#37: How One Leader Sparked Community Transformation Through Beekeeping
Episode 37 | 16 Minutes | Auguest 12, 2025
Community development doesn’t have to be complicated. Sometimes it starts with one person who has a skill and a leader willing to connect the dots.
That’s what happened in northeastern India, where One Collective Catalyst Pradeep began walking alongside his community. By empowering a local beekeeper, he helped create jobs, restore dignity, and open doors for spiritual transformation.
Listen in to hear how Pradeep is using faith, entrepreneurship, and local leadership to create lasting change.
In this Episode, you will learn:
How empowering just one person can spark widespread community impact
Why local skills and relationships are key to sustainable development
What it looks like to integrate job creation and faith in a respectful, lasting way
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Pradeep is a Catalyst with One Collective serving in northeastern India. After coming to faith 20 years ago, he and his wife returned to their home community to pursue lasting transformation. Through a model focused on local leadership, job creation, and spiritual renewal, Pradeep has launched a beekeeping initiative that now empowers over 70 people and continues to multiply through grassroots leadership. His story is a powerful example of how trusting God and investing in just one person can ripple outward to bless entire communities.
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Hey everybody. Welcome to the Lasting Change podcast. My name is Scott Olson, and if you've been listening to us, you know that in every episode we try to explore strategies for creating sustainable
and holistic change around the world. And our goal and our hope for you is that by listening, you'll gain some valuable insights that drive change in your
community, your
career, and even when your in your family.
Uh, in some kind of a
holistic and sustainable way. So, today, uh, is an
extra special blessing to me to
have my friend Pradeep, who's coming to us from a very, very long ways away. and Pradeep, welcome to the Lasting Change
podcast today. So glad to have you here,
my friend.
Thank you so much.
for inviting me in this PO podcast. It is my great privilege.
So glad to have you here. Where Safely speaking, where, where, where are you in the
world right now?
I'm in South Asia. I'm in Northeastern part of India.
And can you tell me before we dive into questions about your ministry, I think our listeners would love to just know a little bit about you and your family and your interests, things that are
important to you.
Yeah.
I'm Pradeep and my wife, her name is Z and, I have two sons. They're grown up. My eldest one, he is helping me.
In the ministry and going for further study for impact entrepreneurship. He has a great heart
for the community transformation and youngest one, he is in
education. He is,
uh, working in education department and whole family.
We are serving God together and my wife and I we are working together in, in the community. In fact, we are here,
To see some change in the community. We, have committed our lives to,
20 years back. In fact we,
Were not Christian before, but when we believed in Jesus Christ, 20 years back,
I and my wife committed our lives to S Guard and we, uh, shared, uh, in different, community before, even we served in, campus universities. Then after, at this stage, like we came back to our own community, uh, to see some change in the community. There are a lot of problem, lot of challenges.
In the community So, that uh, we decided to come back in our own community. A lot of people are lost and like people are poor. And,
uh, we thought that like,
how can we see some change or lasting change in the community and
the lives of people. Uh, since then, we are
working, in our community
and in, in, in our journey.
Uh, we. Came to know about one collective. No. And we're serving, through one collective since five years. Yeah.
Hey folks, we are, uh, as you as you know, we're on a, we're on a call with, uh, with my friend Pradeep, who's in India. And, um, if you're not accustomed to global travel and, and working in, in a lot of different places around the world, there's certain places where the internet is a big struggle.
And India, in my experience, has always been, a challenge. And so what you don't know is
that as Pradeep and I have been talking,
I think we've lost him four or five times. And so we're trying to capture what we can, but it's, it's hard to keep, the
questions and the conversation going pretty deep.
I wonder if you could only say one thing, tell one
story about transformation in your community that really makes you just so proud, so happy,
so grateful to God. What would that story be?
Yeah, looking into my community, there are very much skilled and gifted people. I found when we surveyed the community. So in order to develop, uh, the skilled and gifted people, I. Like in the year of, 2020, uh, before pandemic hit, I, , organized BMM Disciple Making Movement training to the people, and I brought 20 people together during that
training, I envisioned about the community transformation and holistic, holistic transformation,
not using my
strength, but using all other people's strength. But there was one guy named
John, John, he's Christian Guy.
Uh, he's very much skilled
in beekeeping. He had been keeping
bees since decay, so I came to know that like he's a very potential guy, so I.
Challenge him during our training. Three days training.
I personally talk with him. Can you use your strength as a gift, a skill it, uh, in order to develop other people of the community so that the, we may see some changes in their life and they may generate some, uh, sustainable income in their family so that
he got so happy and right after training. He organized, uh, beekeeping training, just for
A long day
training.
And,
like 15 people turn up then after we planned, beekeeping team,
then we started
beekeeping in my own, Family land. I just, envision them like you can use my family land so that we can, we can make a model, uh, beekeeping farming, e model
E in my community.
So everybody got encouraged and they, uh, started working in my, ancestral land. My family land now my son. Also, he's a skilled youth. He came back, uh, from South India. He also involved, uh, in our movement. And the John John, he started like developing other people to develop more cluster in the community.
Now he's a change maker. John is a change maker. He's developing other people. He is, providing beekeeping training. We are helping him. I'm not, uh, the, uh, beekeeping guy, but I just envision and use his skilled strength. Now we have like registered this beekeeping small beekeeping initiative as a private limited company.
And, uh, we have created some, uh. Every, most, a lot of people are involved with us and we are helping them, uh, like we are providing training. Even now, we are providing 15 days honey processing training. Yeah. 40 people are there and we have, developed a cluster.
Why I'm sharing this, uh, from one guy, John.
I envision him about the community transformation. He being a change maker, he is educating other people and there is one guy named Deepak. Deepak is another guy, in fact, he's the disciple of John. And, Deepak is mobilizing his skilled in his community now. Now we have five clusters now. Right after this 15 days h processing training, uh, we are expecting six more clusters in the community.
What we are seeing, we are seeing a rapid multiplication,
And we are seeing that
they are very happy. They're enjoying in this initiative
and even they are, generating income. what we are how we are helping them since they are keeping bees and the production, the bee like, honey, honey, we are buying that honey.
We have label, we have bottling and we are selling. The mark market is very tough, marketing is very tough, but they are not taking, challenges of the marketing. We are taking care of the marketing. So they are selling, they're giving their product to us, and we're, we're helping, uh, with the income.
Uh, and they're happy and they, and we are seeing some, like changes in their life even from this initiative. No, uh, some people are believing in Jesus also.
Because we are, we, uh, we are sharing the love of Christ also because they are bound, uh, with lot of, uh, darkness, bondages, lot of prejudices are there, lot of superstition, uh, things are there.
We are helping them to, uh, see the real, uh, meaning of life. The purpose of life. This thing like, uh, John and Deepak and other, other people who are involved with us like. Till today we trained 70 people. 70 people, and
uh, see, because of only one people, only one guy named John, he is really creating lot of change in the community.
And I would say that, um, in the days to come. Uh, we will have more impact now. Local government is partnering with us. Um, they're come, uh, coming forward and seeing our A PAE
because we worked hard, we did not expect any income from other avenue. We worked hard. We invested from our own. Strength and we try
to develop our own farm over here. Now this is a model farm.
We
have the reason for people, people
development and environment development. And only
profit, PP, p people,
planet,
and profit. Uh, we are moving ahead with the people together to see some lasting change in the community.
So not only are you training people in new jobs, you're providing jobs, you're giving everybody the beautiful gift of honey. You're making money off of it that expands the ministry and you're talking to people
about Jesus and the whole process. I didn't realize it's, you're, you're impacting up to 70
people now.
And that's just through this beekeeping ministry.
It's because of one guy. Because of one guy. We, we could see some change in the community. Yeah. Lot of impact.
So when you look at your community, Pradeep, what is your greatest hope
for the future? What do you hope to see happen there?
I want to see, changes in three aspect, social aspect, economic aspect, and a
spiritual aspect.
Like even I wanna see people being saved in the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, number one. That is why I
have invested my life, uh, and came back to my community. When I do, my ministry, the holistic approach, I always think that when this guy will hear about the Jesus Jesus Christ, and always I think about sharing about the love of Jesus Christ.
So my inner, uh, motivation is to, my people being saved in the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. There are a lot of, people, families are poor. We are trying a little bit to see some,
Change,
Through their work and like creating some
job avenue. Yeah. We are also helping in that
aspect also.
But
I wanna see some,
Families or community being saved in the, some saving
So that's, that's your great hope. What is the struggle that could keep you or prevent you from, from realizing those goals? I.
People are very much really justly conscious. They have their own,
Pattern of faith.
So that is also one of the, challenges. But I do hope that when we, approach this thing positively, there won't be, impossible. Number two, my hope is, change in the caste system. Educated, uneducated. People still have that mindset. If, uh, I could, uh, help in this avenue even we are trying our level best to, like educate people in this aspect. But. This is challenging. It takes time. But my hope, my anticipation is,
people must have the sense of connectedness,
Yep.
uh, sense
of, equality.
So there should not be any gender bias approach in the community. I, I have that
expectation.
Well, my friend, you are doing a great
job
and I am grateful. To have you as a friend. I'm grateful to
be associated with you
through one collective, you are working in a tough part of the world and you're doing great
things and amazing things, and God's hand is on your life, and I'm very, very, very proud of you.
So
thank you and thank you to, uh, to John and to the others who've been such a blessing to the community.
And,
doing great
This has been great to be able to see you. I haven't seen you in a while,
and it's been great to talk to you and, uh, maybe before the technology breaks out one more time, we'll, we'll bring this to a close, but I loved hearing your story.
I
loved, it's just an amazing story and, and, uh, again, the Lord is using you, so thank you, brother.
Yeah. Thank you so much. God is at work. He is moving powerfully in the community.
Yes he is. Yes he
it's, yeah, it's challenging, but we are seeing great, work of God in, in our community. Yeah.
Well, thank you Pradeep, and to you who are listening. Thanks for, uh, thanks for joining us on The Lasting Change Podcast. I hope that these insights, I hope that hearing some of Pradeep stories, have changed you. Uh, I hope it's impacted you. I hope
you've felt, his heart for his people,
you know, lasting change, the transformation. It isn't easy, but it is
possible. And, uh, when we approach problems with creativity, humility, and a long-term perspective, which is exactly what you heard from Pradeep today. So if you ever wanna dive deeper into the ideas that we discussed on this show or on other podcasts that we've done, head over to one collective.org/.
Podcast and over there you can find links to resources, past episodes and, and different ways to connect further with our community. Until next time, keep going. You guys have got this. Go change the world.