In India alone, more than 1.65 crore pens are disposed off every month. These pens cannot be recycled and ultimately end up in landfills and waterways, adding to the plastic waste already generated by society. Project Syahi endeavours to achieve a plastic-free world by replacing plastic pens with pens made of upcycled paper with a plantable seed at the rear-end.
Enactus Kirori Mal, came up with the solution to reduce the plastic menace by producing paper pens. Project Syahi serves the dual purpose of sustaining not only the environment but also an underprivileged community, especially women. The pens are handcrafted by a community of underprivileged women who want to become financially independent as entrepreneurs.
With the link that they have managed to establish between the community and potential buyers, the people of the community now have an assured alternative source of income, with no one to stop them from becoming entrepreneurs.
When asked about the inspiration behind setting up the project, Aanya Singhal, president of Enactus Kirori Mal College says, “Nearly 1600-2400 million plastic pens are brought into the Indian market every year with 91% of the plastic waste generated not recycled. We use them, throw them or lose them. Our aim was to create a utility product that would require a small lifestyle change to create a humongous impact. At the same time, we wanted to create social impact by uplifting a community of underprivileged women since societal and patriarchal factors foreclose any independence.”
Hence, emerged Project Syahi with the dual objective of combating the monopoly of single-use plastic pens and enabling women to carve out an identity independent from their male counterparts.
Sowing the seeds for e better tomorrow
The product is made up of recycled paper thereby saving energy in recycling. There is a seed at the rear end of these pens giving the users easy access to sow seeds for a better tomorrow. The customisable nature of the product enables them to reach out to corporates.
Project Syahi started in 2019. Soon after its inception, it had to bear the brunt of the pandemic. Despite that, Enactus KMC sold over 7800 pens in the past year. This means that, the project prevented 50 kgs of plastic pollution, 125 kgs of carbon emissions, and 4100 liters of water!
Project Syahi has also been recognised by esteemed organisations like the Ministry of Social Justice and empowerment, AYUSH ministry, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, etc. Radio channels like All India Radio has also featured the work, extending the project’s reach to people throughout the country. 
Speaking about the challenging facets of the job, Aanya says, “During the Covid-19 pandemic, our production and storage space was shut down with our products locked away. Our entire delivery system was disrupted and some of our community members were forced to return to their native villages. Despite that, we have succeeded in re-establishing Syahi as a robust business.”
Inking the future
“At Project Syahi, we believe in setting small but meaningful goals on our journey to fulfil our greater ambitions. As a new project, it has a lot of potential. In the short term, we plan to expand our community and set up multiple production and storage locations. In the long run, we aim to widen the project’s ambit by diversifying our product line to include sustainable stationery items like diaries, file covers, and pencils. These are mere milestones on our journey to help our women challenge the status quo and become financially independent,” she adds.
A feature that distinguishes Project Syahi from other similar organisations is their ability to customise the product. Users can customise the pens according to their preferences. From pharmaceutical companies like Avrohan Pharma to festive rakhis, the team has customised it all. Enactus is a not-for-profit organisation, hence all the profits that is earned goes to the community of underprivileged women who produce the pens. 
The organisation’s strength is its ability to adapt to changes as they demonstrated during the Covid-19 pandemic. “The shift from an offline setting to an online one has been magnanimous, but we managed the shift with great ease. The impeccable volunteerism of over 70 students enables us to innovate and bring in new ideas for the project. Ideas are heard, evaluated, and then implemented based on their feasibility. The challenge we face is to train the new community members during the pandemic,” Aanya says.
Aanya outlines the future roadmap, “The first long-term objective we would like to see completed is diversifying into more categories of sustainable stationeries like pencils, different coloured ink pens, diaries, etc. The first step in achieving any goal is to carry out research on the relevant topics like financial feasibility, market feasibility, technical feasibility, prototyping products, etc. Hence, our priority step would be to carry out research and development on these aspects.”
She adds, “Project Syahi aims to make women economically independent. Increasing their wages is a priority step in this area. We would also like their holistic development in terms of health and education. Our priority step in this direction is to get all our community members vaccinated for Covid-19.”
Those interested in purchasing these Syahi pens can visit this website: www.enactuskmc.org/shop
