Teen Initiative Made@gain to Distribute 1,500 Notebooks in Sarjapur

Sixteen-year-old Samaira Garg’s initiative, Made@gain, will distribute 1,500 brand-new notebooks across three government schools in Sarjapur on August 15 as part of an ongoing drive to provide recycled educational materials to children across Bengaluru Rural.

The project began in November 2024, when Samaira was 15 years old, after she discovered a cupboard full of old notebooks containing unused pages. While she initially considered stapling the blank pages together, she questioned giving children visibly used materials and wondered why students in need should receive second-hand items. This led her to research paper recycling to determine if discarded materials could be converted into entirely new stationery.

During her research, Samaira identified a Bengaluru-based company that manufactures stationery from reprocessed paper and approached its co-founder, Ashutosh Ananth, with her idea. Ananth agreed to partner with her, marking the official start of the Made@gain project.

Since its inception, the initiative has collected nearly 20 tonnes of discarded books and paper. The collection drives rely on involvement from residential communities, schools, corporate offices, architects, printers, shop owners, and other local businesses. Made@gain also utilizes a student ambassador model, where students organize school collection drives and encourage peers to rethink waste management.

The process goes beyond simply separating usable pages. Collected material is sorted and sent for recycling, where it undergoes several stages, including shredding, pulping, cleaning, and pressing, before being converted into new paper and eventually bound into brand-new notebooks. To date, the project has converted its collected waste into 10,000 notebooks.

Samaira previously visited three schools serving Soliga children in Biligiri Rangana Hills in Chamarajanagar, where she met children who had never owned a brand-new notebook.

Following the August 15 drive in Sarjapur, Made@gain plans to reach 20 government schools around Sarjapur and Bengaluru Rural within the month. The initiative has set an overall target to distribute one lakh notebooks annually to complete the recycling loop by directly benefitting students in need.