We were lucky to catch up with Sarayu Ayyalasomayajula recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Sarayu thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Is there a heartwarming story from your career that you look back on?

We at SPF believe there is a certain magic in storytelling. With our comics, our goal is to make learning an enjoyable and relatable process. After getting in contact with a community or an organization that provides relief to communities, we write our comics pertaining to the people and their needs. Recently, we partnered with a group that builds clinics for villages in Ghana. The doctors mentioned that many of the children –and even adults– fail to seek medical guidance when they are sick, due to the belief that their ailments are a result of a curse, not an illness. It can be difficult to change the mindset a community has held for years; however, by educating children on their health, we can begin to make a difference. After sending the comics, it was incredibly heartwarming to hear the response the children had given towards our work. Filled with a fun storyline and illustrations, our comics were a hit among the members of the community. And every small step is a huge win for us.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

In 2021, I joined the Sierra Project Foundation (SPF) as an intern. What started off as a high school extracurricular turned into so much more. Now, I am a rising third year student at Georgia Tech, studying Neuroscience on the pre-med track—and the Co-Director of the Sierra Project Foundation. Our non-profit’s mission is to promote health literacy and education for children in underserved areas. Through comics that mix fun with learning, we hope to improve how kids view their health. Over the years, we have distributed over 5000 comics to several countries around the world, like Ecuador, Chile, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam, Liberia, Ghana, and the United States, for instance. We’ve written comics over topics like diabetes, personal hygiene, mental health, preventative care, sun protection, vaccines, and common illnesses, among others.

After serving as interns, a friend and I decided to start our own branch of SPF based in Atlanta. So, we began recruiting interns from all over the world. Overall, we managed a cohort of 12 interns through the distribution process of writing, translating, illustrating, printing, and mailing comics, as well as other areas like social media and outreach efforts.

Recently, I became the Co-Director of SPF and am working on continuing to create meaningful comics. Overseeing the various chapters across the country, I hope to expand SPF and our mission, finding new avenues to highlight the need for health literacy. I am also making strides towards partnering with other non-profits with similar missions to further spread our comics to underserved areas.

Every member of SPF and I are immensely proud of all the work we’ve done thus far. With our comics, we are not only tackling issues pertaining to lack of health education, but aiming to remedy health disparities and inequity in healthcare access. In the past few years, we have grown so much, creating and distributing comics on an international scale. Now, we are excited to see what will come next!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

The process of starting our own branch of SPF was not an easy one. We initially struggled to partner with organizations to send our comics to. We also lacked funding, so printing and distributing comics was a huge hurdle. Yet, even among all the challenges we faced, we never lost sight of our goals. Through multiple fundraising efforts and enough time, we became better equipped to create comics and lead a team of interns. We even became more efficient, enabling us to broaden our reach and distribute more comics than we had ever done before. We learned that it can be easy to get swamped in the details, but remembering the big-picture and our overall mission motivated us to persevere.

Other than training/knowledge, what do you think is most helpful for succeeding in your field?

I think that success for a non-profit is equivalent to the impact you create. Every decision we make involves prioritizing the people we serve and connections we build. This is why we understand the significance of catering each comic to the community it is going towards, and incorporating translations and cultural references in our writing. It is also equally important to be a part of a team of like-minded yet diverse individuals. Working with people who are passionate about the SPF mission and who bring different areas of expertise is crucial to developing comics that work. The drive to explore new and unique ways in which we can promote health literacy is something we all share and is vital to our accomplishments as a non-profit.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.sierraprojectfoundation.org/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sierraprojectatl/

Image Credits

Sierra Project Foundation