The man who left his lucrative job in the US to work for stray animals in India
Have you ever heard the story of Robin Singh, the current co-founder of Peepal Farm? Not yet? Well, let me do this favour for you.
But, let me first introduce you all to the Peepal Farm. It is a stray animal rescue, an awareness organisation, and a women-powered small-scale social enterprise in Village Dhanotu, District Kangra, Himachal Pradesh.
Coming back to Robin. He was just 11 years old when his romance with computers started. This very love got him into programming, and it soon turned into the profession.
His beginning
While pursuing his Bachelor’s degree in computer science from Delhi University (1997-2000), he started doing freelance projects for pocket money.
One fine day, while he was mailing some of his old clients, asking if they had some related work. Call it luck or something, Robin was about to mail his old client brint dot com (brint.com), but he misspelt and wrote brink dot com (brink.com).
As a result, the mail reached Danny Vinik (current three-star general at Brink). As Robin informs, Danny was a filmmaker and a media guy in Arizona, US. Danny, back then, was creating a website for Kevin Spacey and considering Robin’s work, he asked him to join his team, and Robin agreed. After two years, Danny asked Robin to come to the USA due to the time differences between India and the USA. Robin reached the USA in 2003.
By the age of 30, Robin was very well settled in the USA, and he was enjoying his life. However, Robin was not feeling well.
Turning point
Robin was enjoying his life but was unhappy and started hating his materialistic life. He soon turned to philosophical knowledge.
As Robin said, “The reason I was not feeling happy living a luxurious life is that someone else is suffering to provide me with such life.”
What he means is the excessive consumption that he was having, which ultimately had a negative impact on the environment and its organisms. They suffer pain, and thus Robin decides to work towards reducing this suffering.
As per Robin, after successfully exiting in 2011, he went to Auroville in 2012 to dedicate more time to developing his worldview. Choosing the path of service – helping those who can’t help themselves – in 2013, along with two other co-founders, he started a project to help rebuild and re-start a volunteer program at Integrated Animal Care Center in Auroville.
Later that year, Robin started ABC Co-operative in New Delhi, a stray dog sterilization program in collaboration with stray dog feeders to create puppy-free pockets.
The Project
Realizing that the nature of welfare projects in India being such that they can’t be scaled by scaling the infrastructure, I changed the strategy from just “doing” to involving and inspiring.
In December 2014, along with two other co-founders, he started Peepal Farm – a place for animals to heal and be heard.
“It started out as a home that we built with space for injured stray animals to heal & be heard, for people who wanted to help, and for us to be able to organically farm while reducing our harm,” said Robin.
Team UPDEED salutes such changemakers in society for their exemplary work.
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Robin’s story is truly motivating. It takes a lot of courage and selflessness to leave behind a successful career and start a new project, especially one that involves helping stray animals. Thank you for sharing this inspiring tale with us.