Innovation

Saraya Café provides homemade food which is fresh and made keeping in mind the health perspective. Saraya’s guests are treated the same way as one would treat their family. No such things that would harm a person or are not beneficial to them are served. The food made here doesn’t contain white sugar or white salt. They try to make most of the products on their own such as bread, ketchup, dips etc. so that they are served fresh and are healthy. Items served here are purely vegan. The gluten and lactose intolerant people are catered here too. At Saraya Café, they buy sea salt so that all the people who have salt pans here in Goa still keep flourishing and they don’t have to stop. According to the owner of Saraya Café, white sugar is really bad for health but the alternative for white sugar, i.e. brown sugar is very expensive. So the next best alternative is jaggery. They buy jaggery to make jaggery syrup and use it in place of white sugar. This is how they prove to be responsible citizens and show their dedication towards sustainable cities and communities and responsible consumption and production.

These facts directly correlate with three SDGs which are SDG 3- Good Health and Well-being, SDG 11- Sustainable Cities and Communities, and SDG 12- Responsible Consumption and Production.

*Source for all the information is the face to face interview taken by the group personally. Also the images posted are taken by the group itself.

Inspiration

“We human beings have taken over the planet. Where are the snakes going to go? Where are the birds going to go? We have taken over the land so what are the animals going to do?”, said the founder of Saraya, Mrs Deeksha Thind. She believes that someone has to take charge of this and that’s how Saraya came into being.

‘Saraya’ means to begin and to flow. It’s a space culturing the infinity of creativity. Saraya is a space where people can come together to create, share and experience art, food and living in rhythm with nature. Our vision is to bring together art culture, food and eco-living. Saraya is where these three elements come together. A confluence of artistic minds and energies which inspire you to begin your creative journey. Come to visit and enjoy our peaceful, relaxing atmosphere.

Overall impact

Deeksha Thind believes that there will be at least a few people who will start being more responsible towards the environment and will start taking care of it. Saraya has become a place where a lot of people come to meet and evolve. For example, they have an eco-movie night every fortnight Tuesday in which they show how the environment is getting impacted with the chemicals and other stuff that are being used by different industry and then a person is introduced who tells about how they as an organization have chosen the other way,

They have also created their own website which is called ‘Responsible Tourism’. In this, all those who have taken these alternate ways for their business models in order to save the environment and are also successful with their models have joined together and Saraya’s act as a central point for them. Even the school children visit the place to learn things that were traditionally part of our culture like making houses or boundaries from mud. These are the ways Saraya’s have extended themselves in the community and are acting as a role model for others. The inspiration has been to such an extent that some of the guests who visit the café, stay there for a while and work with them.

Business benefit

Because Saraya is a considerable big name for an alternative lifestyle, it has become a central point for a lot of business activities. Every Tuesday they have a movie night where they show a movie related to a sustainable product for example use of natural dye in making fabric instead of a chemically treated one. They also source a person who has a solution to the related problem and is successful. So in a way they provide successful ideas for business models for a sustainable product or a service. They are also tying up with alike centres for eco-friendly services.

This eco-friendly way of doing business has created monetary benefits for them too. Because of their unique business model, many visitors volunteer to help them run the business. So they do everything from washing clothes, painting walls to chopping vegetables and stitching curtains. This saves on their cost of keeping full-time employees.

Another monetary benefit is that of children who come to study various non-conventional subjects like building walls of mud, art and craft etc because of their proven expertise in the same.

They also have a farm of vegetables which saves on the cost of outsourcing veggies and fruits.

Revenues generated are enough to perform their daily operations. Being a family run business and use of less permanent staff and more of volunteers, paying salaries is not any issue.

Social and environmental benefit

“You cannot go and change the whole world. You have to do what you can do in your own place” , said the owner of Saraya, Mrs. Deeksha Thind. She believes that when you do something good people around you get inspired and do something great. And then other people look at them and come up with something even greater. This “domino effect” in her opinion will change the way people think and care about the Mother Earth.

People from all over the world with diverse cultural backgrounds visit this café. When they see, volunteer for the work here, they get influenced and inspired to something similar in their village or city. That is how communities begin to grow and sprout in different parts of the world where they adapt an alternative lifestyle which is healthier and more conscious and aware of not spoiling the environment and taking care of nature.

Everything at Saraya is homemade and homegrown. From baking bread to making different sorts of chutneys/mayo are made in its very own kitchen from scratch. Utmost care is taken to reuse anything which is left over. They try to ensure minimal wastage and scrap. This ensures ‘Responsible Consumption and Production’ and ‘Sustainable Cities and Communities’.

Interview

Deeksha Thind, Owner