Roundglass Foundation catalyses wholistic transformation across rural communities creating an interconnected ecosystem where environmental restoration, youth empowerment, women’s equity, and cultural preservation reinforce each other towards sustainable development.
Dear Friends and Partners,
2023-24 was not about doing more but about doing better. We chose the path of consolidation, understanding that sustainable transformation requires deep roots to lay the foundation for scale and long-term impact.
We reorganised our programmes into coherent systems, consolidated approaches into integrated models, and transformed individual projects into interconnected platforms. In Punjab’s villages, we witnessed profound shifts where our approach yielded stakeholder trust and our programmes penetrated lives of the community. Most importantly, our on-ground strategies are led and implemented by our Changemakers, who are promising young people from the community, especially women.
This year taught us that profound revolutions often look like quiet evolutions. Real change happens through patient trust-building, one relationship at a time. The Billion Tree Project planted 1,024,361 trees at the same time demonstrating that environmental restoration creates meaningful livelihoods. Learn Labs engaged with 2,572 children working towards their reading proficiency, positioning children as problem-solvers within their communities. 4,457 children actively participated across our 128 Sports Centers, inspiring community-wide engagement for athletics. The Yoga & Wellbeing programme reached 11,093 people while creating pathways for women wellness leaders.
What made this year extraordinary was witnessing how programmes reinforce each other. The Billion Tree Project created 5,122 green jobs, Learn Labs built leadership capacity, Yoga & Wellbeing strengthened community resilience, and Roundglass Sustain connected 15.2 million global audiences to local realities. Sports Centers provided the platform for systematic talent pathways for excellence that feed into Roundglass Sports’ development programmes.
We sincerely thank our donors and partners for their confidence and support in us, in this journey.
Our governance excellence created the institutional foundation for ambitious partnerships ahead, while the depth achieved through consolidation positions us for transformative scaling in the coming years.
With deep appreciation for the journey,
Vishal Chowla Leader, Roundglass Foundation
Vishal Chowla
Our integrated approach
Punjab agricultural landscape with paddy cultivation
Transforms rural communities through three interconnected thematic areas:
Environment & Sustainability
The Billion Tree Project (TBTP): Revolutionises afforestation through systematic identification of more than 170 indigenous species found in and around Punjab, restoring its botanical heritage while generating thousands of green jobs.
Waste Management: Demonstrates the power of behaviour change by enabling circular economy principles at scale, transforming waste streams into valuable resources through community-owned systems that generate compost for farmers and recyclables for markets.
Youth Development
Learn Labs: After-school remedial training intervention designed to create joyful learners. Inspired by the New Education Policy 2020, the programme focuses on foundational literacy, and problem solving, enabling young people to move the needle on learning outcomes.
Sports Centers: Engages children in structured sports activities, primarily football and volleyball, and builds platforms for community participation and social skills. The programme has a dedicated focus on girls’ participation that challenges cultural norms and creates new models of women’s leadership in public spaces.
Creates pathways for world-class athletes, from village playgrounds to grassroots and development centres across Punjab, and onwards to academies of excellence across football, hockey, tennis, and golf. The programme provides exposure to national and international competitions while working closely with communities to ensure every village becomes a potential talent pipeline.
Women’s Equity
Yoga & Wellbeing: Nurtures wholistic health and wellbeing in communities by training local women as certified wellness providers through intensive Training of Trainers models, embedding preventive wellbeing practices at the grassroots while generating sustainable livelihood opportunities.
Livelihoods: Builds economic agency through Self-Help Groups and pilot enterprises that strengthen both individual confidence and collective capacity for future economic empowerment. Women’s livelihood is crafted to be an anchor for the design and delivery of all programmes.
India’s leading platform for nature storytelling, dedicated to documenting and celebrating India’s rich biodiversity. The programme makes science accessible, creates partnerships with communities, and inspires deeper connections for our stakeholders with nature, while supporting conservation awareness, education, and action.
OUR INTEGRATED APPROACH / SYSTEMIC FOUNDATION
From projects to platforms
In 2023-24, we reimagined development programming for lasting change. We focussed our energies on building sustainable platforms for long-term impact.
RGF Nursery, Lang Village, Patiala
Indigenous Knowledge Integration
The Billion Tree Project underwent complete reorganisation around Punjab’s native species wisdom, documenting more than 100 indigenous species throughout rural Punjab. This scientific approach to traditional knowledge created ecological restoration foundations that work with local conditions. Each of our nurseries became living libraries preserving ancient varieties for ecosystem restoration that honours indigenous wisdom.
Accessibility Revolution ThroughTranslation
Roundglass Sustain launched an accessibility revolution, translating films into seven regional languages, Assamese, Kumaoni, Malayalam, Sikkimese, Marathi, Bengali, Kashmiri, in addition to Hindi and English. This required new collaborator networks and a systematic model for multilingual conservation communication maintaining relatable storytelling, everyday language accessibility, and rigorous fact-checking across linguistic boundaries.
Economic Platforms
New languages unlock new audiences, making conservation stories truly inclusive
Waste Management evolved from disposal solutions to circular economy systems integrating infrastructure development, leveraging government funding, intensive community mobilisation for behaviour change, and resource recovery where waste streams become valuable compost inputs. This systematic approach enabled 78 villages to process 7,800 tons of wet waste while generating about 1,500 tons of compost and creating dedicated employment for village women. At the same time, our Women’s Livelihoods program piloted initiatives to create livelihood opportunities through investments in micro-enterprises.
TBTP NATIVE SPECIES DOCUMENTATION
100+ species
Complete botanical heritage
TBTP INDIVIDUAL NURSERY INFRASTRUCTURE
10 acres 100% expansion
WASTE MANAGEMENT PROCESSING SYSTEMS
78 Villages 255%
Scale increase
ROUNDGLASS SUSTAIN MULTILINGUAL PLATFORM
7 Regional languages
Accessibility breakthrough
OUR INTEGRATED APPROACH / COMMUNITY OWNERSHIP
Earning trust through results
2023-24 marked the definitive solidification of our programmes to community-owned systems through consistent delivery, visible results, and respect for local knowledge.
Husanpreet Kaur from Dau Majra transformed her first football kick into a U13 Nationals silver medal through the One Girl One Football initiative.
Cultural Transformation in Health & Wellbeing
Communities stepped up to be adopters and training partners for our Yoga and Wellbeing programme. Universities and colleges requested sessions, police departments sought stress management training. Changemakers evolved to be trusted health leaders whose expertise extended beyond their own village, ultimately serving 11,093 people across 67 centres. Under our Livelihoods programme, close to 200 women across 14 Self-Help Groups (SHG) were empowered economically.
Sports Community Enthusiasm
Sports Centers provided the platform for community engagements. Introduction of Training-of-Trainer sessions facilitated the consolidation of training efforts and expansion of initiatives such as the One Girl One Football (1G1F) programme that addresses gender equity by creating safe, supportive environments for girls to participate in sports. 1,727 girls actively participated in the 1G1F initiative in the year.
Environmental Community Engagement
TBTP fostered cultural shifts around environmental stewardship, with village communities actively engaging in restoration opportunities. The systematic documentation of native species through community participation created ownership of botanical heritage.
Women practicing yoga in Fatehpur village, SAS Nagar
YOGA CENTRES LED BY WOMEN CHANGEMAKERS
OUR INTEGRATED APPROACH / SPECIALISED EXCELLENCE
Mastering unique value
While building integrated systems, each programme developed distinctive expertise creating unique value propositions that strengthened the entire ecosystem.
Spotlighting Meghalaya’s cave ecosystems like Krem Chyme which harbour little known species
Creative Boundary Expansion in Conservation
Roundglass Sustain documented 85 new species and 25 habitats, integrating new creative approaches to build emotional resonance and highlight unique intersections with the natural world. The Munsiyari community music album wove conservation themes into local traditions, while the Time Turner audio-visual series connected contemporary challenges with historical conservation journeys. Nature wellbeing columns explored the connection between the natural world and emotional wellbeing.
Pedagogical Advancement in Learning
Learn Labs entered into a partnership with the Department of Education and State Council of Educational Research & Training, Punjab, translating broader national frameworks into localised, student-centric teaching methods, teacher training, and curricula. This helped consolidation of the approach and pedagogy of these after-school remedial centres to provide meaningful and relevant education to children.
Athlete Development Foundations
Roundglass Sports laid the foundation for high-performance training through ‘game-realistic’ practice environments. The Tennis Academy established international partnerships with Good 2 Great Academy, Sweden. The Football Academy built tactical discipline and structure while addressing consistency in performance.
“Roundglass Sustain is a fantastic initiative bringing together storytellers, wildlife enthusiasts, cartoonists, and photographers and allowing everyone, regardless of their interests and backgrounds, to explore the amazing biodiversity of India.”
DR. SHANNON
OLSSON, Global Director, The Echo Network
Children at the Learn Lab in Manakpur Sharif Village
OUR INTEGRATED APPROACH / CAPACITY BUILDING
Developing local excellence
Our consolidation strategy prioritised building exceptional local capacity over external service delivery, creating sustainable foundations for continued impact.
Coach Harjeet Singh with budding players at the Roundglass Hockey Academy, Nikke Ghumman, Gurdaspur district
Changemaker Professionalisation
The Changemaker Programme was created to enable community youth to take ownership of the programmes in their villages and regions, while supporting their livelihood through earnings for their contribution to Punjab’s development. The Changemakers were trained for every individual programme they were engaged with, be it Learn Labs, Sports Centers, Yoga, and others. This professionalisation created career pathways where community members grew from participants to service providers to programme leaders.
Sports Coaching Excellence
Roundglass Sports focused on building unified coaching philosophy across all sport academies, establishing the foundation for systematic talent development. The Tennis Academy developed specialised coaching in surface-based player development. The Football Academy introduced training for athletes to build tactical discipline and decision-making capabilities under pressure. The Hockey Academy strengthened grassroots to talent pathways of excellence with continued focus on early talent identification.
Technical Expertise Development
TBTP built technical capacity in nursery management, species identification, and ecosystem restoration, creating specialised knowledge that positioned community members as leaders rather than beneficiaries. Each of the nurseries became training centres where community members developed expertise in indigenous species cultivation and ecological restoration techniques.
“The
Billion Tree Project has transformed our farm landscape. Along with greener surroundings, we are seeing many native birds return after years in the planted mini forest. It feels like nature is healing itself around us”.
MANDEEP SINGH, Village Bassian, District Fatehgarh Sahib
Changemaker Diksha Rathour at work in Marji village, SAS Nagar
OUR INTEGRATED APPROACH / RECOGNITION AND INFLUENCE
Setting impact standards
Partnerships turn conservation storytelling into innovative, scalable tools for education, awareness
2023-24 established Roundglass Foundation as a community-centred development model, achieving recognition, validating approaches, and creating platforms for broader influence.
IMPACT AT A GLANCE
Partnership Innovation Models
Roundglass Sustain pioneered partnership models demonstrating how storytelling serves diverse organisational goals. The collaboration with the Prince of Wales Museum created a framework for enhancing institutional education through conservation content, while syndications with leading publications brought stories of biodiversity into mainstream media consumption. We partnered with Chandigarh Tourism on World Tourism Day 2023 to build awareness about sustainable travel practices and showcase how wildlife exists in spaces other than jungles such as wetlands, grasslands, and urban habitats. These partnerships established replicable models where conservation stories became tools for broader cultural education, at the same time, advancing awareness among urban audiences.
Positive Change Through Evidence
The TBTP programme achieved a significant impact standard with milestone plantation of one million trees planted within the year, contributing directly towards rural economic opportunities, and long-term ecosystem services including carbon sequestration, water conservation, and biodiversity habitat. This achievement set the foundation for standardised implementation modules including nursery development frameworks, Changemaker training protocols, and monitoring systems that can replicate across new geographies without compromising quality.
Sports Excellence Foundation
Roundglass Sports Centers aligned strategically with Punjab’s Sports Policy 2023 vision to restore the state’s prominence in national competition. Development & Grassroots Centers serving as feeder to the academies of excellence, under Roundglass Sports, gave opportunities to deserving athletes to take advantage of our professional coaching philosophy and international partnerships.
FROM THE ACADEMY TO THE NATIONAL TEAM
Players from our academy have gone on to represent India across age groups as well as several clubs in the Indian Super League.
EARLY START, LASTING PERFORMANCE
Winner of Under-16 Hockey India Junior Men Academy Championship 2023
COMPETING AGAINST THE BEST
Players from our academy have competed against the best, at all junior Grand Slams. Yuvan Nandal emerged in the Tennis ‘Top 40 Junior’
Balance Sheet as at March 31, 2024
(All amounts in INR thousands, unless otherwise stated)
Statement
of income and expenditure for the year ended March 31, 2024
(All amounts in INR thousands, unless otherwise stated)
For detailed audited report please follow the below link: Audited-FCRA-Financials-2023-24.pdf
Our governance consolidation focused on building institutional frameworks to support our approaches to organise complex initiatives into integrated systems.
Consolidation-Centred Governance
Effective consolidation demanded governance, integrating diverse programmes while maintaining distinct excellence in each area. Periodic reviews, internal audits, risk assessments, and performance monitoring mechanisms were institutionalised to strengthen oversight across environmental, social, educational, and community development programmes. Robust internal controls were embedded across financial, operational, and compliance processes to ensure the integrity of decision-making, prudent utilisation of resources, timely statutory filings, and effective risk mitigation. These measures enhanced organisational resilience while enabling efficient programme delivery and accountability to stakeholders.
Community-Centred Accountability
We continued to strengthen participatory governance practices by promoting community engagement, stakeholder consultation, and transparent reporting mechanisms. Feedback systems, impact protocols, and accountability frameworks prioritised community voice and local decision-making while maintaining established quality and governance standards. We maintained full compliance with applicable statutory and regulatory requirements, and regular compliance reviews demonstrated our commitment to ethical governance, regulatory compliance, and responsible stewardship of resources.
Looking ahead: Partnerships & Scale
The comprehensive consolidation achieved in 2023-24 through proven programme models, trained community leaders, established relationships, robust governance systems, and demonstrated impact positions Roundglass Foundation for strategic expansion through partnerships in 2024-25.
Our systematic approach to community ownership is designed to ensure that scaling strengthens local impact. Creative innovations in Roundglass Sustain conservation storytelling, cultural transformations in community health through Yoga & Wellbeing and Sports Centers participation, and technical excellence in The Billion Tree Project create platforms supporting broader collaboration while maintaining depth and authenticity that make our work effective.
The patient work of consolidation enables exponential scaling ahead, proving deepest roots enable tallest trees, and most innovative approaches emerge from thorough foundations.
