Van­dana Man­groo grew up in South Trinidad and de­scribes her child­hood self as one that was very ac­tive and al­ways out­doors play­ing with neigh­bours. She at­tend­ed Cedar Grove Pri­ma­ry School in Palmiste fol­lowed by Na­pari­ma Girls’ High School be­fore mi­grat­ing to Toron­to in 2004 to at­tend Ry­er­son Uni­ver­si­ty where she was award­ed an in­ter­na­tion­al stu­dent schol­ar­ship. While in Toron­to, Man­groo al­so pur­sued Fine Arts by at­tend­ing the On­tario Col­lege of Art and De­sign with a fo­cus on draw­ing and paint­ing. Up­on grad­u­at­ing, she got var­i­ous short jobs but she re­al­ly got her big break when she was hired by Warn­er Bros. to work in their Op­er­a­tions De­part­ment. In 2011, how­ev­er, Man­groo found her­self back to the shores of Trinidad and is to­day the Founder of Hel­lo Green, a com­pa­ny com­mit­ted to en­vi­ron­men­tal preser­va­tion which she part­ly at­tests to her child­hood years out­doors and her grow­ing fas­ci­na­tion with na­ture. Van­dana shared her ex­cit­ing suc­cess sto­ry with the WE Mad Team and we felt in­spired to share it with you, our dear read­ers. Here is a bit on Van­dana’s jour­ney.

What are you work­ing on at present?

Since my busi­ness is on­ly three years old, I am con­stant­ly look­ing at ways to ex­pand and grow sus­tain­ably. I am al­so look­ing to di­ver­si­fy in­to man­u­fac­tur­ing, us­ing lo­cal waste ma­te­ri­als so that we can bol­ster the col­lec­tion and use of re­cy­cled ma­te­ri­als na­tion­wide. I am al­so work­ing with oth­er par­ties to cre­ate com­postable ma­te­ri­als lo­cal­ly that can be used in lo­cal man­u­fac­tur­ing as well as ex­port­ed. These projects are very dear to me since it would re­al­ly change the way we think about waste. I am con­tin­u­ing my work with NGOs and oth­er agen­cies to im­prove waste man­age­ment lo­cal­ly, and to even­tu­al­ly in­tro­duce or­gan­ic re­cy­cling/com­post­ing. I am cur­rent­ly do­ing my Mas­ter’s De­gree at the Arthur Lok Jack School of Busi­ness which will be com­plet­ed in Au­gust 2019.

What are some of your trea­sured mile­stones thus far?

wHon­est­ly, the first thing that comes to mind, oth­er than my aca­d­e­m­ic ac­com­plish­ments, is my wed­ding. Not for the rea­sons that seem ob­vi­ous but be­cause the day rep­re­sent­ed so much more to my fam­i­ly and I. My moth­er, at the time, was liv­ing with Stage 4 Can­cer and my wed­ding was more of a cel­e­bra­tion of her and fam­i­ly than any­thing else. Look­ing back at those pho­tos, I feel noth­ing but true joy. My moth­er lost her bat­tle to can­cer on Old Year’s Day 2017, so I start­ed the New Year with­out her. In­ter­est­ing­ly, lat­er that year I was ho­n­oured with the ti­tle of “En­tre­pre­neur of the Year (start­up cat­e­go­ry)” from EY and the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of Com­merce and In­dus­try, which meant a lot more to me since it was tru­ly the dark­est year of my life. In one year, I ex­pe­ri­enced the low­est of lows and the high­est of highs.Pro­fes­sion­al­ly, I would have to say that be­ing the first com­pa­ny to bring 100% cer­ti­fied com­postable pack­ag­ing to the Caribbean and see­ing the ef­fect it has so far on aware­ness about cli­mate change and plas­tic pol­lu­tion, has been an amaz­ing ex­pe­ri­ence. See­ing gov­ern­ments of oth­er is­lands we op­er­ate in em­brace al­ter­na­tives and even ban sin­gle-use plas­tics and Sty­ro­foam as a re­sult, has helped to keep me mo­ti­vat­ed.

How Did You Han­dle Ad­ver­si­ty And Doubt?

When I lost my moth­er I was like any­one else, over­whelmed with grief. It hon­est­ly took months for me to even start to feel re­mote­ly like my­self. How­ev­er, I used this grief as a form of en­er­gy which I chan­nelled in­to my busi­ness and I al­so de­cid­ed to start my Mas­ters De­gree in Jan­u­ary 2018, right af­ter she passed. My moth­er was a de­ter­mined woman who fought for what she want­ed, and I knew that the best way to ho­n­our her lega­cy would be to keep fight­ing and pur­su­ing my own dreams. I be­lieve that in any sit­u­a­tion you can ei­ther say, “why me?” or “what is the les­son here?”. That is what I go back to any time I face ad­ver­si­ty. Start­ing a new busi­ness al­so comes with a myr­i­ad of emo­tions, doubt be­ing one of the top three. For the first year of my busi­ness I prob­a­bly cried every night from fear, wor­ry and be­ing over­whelmed. I just kept push­ing my­self with my end goal in mind and of course, with the love and sup­port of my fam­i­ly, close friends and my very own guardian an­gel.

What’s your ul­ti­mate goal or biggest dream for the fu­ture?

I do not have one ul­ti­mate goal since I have many, but see­ing my busi­ness con­tin­u­ing to grow and even­tu­al­ly be­come a lead­ing man­u­fac­tur­er, ex­porter and dis­trib­u­tor of com­postable items is my fo­cus. I am in the process of di­ver­si­fy­ing in­to the man­u­fac­tur­ing and in­no­va­tion sec­tor as I am cur­rent­ly work­ing with many third par­ties and ex­per­i­ment­ing with var­i­ous waste ma­te­ri­als such as re­cy­cled pa­per, saw­dust, rice husks and Sar­gas­sum sea­weed. Ul­ti­mate­ly be­ing able to cre­ate a new com­postable ma­te­r­i­al here lo­cal­ly that can re­place plas­tic is a dream that I am ac­tive­ly pur­su­ing.

What are you most grate­ful for?

With­out a doubt my fam­i­ly and friends. I am be­yond blessed when it comes to hav­ing a sup­port sys­tem that is one hun­dred per­cent ‘Team Van­dana’ even when I have the cra­zi­est ideas.