00:00:00 – 00:00:09 Nitin Bajaj
Hey everyone, welcome to the industry show. I’m your host, Nitin Bajaj, and joining me today is Payal Sawhney. Payal, welcome on the show.

00:00:09 – 00:00:14 Payal Sawhney
Thank you. I am super excited—finally I get the opportunity.

00:00:15 – 00:00:20 Nitin Bajaj
I know it took us long, but here we are. Let’s start with: who is Payal?

00:00:22 – 00:00:45 Payal Sawhney
Payal is a leader who leads with heart. Payal is an Indian who lives in America and has decided to make India and America come close so that loneliness for herself and for people around her go down.

00:00:47 – 00:01:15 Nitin Bajaj
I love that. You are a person on a mission, and I’ve been fortunate to see you up close and personal as you have built this into an amazing organization. So tell us what SAAHAS is. You hinted at why you started this, but give us where that moment was that made you jump in and do this. Obviously the work you do is not easy, but extremely critical for us, for our community.

00:01:16 – 00:01:45 Payal Sawhney
SAAHAS is my passion. SAAHAS for Cause came about when I was struggling with my journey. I’m an immigrant, and just like any immigrant, I always have missed home. And when I came to Los Angeles, I just took a break from my healthcare career. I’ve always worked in hospital and healthcare, and I was just a little upset with life that I wanted to go back and then here again.

00:01:45 – 00:02:08 Payal Sawhney
From Cincinnati, I did not get to go back to India, and I had to come to LA, California, where I really never wanted to come. But I was here. So that’s one lesson I’ve learned in life: never say never. So I was upset with my husband, and I said, “You’re working in the hospital, and I don’t want to work in the hospital just because.”

00:02:08 – 00:02:36 Payal Sawhney
I decided to just volunteer and do some soul searching. And so I got to volunteer, and I got to understand a little more about the United States and Los Angeles and life of South Asian immigrants living here. And I was intrigued. I did not see that part of life until I was in Ohio. And that’s when I felt that I can bring all my learning over two decades into this work.

00:02:36 – 00:02:54 Payal Sawhney
And I did that. And I was working for an organization, and I learned a lot, but my imagination was wild by then. I wanted to do much, much more. I wanted to do with more science, more behavioral science into it. I wanted to do research. I wanted to write about the phenomenon.

00:02:55 – 00:03:19 Payal Sawhney
And so that was not possible if I was bound by restriction. I wanted to have my own wings. And that’s when I decided to, again, innovate. I took one corner of my garage, and I had a laptop, and that’s where I started. And that’s how SAAHAS started. And I don’t know if I’m still sticking to your question, but that was the birth of SAAHAS.

00:03:21 – 00:03:37 Nitin Bajaj
Love that. Now, you’ve been on this journey for a few years. Give us a sense of the impact you and the team have been able to create, and where do you see this going over the next year or two, five years?

00:03:38 – 00:04:04 Payal Sawhney
Impact is tremendous, Nitin. And I’m glad I waited so many years to come on your show. I am amazed myself, because in that corner of my garage, my imagination was very naive, very small. I wanted to do work with the South Asian immigrant community, and that was about it. And my dream was only this much. But it was not in my control, and it just had been exploding.

00:04:04 – 00:04:35 Payal Sawhney
We were at the time when COVID happened, and, you know, we were awarded this grant by the Department of Public Health, and that gave us the seed opportunity to put ourselves into the community. We were able to vaccinate 20,000-plus people at that time. We did a lot of outreach and education in the community, and we built so many connections in that little time. And that was probably our boost. And then there was no looking back.

00:04:35 – 00:05:01 Payal Sawhney
We had already made our mark with the Department of Public Health, the Department of Health Services, and then they reached out to us again. COVID wasn’t getting under control, and they said, “We want you to continue the work here. You have two more years of this grant.” And then we continued. And then, of course, we were working on domestic violence. We were working on older adults and isolation and loneliness issues. We had already initiated the youth program.

00:05:01 – 00:05:23 Payal Sawhney
And so everything just made sense, because everything was connected to each other. Not that I wanted to do it so expansive, but it just happened so. And now I feel that the work does not make sense if we dormant any of, you know, these chapters, because they do feed into each other. They are, you know, offshoots of each other.

00:05:24 – 00:05:56 Payal Sawhney
So our impact is tremendous. Every month we are touching at least, I want to say, 5,000 to 6,000 lives every month. And I am not exaggerating a bit. Probably I am underplaying the numbers. We are very numbers people. We analyze our outcomes every month. We have a dashboard, and we compare our programs. And there is a huge competition inside SAAHAS. Is it family and women wellness? Is it older adult wellness? Is it youth wellness? Or is it community education and research? Who’s touching more lives?

00:05:58 – 00:05:58 Nitin Bajaj
That’s amazing.

00:05:58 – 00:06:00 Payal Sawhney
So I—yeah. And that’s my impact.

00:06:01 – 00:06:24 Nitin Bajaj
Love that. Congratulations and kudos to you and the rest of the team. I’ve seen some very dedicated, very passionate team members that have really helped scale this over the years. And again, we know this is a much-needed thing in the community. So kudos to you for taking on the mantle to bring this to our community here.

00:06:25 – 00:06:44 Nitin Bajaj
Now, obviously this is difficult work, and you work with a lot of different organizations and entities across the board. I’m sure that comes with a lot of challenges. What’s the one big challenge that you would like to call out?

00:06:44 – 00:07:16 Payal Sawhney
As when we just started talking, I shared that I lead from my heart. And that sometimes will make our work difficult, you know, because we—it’s hard for us to say no. Any victim walking through SAAHAS’s door, we don’t say no. And so that sometimes is our challenge, because funding is limited. SAAHAS is 97% grant-funded.

00:07:17 – 00:07:47 Payal Sawhney
We have been writing even before we named our work SAAHAS, we have been writing. And that is what has made us successful. So we have federal, state, foundation grants that support our work. But the environment these days is such that the competition for those grants is quadrupled. So every grant has so many, many, many, many more organizations who are writing. So it is a very difficult time.

00:07:47 – 00:08:07 Payal Sawhney
We are not giving up. We are consistently writing, and we are writing much, much, much more. But still, funding is our biggest crunch. And I try my best. And, you know, we do a fundraiser every year. We do only one fundraiser because probably only that much time is what is remaining.

00:08:07 – 00:08:33 Payal Sawhney
And so that is my push this year in 2026, that I want the community to stand up with me. We want to sustain SAAHAS. We want this work to go on. We need to support. We need to stand with the work. I am leading SAAHAS today, and I want SAAHAS to continue many years after when I stop the leadership or when I step down.

00:08:33 – 00:08:51 Payal Sawhney
So that’s my request through your channel, through this interview, to all the donors, to all the community philanthropy leaders, gurus, to please come to our gala and fund us. We want to continue to work.

00:08:52 – 00:09:02 Nitin Bajaj
That’s amazing, and it is a worthy cause to support. Now, on the flip side, a challenge has come opportunities. What’s the one that you’re most excited about?

00:09:02 – 00:09:19 Payal Sawhney
I’m going to say my opportunities are, again, my grants, my projects. I’m a dreamer. So when I sleep, I imagine. I dream. And then when I get up in the morning, I write it. Because that’s what I want to do in the community, and that is what excites me.

00:09:19 – 00:09:31 Payal Sawhney
You know, I want to—I want to get into prenatal care. You know, we do have family and women wellness. Only last year that we entered this work of prenatal and postnatal care.

00:09:31 – 00:09:49 Payal Sawhney
You know, there is a lot of prenatal and postnatal depression that happens in our community, but it is very underestimated. Nobody talks about it. Nobody writes about it. And that’s why there is no funding to that work, specifically South Asian mothers and children, their care.

00:09:49 – 00:10:04 Payal Sawhney
So that’s my opportunity. I want to write more. I want to garner more funding. I want LA Care to fund us. I want Molina Care to fund us. I want UCLA to look at our projects and come and start with us. That’s my opportunity.

00:10:05 – 00:10:33 Nitin Bajaj
Love that. Now, as we look into the future and bringing on many such organizations into the fold, I’d love to pause and reflect and ask you to share two moments from your past life. One where things did not work out as you had expected. There was disappointment, failure, lessons. And one where things exceeded your expectations and became a success beyond your imagination.

00:10:35 – 00:11:15 Payal Sawhney
I feel failures are so important in life, and they make you wiser. They make you stronger and resilient. So I—when I started my work with SAAHAS, and when I was sitting in that one corner of my garage, I was writing. I was writing projects. I was imagining. And I submitted my grants to so many foundations, and I got so many rejections. So yes. And that’s—so my journey started with failures. I always remember the lessons I learned at that time, and I treasure them.

00:11:16 – 00:11:35 Payal Sawhney
So that is about failure and then about the triumph. The triumph is few stories come in front of me. The clients that we work with in our very, very initial days, when we had nothing, and we helped them with nothing in our hand.

00:11:35 – 00:12:06 Payal Sawhney
And when these ladies, you know, reach out to me, they’re terminated from SAAHAS. They’re doing really great. They have employment. Their kids are doing good. But when they come back, they come back searching that, “Where is SAAHAS?” And then they’ll find us through some Facebook, some post, and then they, you know, they’ll DM us or say, “Hey, where are you? Can I meet you?” And that’s my success, because I get to see her again, and I see that she’s doing so great. And so, yeah.

00:12:07 – 00:12:22 Nitin Bajaj
Love that. Love that. Now, switching gears, when you’re not doing community work, when you’re not absorbed by SAAHAS, what do you do to de-stress, to relax, to enjoy?

00:12:24 – 00:12:40 Payal Sawhney
I’m all about relationships. I’m all about family. I’m all about friends. I like to host. I like to cook. And since SAAHAS has engulfed me and my life, I really get very little time to do that. My social life really has been down quite a bit.

00:12:40 – 00:13:00 Payal Sawhney
I want to invite so many people. I want to—I want to cook for them. And so whenever I have that downtime, I really like to do that. I like to go through my diary, and I want to call them, “Hey, Ajaw. I know it’s just, you know, it’s just today morning that I want you to come for dinner, but if possible, please come.” So that’s what is my fun thing.

00:13:01 – 00:13:08 Nitin Bajaj
Love that. Is there a book or a podcast that is a favorite and you would want to share?

00:13:08 – 00:13:19 Payal Sawhney
Yes. So the podcast is about our youth, our South Asian youth. Experiences in their own language. And that is called SAAHAS Sit Down.

00:13:20 – 00:13:35 Payal Sawhney
You know, whenever I have my downtime or if I’m driving, I like to listen. And I had teary drives, because they are real stories. They are very heartwarming, heart-wrenching.

00:13:36 – 00:13:45 Payal Sawhney
So I encourage all of you to go on SAAHAS Sit Down. It is on Spotify. And please go listen to what our youth have to share.

00:13:47 – 00:13:57 Nitin Bajaj
That’s amazing. Now, onto my favorite part of the show. We call this the one-line life lessons. Payal, I’d love for you to share your life lessons with us.

00:13:59 – 00:14:27 Payal Sawhney
Okay. I did jot down five of them. And this one life lesson learned when, you know, when I gave birth to SAAHAS, and now when I’m nurturing it, I want to say, be you. Do you. You know, you are unique, and there is no right and wrong. Don’t be nervous. Just be you. And that’s what I keep telling myself when I dare to dream.

00:14:27 – 00:14:48 Payal Sawhney
And then the journey is the reward. And I feel that my journey is my reward. It was very hard. It was very hard to leave India and come to the United States. That was not my aspiration. I never wanted to leave India. I love India. I love Poona. I wanted to be there all my life, but I could not.

00:14:49 – 00:15:21 Payal Sawhney
But I gained a lot after coming to the United States. You know, I lived in New York. I learned so much. I went to Chicago. I learned about inpatient mental health. It was hard, but I learned great lessons. I made amazing connections. I went to Cincinnati. I learned about obesity and how the entire family can cure it. And then here in LA, I’ve learned so much. I’ve made so many connections, you know, my friends, my family. So the journey is the reward, totally and truly.

00:15:22 – 00:15:33 Payal Sawhney
Lead with your heart. Do what your heart tells you to do. Life is short. Do it. And the next one is just do it. Just do it today. Just do it now.

00:15:33 – 00:15:53 Payal Sawhney
And then relationships. Value relationships much more than anything. Money will follow. I never have cared for it. I never have bothered about it. If you have good relationships and if you are confident about your dreams, they’ll come find you. So just do it.

00:15:55 – 00:16:15 Nitin Bajaj
So true. I love and can relate to every single one of them. Payal, thank you again for making the time, for sharing your journey, your story, but for most importantly, doing what you do for being you and helping create an ecosystem for our community, because we truly need it. Thanks again.

00:16:16 – 00:16:24 Payal Sawhney
Thank you, Nitin. Thank you for giving us this platform. You know, you’re amazing, and you’re a very, very important part of our community. So congratulations to you too.