Being curious is a great sign of being alive and conscious. It opens the mind to new ideas. Nakul Agrawal, the founder of Renovatio Foundation and UHUM Mobile App, is one of them who has been consciously learning through his curiosity and courage. His goal is to empower and create more conscious, curious, and compassionate humans. He is a social entrepreneur, TEDx Speaker, Yogi, and an expert in Spirituality, Mental Health, Relationships, Parenting, and Entrepreneurship.
Growing Up
As a child, Nakul was very curious about everything and would explore courageously. He was also very compassionate to help people. He wanted to find his purpose in life and with every experience, book, or movie, he would learn some new perspectives.
Nakul’s father, Niranjan Agrawal, is a businessman while his mother, Seema Agrawal, is a homemaker.
He studied at Centre Point School and graduated from City Premier College in Nagpur. As a teenager, he studied hard, had fun with friends, shopped, danced, and romanced. When he was studying chartered accountancy he would use most of the study time to introspect on his questions about the nature of life.
His hobbies include Reading, Dancing, and Poetry. He is inspired by several people in different areas of life.
The beginning
In December 2016, he had a spiritual awakening. He then dropped out of CA and started silently helping people. He started giving answers to all the questions about life that people had and eventually, people started inviting him to give talks and conduct sessions. His intention is to make spirituality from something sacred and esoteric to something rational, practical, and scientific.
In 2012, after the Nirbhaya gang-rape incident, there were protest marches across the country demanding stricter laws for the protection of women. As there was no such activity happening in Nagpur, he felt the need to stand and support the cause. So after two weeks of the incident, he organized a protest march, and overnight the news spread like wildfire with thousands of people attending it.
From this, he realized that people wished to do well but they needed a platform through which they could participate. This gave him a strong sense of purpose to work. With this in mind, the Renovatio Foundation was founded. It is the Latin word for Renewal, Restoration, and Rebirth. His core belief is that until we change the way people think, we cannot change anything in this world because change begins within!
Marching ahead
So under Project Dreamcatchers he and his team started teaching children Maths, Science, English, meditation, yoga, dance, and arts in municipal schools, orphanages, and slums. They helped to create libraries and playrooms in schools, shelter homes, and homes for the homeless.
They conduct massive drives under the Project Share the Spare where they would collect clothes, toys, books, food grains, and medicines and send them to disaster-affected areas for relief measures. They worked in Four Cities for Nepal Earthquake, Chennai Floods, and sent 20 tonnes of material for Kerala Floods. They also distributed a lot of resources to other organizations like Goonj, Baba Amte’s Anandwan, to the city slums.
Under Project RenoCare, they conducted awareness campaigns like Ecycle your Ewaste, No Honking (with TOI), Helmet and Road Safety Awareness (with Traffic Police), Project Muskaan for rescuing child labour’s and beggars (With Nagpur Police) , Waste collecting mobilizing campaign (with NMC), RenoYoga ( with Maharashtra Times and OLA ), Sanitary Napkins usage and disposal, Tree Plantation drives, Medical Checkup and Blood donation camps as well.
They also conduct workshops under Project RenoGrow about aspects like education for children, sexual abuse, menstrual hygiene, Parenting, Healing, Relationships, etc for the benefit of everyone.
For the youth, they organize grand events like The Dreamers Summit, Passion and Purpose, Dreamlympics, etc. every year.
They have also formed a national initiative Alliance for Rivers to save all the water bodies and forests in the country and to educate people by conducting weekly sessions by experts about the ways to save them.
In addition, immense initiatives are taken to help people suffering due to covid.
They have also launched UHUM which is a mobile application and live sessions-based learning platform to enable people with health, happiness, and greatness. Their vision is to leverage the app and have the audios for enhancing one’s Mental Well-being, Videos for enhancing one’s Physical Well-being, and Courses for enhancing one’s Overall Well-being.
UHUM’s live sessions are empowering kids with the clarity and capability to take charge of their thoughts, feelings, emotions, and actions, also understanding the dynamics of relationships, social values, and the importance of helping others.
In three years he has taken sessions on spirituality and meditation for thousands of people across the country including the Indian Paramilitary Forces and prisoners of Central Jail, answered innumerable questions, confusions, and problems about life daily on social media which have brought immense peace to many, brought wisdom to the masses and healed people of various life problems. He has also been interviewed and featured by several leading newspapers, magazines, radio stations, and influencers from across the world. Organizations tagged him the youngest mystic alive, bestowed him with numerous awards like the Times of India Heroes Award, Global Young Changemakers Award, Mayors Innovation Award, Harappa Habit Heroes Award, etc.
Challenges
However, he had to face a lot of challenges in building and running a volunteer organization. He learned to manage everyone, make them accountable patiently. This contributed in a big way to his growth and made him more humble. He also got a wide exposure to different segments of society. Starting alone, he built a team of hundreds of volunteers very quickly and eventually created volunteer teams in several cities. He would also do some entrepreneurial activities alongside and whatever resources he could gather out of them, he utilized them to run the organization.
Future Plans
In the future, he plans to mindfully help in bringing constant progress through UHUM’s live interactive sessions for kids and AI-based mobile applications for everyone. He also wants his offline programs and initiatives through Renovation Foundation to reach more places.
His vision is to reach a million people in 3 years empowering them to become a better version of themselves and to collectively create a sustainable planet.
