Alumnus Spotlight: Shivam Punjya ’13 Melds Fashion and Health

“I knew I wanted to work in the global space, and Duke Global Health Institute’s (DGHI's) values and goals resonated with my principles better than any other program,” said Shivam Punjya, a 2013 Master of Science in Global Health (MSc-GH) alumnus from the greater Bay Area in California. “DGHI takes an incredible interdisciplinary approach to solving international problems, which was exactly the kind of work I was interested in.” 

Intrigued by the concept of social enterprise, Punjya graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 2010 after studying political economy and global poverty. Upon graduating, Punjya was looking for a way to bridge his interests in social impact investing and health initiatives when he came across Duke’s MSc-GH program.

Punjya’s Background Instilled a Sense of Ethics from a Young Age 

Punjya, who was born and raised in a rural area of northern California, says his progressive Indian family instilled in him a deep sense of ethics from an early age.

“Growing up in a low-income community surrounded with a diverse group of folks made me starkly aware of the different struggles people faced,” Punjya said. “My family was formative in making me conscious of my own privilege and how to use privilege to address a larger community.” 

While pursuing political economics at UC Berkeley, one professor inspired Punjya to look at nontraditional ways to address global issues. Punjya was especially interested in how he could impact women’s and children’s health though social enterprise. He had noticed that nutritional supplementations would be particularly palatable to an Indian market, but had no understanding of health implications in developing economies. 

“The DGHI master’s program was the perfect bridge to connect my interests in ethical enterprise and health initiatives.”

Punjya Finds a Unique Market during his Fieldwork in India

For his thesis, Punjya investigated the impact and utilization of folic acid supplementation by pregnant women to curtail neural tube deficits in Hyderabad, India. He worked closely with the Indian Institute of Public Health to grapple with how best to assess nutritional supplementation rates in such a complex space. Because he was able to speak the local language, Punjya gained a deep sense of the local’s day-to-day experience. 

“Communication was really paramount for me. It allowed people to speak more candidly and allowed me to understand the people I was working with in a different way and through a unique lens,” said Punjya. 

He also spent time in Jaipur interning with Root Alliance, where he tested utilization rates of a solar lantern. As Punjya became familiar with the city, he noticed that a lot of participants and people he met were textile weavers. This realization piqued his interest in the intersection of health and industry. 

“My thesis work brought to life an entirely different industry—garment factories—from a new health perspective in a truly eye-opening way for me.”

Punjya Shakes up the Fashion World

After graduating from the program in 2013, Punjya began thinking of how he could use his undergraduate and DGHI experience to bring change to garment factory workers in India. 

“I was so taken by my DGHI experience in India and learning about a textile industry that I grew up with but knew nothing about. I wanted to shake things up in India with the manufacturing of clothing.”

He noted that Indian clothing has a stereotype of being poorly constructed and made in sweat shops. When Punjya learned that the Rana Plaza garment factory collapsed in Bangladesh and killed more than 1,100 people—the vast majority of whom were women—Punjya was ready to take action. 

“I wanted to rectify the broken system, to build our own version of a garment factory that looked at garment workers holistically.” 

That year, Punjya founded Behno, a fashion company based in New York that aims to provide ethically manufactured clothes and showcase a different side of the Indian garment industry. Behno works to understand what textile workers need to live better, healthier lives and then fulfills that need by setting up partnership between factories and health organizations. 

Behno has grown quickly; it now works with nine factories in India, most of which are family businesses looking to challenge the system. 

Behno Prioritizes Health of Workers

Behno has “The Behno Standard” and one of component is family planning. Many textile workers in India are young women who are trying to have families and while most are aware of prenatal care, they are not sure how to receive it. Behno stepped in to help create partnership between factories and local nonprofits to fill this demand. 

“We try to think of what the workers want and how we can then provide those health services to them,” said Punjya. With Behno’s help, factory workers now have a hospital on board where they can receive prenatal care, and other healthcare. 

Importance of Measuring Impact among Greatest DGHI Lessons 

Punjya says the biggest thing he took away from DGHI was learning why and how impact should be measured.

“Measuring and knowing the social returns on an investment is instrumental because impact is such a credible tool to convince others to join a movement,” said Punjya. “It’s something I learned from DGHI that I rely on a day-to-day basis in my job now when we plan for measurement.”

Punjya also credits DGHI for his deep understanding of how to interview and work with people openly while instigating change in his business. 

“DGHI taught me the importance of listening to people. It’s through my experiences listening at Duke that I really had the opportunity to explore the intersection of industry and health outcomes, which turned into the inspiration for Behno’s mission.”