das household were a much talked about affair in the small town of Balasore, Odisha. However, what a 24-year-old son of the house couldn’t stomach was the hypocrisy: people would shower respect on goddess Durga’s idol but chase away poor, downtrodden tribal women from the premises. Vikash Das, then an IT security consultant at IBM, was angered by the treatment meted out to a tribal woman back in 2013. He took on the task of “bringing a change” and thus was born, Vat Vrikshya in April 2014, a few months later. The name