Hello. We're SUSTERA.

Nine years of building climate leaders, community by community. We train young people, strengthen communities, and connect local action with the systems that support it.

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See our work →

Nine years of programmes, verified results and photographs.

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Partner, volunteer, or fund a project you can check up on.

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The climate is getting louder every year. The response isn't getting bigger. India's climate response is not short of urgency — it is short of people. That's the gap we exist to close.

The numbers that are real

By the numbers

Every figure above is audited or funder-verified. The full dataset, programme by programme, is on the Impact page.

Who we are

SUSTERA Foundation was founded in Kerala in 2017 by Sanju Soman and Deepa Ananthapadmanabhan with one question: what would it take for local communities to not just survive climate change, but lead the response to it? Nine years on, the answer is the same as it was then — trained people, women's collectives, and organisations that stay.

Read our story → · Meet the team →

How we work

Four things, in a loop. Everything on this site fits one of them.

TRAIN

We build local climate leaders — young people, women, officials — through the Climate Leadership Program and its siblings.

ACT

We deliver community adaptation on the ground and stay for years. Two-year programmes, not two-week events.

FUND

We move resources to the frontline through participatory models like GenRE and our livelihoods pilot.

INFLUENCE

We turn field evidence into publications, handbooks and policy that government can act on.

Stories from the ground

Amballoor — a Panchayat that runs its own adaptation

Two years in with Wipro Foundation: four women-led enterprises trading, a disaster plan covering every ward, and a youth fellowship starting inside the Panchayat itself.

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"The community already had the knowledge. We helped them organise it."

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The coast — working where it matters most

In Valiyaveli and Valiyathura, with Allianz Services and Plastic Fischer, we're ahead of plan on every indicator this year — cleanups, workshops, women's enterprises, and a tailoring collective upcycling sarees into carry bags.

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Four cleanups, 1,144 kg removed, three community workshops — in six months.

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