An advocate for a green future and maternal safety

Mom of two, dentist, entrepreneur, founder and CEO of Eco Saathi Nepal, and co-founder and executive director of Aama Surakshya Nepal, Dr. Manu Karki inspires many. She also received the Social Impact Award from Hatti Hatti (an organization dedicated to women’s empowerment).

Currently, Karki does not practice dentistry but focuses on her children while running two organizations: Eco Saathi Nepal and Aama Surakshya Nepal. Both initiatives have personal stories behind their origins.

Her sustainability journey began during a trip to Taiwan with her husband, where she met two friends who led an eco-friendly, plastic-free lifestyle. Inspired by their sustainable habits, she adopted a similar lifestyle upon returning to Nepal. Reflecting on this, she said, “I started a page called Eco Saathi Nepal to document and share my journey towards being eco-friendly. »

As people began asking Karki where to buy eco-friendly products, she searched for suppliers in Nepal but found none. Determined to fill this gap, she ordered bamboo toothbrushes and cutlery online. However, when items arrived in bubble wrap, it seemed counterproductive to its eco-friendly mission. Realizing the demand for sustainable products and the lack of availability, she started her business.

Drawing on her experience as a dentist, Karki started by selling 500 bamboo toothbrushes. Today, Eco Saathi offers 25 to 30 different eco-friendly products. “Now we also offer personalized, eco-friendly hotel amenities like tooth powder, bamboo toothbrushes, hairbrushes, and more,” she says. Beyond bamboo, Eco Saathi sells a wide range of sustainable products and is continually looking to expand its offering with more environmentally friendly solutions.

Eco Saathi hosts weekly live sessions on Instagram, discussing sustainability, climate change and eco-friendly living. They present a “You Inspired Me” series to motivate others to adopt a greener lifestyle and host a green podcast in which they interview eco-entrepreneurs about sustainable business practices. The company claims to have prevented more than 10,000 kg of plastic waste from entering landfills.

After becoming a mother of two, Karki took a break from her dental career to focus on her children. She likes how Eco Saathi, with a studio built from her parents’ old chicken coop, allows her to work from home. Everything in the studio is recycled and Karki attributes the company’s growth to consistency and hard work.

Karki registered Eco Saathi Nepal as a business two months after opening the Facebook page in 2019. She says, “I was inspired when I saw similar businesses succeeding abroad. »

Karki shares that discovering his passion motivated his move from dentist to entrepreneur. She studied dentistry due to outside pressures and a lack of career guidance, choosing the field because it was considered safe. As the eldest in her family, she had to set a good example. “I was passionate about public speaking, media and communications at school, and even took RJ training, but these interests remained hobbies,” she explains. “If I had known more about the different topics and career options, maybe they would have become my profession.”

Although Karki loves dentistry and has experienced financial success, it wasn’t until she was exposed to an eco-friendly lifestyle during her trip to Taiwan that she discovered her true calling: dentistry. sustainability. This realization eventually led to the creation of Eco Saathi.

According to Karki, half of the products are made in Nepal and the other half are imported. Most bamboo products are imported as there is no manufacturing plant in Nepal yet. The team selects product ideas and gives them to different local suppliers to manufacture.

One of the significant challenges Karki faced while launching Eco Saathi was pricing its eco-friendly products as these were new to the Nepali market. After doing research and asking for advice, they set the prices. The company started with a focus on raising awareness about sustainability and eco-friendly living, which required a lot of time and effort on digital platforms.

Contrary to expectations, the pandemic helped Eco Saathi grow by allowing Karki to increase awareness and promote the brand on a larger scale. During the pandemic, it maintained close connections with customers through initiatives such as the “100 Ways to Reuse Things at Home” series, which resonated with people on social media. This commitment led to a sharp increase in orders once the lockdown was lifted. Karki saw the pandemic as an opportunity rather than a challenge, even though it limited access to materials and hampered product research.

She shares that her family and friends were Eco Saathi’s first customers and have remained supportive, helping promote the brand by sharing products on social media. This gradually connected new customers to the company. She remembers one customer who was delighted to receive products wrapped in newspaper, a personal touch that she managed herself and posted online. From the beginning, customers were open, receptive and excited to try Eco Saathi’s eco-friendly products, and many of the early customers continue to purchase from them today.

Karki founded Aama Surakshya Nepal, a non-profit organization inspired by her experience during pregnancy. After five miscarriages, she finally became pregnant and, after eight months, had a harrowing experience in a hospital where she had to wait in line for more than half an hour. It made her aware of the challenges faced by pregnant women in Nepal, even those like her who are privileged. She pointed out that women, especially during pregnancy, often become dependent on others, which can be dangerous if the person supporting them is violent. Hearing similar stories from her friends, she recognized the lack of safety and accessibility in public spaces for pregnant people. Aama Surakshya Nepal was created to make public spaces, transportation and health centers safer for pregnant women.

During a visit to Japan, Karki saw key fobs to identify pregnant women in public spaces, giving them priority. Taking inspiration from this, Aama Surakshya Nepal introduced badges for pregnant women, making them more visible and helping them navigate public spaces more effectively. This was the first time such badges were introduced in Nepal, and after a year, even Sajha buses now recognize and give priority to passengers wearing these badges. Since donors are few in number, the profits from Eco Saathi are donated to Aama Surakshya Nepal, which she co-founded with three friends.

Through Aama Surakshya Nepal, Karki and her team trained bus drivers and conductors in Godawari Municipality to make public buses safer for pregnant women. NIC Asia Bank also recognizes pregnancy badges, allowing badge holders to avoid queues. They have also organized gynecologist camps in several wards and plan to extend these efforts to primary health centers (PHCs) for cost-effectiveness reasons. A small study of badge users showed badges to be convenient and useful.

Finally, it encourages people to take small steps towards an eco-friendly lifestyle and to be responsible for our environment. She also says not to be insensitive towards pregnant people and to help them kindly when possible.