OUR STORY

Meet the Founders

Deepa Pullanikkatil (PhD)
Co-Founder of Abundance

Brought up in Tanzania and Lesotho, and having attended university in India and South Africa, Deepa has lived and worked with people from various cultures and nationalities. She is a Civil Engineer turned Environmentalist, with a PhD in Environmental Science from South Africa and is currently based in Eswatini. She is Co-Director of Sustainable Futures in Africa, an international network covering Scotland, Nigeria, Uganda, Malawi, Botswana and Eswatini. She has been involved in climate change adaptation work for Government of Malawi, Eswatini and for development partners such as SADC, GIZ, UNDP. Deepa has completed a Post Doctoral Research Fellowship from Rhodes University and undertaken consultancy work for the University of Glasgow in 2018. www.deepapullanikkatil.com

How it all Began
Abundance began as a "wish", "dream" and "vision" of Deepa Pullanikkatil, who was touched by the suffering she saw in Malawi where she spent five years of her life between 2009-2015. Read more......

Cyril Anand Bakianathan
Co-Founder of Abundance

Cyril is a Harvard Alumni with over 15 years of experience across Technology, Media & Telecom. He is based in Qatar and works as Director of Ooredoo Qatar managing a team of senior managers responsible for business development of Mega Projects contributing to the QNV 2030. He is an accomplished public speaker, has delivered speeches at GSMA, World Stadium Congress, Soccerex, Arab Future Cites and a TEDx Speech on entrepreneurship.
Cyril lives in Doha, Qatar.

Read Cyril Anand's article at Harvard University website where he talks about what inspired him to start Abundance:
https://www.exed.hbs.edu/assets/testimonials/Pages/program-for-leadership-development-cyril-anand.aspx

Thangam Pillai
Co-Founder of Abundance

Thangam Pillai is General Manager of Vivartana Ventures, based in Chennai, India. Previously, she was an Entrepreneur running an automobile maintenance workshop in Dubai, UAE for more than eleven years. She is an avid reader and writes blogs and short stories. She has published a book "Auto Maintenance Industry: An Insight! ". She was active with Toastmasters club in UAE and has helped many with public speaking skills and providing encouragement and skills for entrepreneurship. She also set up a charitable group called Manifest Humanity which supported underprivileged girls and boys in India.
Thangam lives in Chennai, India.

Meet the Malawi Team

Executive Director : Ruth Mumba

Community Coordinator: Moses Phulusa

Research and Projects Manager: Stewart Paul

Administrator: Grace Moyo

Communications and Project Officer: Andrew Chikondi Kamvazakazi

Malawi Team Click here to read more on Malawi Team

Meet the Strategic Advisors

.	AdvisorsWe have a team of dedicated advisers from around the globe who advise on policy and operational matters for Abundance. Click here to learn more about them

Meet the Board of Trustees

Our Board of Trustees

Our Board of Trustees began working together in April 2016 to set up Abundance as an organization. Click here to learn more about them

Read Abundance's blogposts and serendipitous happenings

What does the Abundance Logo signify?

The Abundance Logo has the “Tree of Life” which is a universal symbol of abundance, signifying growth and regeneration beyond generations. It is also connecting the earth, human family and the spiritual realm as it extends from roots, to the world and beyond. Therefore, we are part of the oneness of the universe and hence have the responsibility to help others as we all Journey on into the future.

The colour purple signifies harmony of yin(red) and yang(blue), good judgement, spiritual fulfillment, intuition and is the colour of abundance in many cultures. White stands for purity, possibility and sincererity.
The tag line “Care, Share, Empower” relate to our values.

Christine Cooper is the designer of the logo. She is an Environmental Scientist living in Vancouver, Canada and created this logo as part of her "Giving" her time to Abundance.

How it all began

Abundance began as a "wish", "dream" and "vision" of Deepa Pullanikkatil, who was touched by the suffering she saw in Malawi where she spent five years of her life between 2009-2015. After leaving Malawi and moving to Swaziland with her husband and child, the images of the Malawian communities were vivid in her mind and disturbed her deeply, Having gained some confidence with supporting charitable work for girl's education lead by her former classmate (www.manifesthumanity.org), Deepa started envisioning helping communities in Malawi. She shared this vision with friends and family and found overwhelming support.

Two of her friends, Cyril Anand and Thangam Pillai offered to accompany her to Malawi at their own expense to kick start charitable activities in April 2016. This selfless act of theirs boosted confidence for Deepa. Then another miracle happened. The initial plan was to use personal savings for Abundance work in Malawi and accordingly Deepa purchased her air ticket for Malawi using her savings. After a week, she received the unexpected news that since she completed her PhD on time, she was provided a "Completion Grant" by her University in South Africa. The amount exactly covered the expenses for air ticket and accommodation and this was accepted as a timely miracle and serendipitous encouragement from God/Universal energy.

Now Abundance has a team of world-class advisors, trustees and supporters and has plans to expand to more countries in the future. Abundance gives a chance to anybody who wants to help others to bring their talent, skills, time, effort or wealth and contribute to improve human well being as well as protect nature. Crowdfunding will be used to collect resources for Abundance's activities. Abundance prides itself in being transparent in all its dealings, giving regular updates to its partners and using negligible or nil funds collected for overheads. We believe...everybody can make a difference!

Some images from Malawi

Malawi was chosen as the first country to begin Abundance's work as it was the country that inspired the Founder to create the organization. It is one of the most needy countries in the world. Malawi is located in South-East Africa, with breath-taking natural beauty, but challenged by high levels of poverty and environmental degradation. Malawi has a population of approximately 17.2 million (2015), of which 51.75% live below the poverty line of $3.10 a day and 33.29% live below $1.90 a day (2011 Worldbank data). It ranks 173 out of 188 countries on the 2014 Human Development Index with a Gross National Income (per capita) of US$ 372 in 2015. More than 89% of households in Malawi depend on income derived wholly or in part, from the exploitation of the natural resource, mainly through agriculture, forestry and fisheries. Between 1972 and 1992 the Malawi’s forest cover is estimated to have fallen from 46% to 20% at a deforestation rate of 2.8% per annum. Forests and trees play essential roles in ensuring the continued productivity of the natural resource base which underpins much of economic activity in Malawi.

Cyril Anand, Thangam Pillai and Deepa Pullanikkatil from Doha (Qatar), Dubai (UAE) and Mbabane (Swaziland) came together to begin charitable work in Malawi in April 2016. The initial focal area were communities along Lake Chilwa Shores (Southern Malawi) and activities included needs assessment and distribution of fuel efficient stoves. Lake Chilwa is a Ramsar site, a UNESCO Biodiversity Reserve and is a fragile lake ecosystem which has dried up 10 times in past 100 years, making the people who depend on the lake for their livelihoods prone to environmental shocks. Many interventions are needed here as the communities are extremely poor and vulnerable. A ranking exercise was done with communities to identify priority areas for intervention. The Abundance team are working on an integrated approach with the intention of creating deep impact improving human well being and allowing nature to thrive in this area. Let's share abundance...one village at a time!