In 2016, as a postgraduate student at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Pooja Kaul was on a packed government bus winding through the sunlit roads of Solapur, Maharashtra. While fellow passengers chatted around her, Pooja’s mind was consumed by the pressure of her college project — a pilot study that could shape her career.

Then, outside the window, something unusual caught her eye — a herd of donkeys trotting beside their owner. Intrigued, she asked the bus driver to stop. That spontaneous detour led her to the Lashkar community, migrant labourers who relied on donkeys for work in brick kilns and construction sites.

“The families who own donkeys migrate each year in search of work. Despite toiling all day, they earn just Rs 300–400, barely enough to feed their large families — let alone their donkeys. These animals, crucial to their livelihood, are often neglected and underfed, especially during the monsoon when construction jobs dry up,” she shares.

Pooja wanted to collaborate with the community and help them find economic value in an often-ignored resource — donkey milk, known for its rich nutritional profile and similarity to human breast milk. But her idea was met with suspicion.

“They thought I was going to do black magic with the milk and their donkeys would die,” she recalls.

Undeterred, she spent six months visiting the community every evening, listening to their concerns and slowly gaining their trust. These conversations laid the foundation for Organiko, a social enterprise that would go on........

© The Better India