TITLE: Bridging The Gap Between Schools & Communities w/Saransh Vaswani

Saransh Vaswani is the founder of Saajha. He graduated from Hans Raj College, Delhi University, a Gandhi fellow. Saransh has also done the Young India fellowship program (Ashoka University). He was also awarded the Echoing Green fellowship in 2014 and was featured in Forbes India’s 30 under 30 list of young achievers.

Saransh believes that public education is one of the most accessible tools for social mobility, better life outcomes for our children and a truly democratic nation. For him,  education is about enabling that democratic path, bringing in voices of parents and families to transform the education system.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

●  Involving parents in children’s education is critical.

●  Parents need a support community to have the right information about their child’s growth.

●  Finding the right partners who will champion your vision is critical for sustainability.

●  Understanding the value of your impact helps you grow in your social entrepreneurial journey.

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QUOTE

"Public education is one of the most accessible tools for social mobility, better life outcomes for our children and nation. We must work to enable that democratic path, bringing in voices of parents and families to transform the education system."

Anusha Bharadwaj is the founder of Voice4Girls.  Anusha has been a development sector professional since 2002 and her core expertise is in child education and health, adolescent health, gender, public health and rural development. She holds an MBA in Rural Management from Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) and an MA in Sociology from Annamalai University.  In her spare time, Anusha is a documentary photographer and she believes that this lends a unique perspective into the communities she serves.

Anusha believes that marginalized adolescent girls in India must be enabled to take charge of their future and work towards breaking harmful cycles of economic, social, and gender inequality in their communities. Anusha understood that it is not enough to work with girls in isolation but working with adolescent boys as well and educating them will scale the impact and help build gender-equality society.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

●  You give girl a voice, she begins to change her world

●  It is important to involve adolescent boys in the process to scale the impact

●  Working with public systems has been time consuming but also has been the most rewarding

●  The world is broken enough and the only people who can fix it are the children

●  These adolescent girls have inspired many other young women

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QUOTE: “Adolescent girls and boys are the future of our society who can build and inspire other young women and men to take charge of their future and work towards breaking harmful cycles of economic, social, and gender inequality of their communities.”

Biplab Paul is the founder of Naireeta Services. Born in 1970 in the small town of Chinsurah in West Bengal, Biplab went to a local school where he engaged in Indian Scouts and Guides. He fondly remembers his scouts training as teaching him to be empathetic to the needs of others. Biplab completed his master’s degree in economics from Jadavpur University of Kolkata (1994) before taking a course on environmental education at the Center for Environment Education, Ahmedabad.

Biplab’s time of over a year exposed him to the problems of the rural poor in an arid region of Gujarat. This changed his perspective and he began to understand the importance of using technology to improve the lives of those in underserved communities. The painful experience of cycle of farmers struggle to make their livelihoods convinced him that water was the basic need for people to lead better lives. Biplab then started working toward an innovative solution that could eventually reduce gender violence, maternity mortality, child mortality, and social conflict, besides known problems such as crop failure and poverty.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

●  My mother supported me and taught me to work for the good of others

●  Bhungroo allowed the farmers to grow crops all year round

●  Grant cannot sustain you for long. 1:5 Model is a successful financial model

●  Being in the shoe of the farmers and empathize with their struggles is powerful

●  When you are able to make community part of the solution, you are successful

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QUOTE: “Working with communities of farmers who have been hit by endless cycle of natural disasters, one needs to be in their shoes and have empathy and then work to change their course of livelihood.”

Ashok Kamath is the founder of Akshara Foundation. Immediately after obtaining his M.Sc. from IIT Bombay, Mr. Ashok Kamath joined Analog Devices Inc., a Boston-based manufacturer of integrated circuits. Later he set up the Analog Devices India, and retired as its Managing Director in March 2004. He opted to leave behind a successful career in the corporate sector and involve himself in the development sector.

Ashok believes that children should not be deprived of quality education just because they do not have access to it or the resources to realize their dreams. He believe that the use of technology and shared digital infrastructure has become more relevant now than ever and that it is important to leverage their combined power to impart education to all children. He believes that quality education can bring a change to their lives as it did to him and eventually impact the nation as a whole.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

●  Quality education made a difference in my life

●  Unless you bring in the community into the system in a big way, it's not going to work.

●  Having access to the teacher and to technology at the same, the child is put in a more equitable space

●  Scalability, sustainability, and replicability is needed to really penetrate the system.

●  Advice to upcoming social entrepreneur: integrity

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QUOTE: “Good education made a difference in life. So, we need to work together to make good education available to all the children in our country. So that they can make a difference in the future for our country.”

Merlia Shaukath is the founder of Madhi Foundation. Merlia is an alumna of Stella Maris College, London School of Economics and Political Science, and the University of Oxford. She comes with an experience of nearly 10 years in the development sector with leadership roles in organisations like Teach For India and Athena Infonomics.

She envisions a world where every child has a truly equal chance to achieve their potential. She believes that the foundational literacy and numeracy learning gaps among children must be eliminated over the next ten years, in order to avert a monumental crisis and societal breakdown, where schooling does not equate to learning, and education is significantly devalued. By working with the government of Tamil Nadu, Madhi Foundation is committed to ensure that every child achieves foundational learning.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

●  Access to quality early childhood education is the greatest leveler against social inequity

●  Government has a big role in scaling the impact in education sector

●  Empathize with the government and understand the ground reality

●  Working to change the education system is a long journey and requires patience

●  Build a team where they are aligned to the mission and vision of the foundation

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QUOTE: “The government is the only machinery that you can work with if you want to create scalable impact in education system, but one need a lot of learning, listening and empathising with what our teachers and children had to say”

TITLE: Developing High Quality Public Education Systems w/Madhukar Banuri

Madhukar Banuri is the founder of Leadership For Equity. Born to middle class parents in South India, Madhukar began his education being exposed to farming and studying in a government run school in his village for the first 7 years of his life. He has more than 11 years of experience in the education sector, and had previously worked with Pune City Connect and Teach For India. Madhukar has an engineering degree from BITS Pilani.

He envisions an India where there is equality in access to excellent education to each and every child irrespective of their birth; where teachers are invested in the learning of their students; where education officers are deeply committed and empowered to support schools; and where the government leaders empower systems with the sole intention to better academic outcomes that prepare students for students for future generations.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

●  People, Policy and Process bring about sustainable change in any ecosystem

●  Empowering the government systems to deliver quality education at scale

●  Advising and advocating with senior leadership on designing policies in the areas of teacher and officer development

●  Young talents to play a big role in the education sector

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QUOTE: “Public systems are, by definition, the gatekeepers to equity and that sensitive and effective public systems will ensure that all children receive an excellent education, which is their fundamental right.”

Arundhuti Gupta is the founder of Mentor Together. Arundhuti studied Bachelor of Commerce from Mount Carmel College, Bangalore and Master's in Finance, Manchester Business School. As a soon-to-be college graduate in 2007, she had several ideas about how she could make a difference in her city, but needed an initial push and a safe space to explore her abilities. Mentorship she accessed fortuitously helped her get started and discover how empowering working with young people was. At the start of a career in Finance then she chose to instead pay forward the mentorship she received, to ensure it wasn't left to chance, and Mentor Together was born in November 2009.

Mentoring young women from different social and economic backgrounds helps them to advance in their career and succeed in life. Mentoring relationships and mentoring networks can come in at crucial times in their life to really help them with a range of different types of support they need; emotional, career and life skills.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

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QUOTE: “Right support and guidance can empower women to advance in their career, help the communities and encourage more young women to pursue their career.”

Vishwanath S is the founder of Biome Environmental Trust. He is a Civil Engineer from Mysore University and a Masters in Urban and Regional Planning from CEPT, Ahmedabad. He holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Urban Environmental Management from Rotterdam in the Netherlands. He has designed and implemented many water , wastewater , rainwater harvesting and ecological sanitation systems. He has also worked on policy teams for the writing of the State Water Policy, rainwater harvesting policy and bye-laws for Bengaluru city, wastewater reuse policy for the state of Karnataka and as an adviser for the National Wastewater Policy . His current interests include the integration of livelihoods aspects with rainwater harvesting, wastewater reuse and groundwater recharge.

Rainwater harvesting not only brought drinking water security but it also brought gender equity to women in rural areas and brought livelihoods to communities as a whole. Vishwanath empowered many others in the community to champion the vision to educate the public and practice rainwater harvesting.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

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QUOTE: “Technology when put to good use can aid and enhance environment sustainability and bring livelihood to communities.”

Sanjay Sharma is a founder of Manjari Foundation based at Dholpur Rajasthan. He holds a B.Tech in Agricultural Engineering from Punjab Agriculture University Ludhiana, Punjab, India and Masters in Sustainable International Development majored in Development Economics from the Heller School of Social Policy and Management, Waltham, Boston, MA, USA. Over the years he has been instrumental in shaping favorable and socially inclusive policies at the state and centre level with a mission of poverty eradication and women empowerment. He has been working as a committee member in various groups with rural development department, livestock and dairy departments, cooperative departments of the government of Rajasthan.

Coming from an economically not well off background, and the experiences he had growing up, Sanjay wanted to contribute back to the society using his skills and education and give them a better life. As he grew up in a conservative society, he was exposed to challenges and disadvantages that women had to face in the patriarchal society. This is why he decided to mobilize these women into some institution so that they will feel comfortable coming out of their closet and exercise their choices.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

●  Finding meaning in life through rural women empowerment

●  Creating a generational impact in conservative society

●  Women are initiators and change agents

●  Not only empowering but enabling women to daily livelihoods

●  Rising of entrepreneurial women in a conservative society

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QUOTE: “Women empowerment in rural areas is not only about personality and leadership development but it's about uplifting their skills and adding their values in the society.”

Sonal Kapoor is a founder of Protsahan. She attended a convent-run school. Through her education, she was passionate about writing and creative arts. After her school education, she went on to pursue Microbiology and later completed her post-graduation, in business management. Soon after, she took up a corporate job in the mutual fund industry, but soon realized this was not the area she felt satisfied working in. She eventually moved to a corporate communication role and it was in this role, during a corporate film shoot, that she met a young mother. She had six young daughters and revealed that she was sending her 8-year-old daughter to a brothel to make enough money to feed her other children. There were other mothers who remarked, in a matter-of-fact manner, that they would be okay if their girl children died, as they were struggling to take care of their daughters.

This incident spurred Sonal to work on these issues and bring about change in the lives of these girls. Protsahan was launched with this vision at play. It prompted Sonal to sketch an idea to approach this issue after conducting a three-week feasibility study in the area. Sonal leveraged her experience working in the film-making and communication space to start her work. She tackled education first – opening a creative arts school in a slum in South West Delhi. Her venture, named Protsahan, aimed at curbing the root of the problem – providing infrastructure and facilities for vulnerable girls to find their way into mainstream education.

IN THIS EPISODE, YOU WILL LEARN:

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QUOTE: “Our impact in working with sexually abused girls is not measured by the numbers but by the depth of their trust in work and our vision.”