Grameen Surya Bijlee Foundation

Our office is over at 5/L in the Laxmi Industrial Estate, right on the New Link Road in Andheri West. It's a busy part of town, and the estate is always full of people moving boxes and vans backing in and out. Even though we are in the middle of the city, we mostly think about rural lighting and solar power. The space here is a mix of an office and a small warehouse. We have shelves full of solar lamps and small kits meant for places where the grid doesn't reach. It’s not a polished corporate space; we have old desks and boxes stacked in the corners. We spend a lot of time testing the batteries and making sure the panels are working right before they get sent out. Sometimes it gets a bit chaotic when a large shipment arrives, and we all have to help move stuff around. We don't have a big marketing budget or anything like that. We just focus on getting the gear to where it needs to go. The tea stalls outside are always packed, so we usually just brew some in the back. It’s a good group of people working here, mostly just regular folks who want to do a decent job. We’ve been in this building for quite a while now and know all the security guards and the other tenants by name. The elevator is often broken, so we carry things up the stairs.