Salima Tete: From winning chickens and goats to becoming AHF Athletes Ambassador
Compiled by: Amrita Priya
(March 31, 2023) The girl who started playing hockey with bamboo sticks in the village grounds, travelled over 20-kilometres on her bicycle for matches, and won goats and chickens in village tournaments, has come a long way. Today, Salima Tete is an international hockey player, who was recently appointed by the Asian Hockey Federation (AHF) as its Athletes Ambassador from India.
The player has begun her two-year term along with three other players from Asia.
“I am honoured to be selected as one of the AHF ambassadors. As athletes from Asia, we face a lot of challenges in our careers. This position will allow me to bring our voices to the front,” Salima said during the AGM of AHF in Korea. “I hope to make a positive impact on the lives of athletes from the Asia region with this position,” she added.
Salima Tete
Over the last several years, Salima has been an integral part of the Indian hockey team. She was named the ‘Rising Player of the Tournament’ at the Women’s Asia Cup tournament held in Muscat last year.
From rural Jharkhand to international hockey turfs
The journey of the twenty-one-year-old hockey player from a nondescript village of Simdega district in Jharkhand is nothing short of an inspiration.
Born to Sulakshan and Subani Tete, Salima and her five siblings grew up in extreme poverty amidst abundant love. It wasn’t just her family – the village was poverty-ridden, not a single home could afford a television set.
Her farmer father ferried the aspirant hockey player for matches as far as 20 kilometres from their village on his bicycle. The awards at these local tournaments were chicken and goats – the only items that the local organisers could arrange to give away as prizes. It was on occasions like these that the Tete family would devour a non-vegetarian meal. On other days the meals were as simple as could be.
Since there was no television or internet in their village, no one in the locality could watch Salima play her first major match. It was much later that her family started watching her play at national and international stadiums. By then, the midfielder was scaling her own mountains, and had made India proud on several occasions.
Salima Tete with PM Modi
In 2020, when Salima got the opportunity to play at the Tokyo Olympics, her village came into spotlight and better training facilities got introduced for the youth there. Her younger sister, Mahima, who had also been exposed to the sport thanks to her sister, began playing it too. Like Salima, Mahima is a national hockey player as well.
“Before the Tokyo Olympics, no one knew about our village and after I came back, the focus on our native place increased a lot. We have people visiting us from different places. People recognising the village I come from is really heart-warming,” Salima said in an interview. “Even my family feel very good when people come to visit. The whole atmosphere has changed and it makes me very happy,” she added.
The following year, in 2021 when Salima led the Indian women’s junior hockey team to a fourth-place finish at the Women’s Junior World Cup in Potchefstroom, South Africa she climbed the popularity charts further.
Surging ahead as an ambassador
After her appointment as AHF Athletes Ambassador, Salima remarked, “I sincerely thank the Asian Hockey Federation for showcasing their faith in me and also express my gratitude to Hockey India for their constant support in all my endeavours.”
Salima Tete during the AHF AGM
In her two-year term (2023-25), Salima will be in a leadership role, facilitating the growth and international representation of athletes from Asia. She will also be working to promote awareness about athletes’ welfare and rights.
“Playing for India has really changed my life a lot, it has given me everything I could have asked for. I just want to keep performing for the country and winning more matches,” Salima had said in an interview. India is all praise for athletes like her for bringing laurels to the country.
(August 27, 2024) It was in the fall of 2023 that Sravan Krishna Kodali found himself walking through the gates of Stanford University, where he enrolled himself in a bachelor's degree. But with a Cameron Impact Scholar under his belt which was given to the 18-year-old teen from New York by the Bryan Cameron Foundation for his dedication to community service and exceptional academic achievements. "I am extremely honoured to be a Cameron Impact Scholar, but I owe all to people who have supported me throughout high school," he had said. Promoting educational equity Born into a family hailing from Enikepadu in Vijayawada, his father is a businessman, and his mom is an anesthesiologist. Sravan was studying at the Christian Brother Academy in Syracuse when he found a way to make the most of his time during the Covid-19 lockdown. With the world locked in their homes, the Indian-American teen saw most of his peers engaging in unproductive activities which made him think of a solution. He started Empower CNY to offer online tutoring classes in Science and Math for lower-grade students. [caption id="attachment_38969" align="aligncenter" width="381"] Sravan Kodali[/caption] Empower CNY was created to promote educational equity in Central New York,
Empower CNY was created to promote educational equity in Central New York, addressing the issue of young students falling behind due to unequal resource distribution in our education system. To address this challenge, Empower CNY connects local students with high school volunteers. Tutors not only contribute to the community's development but also gain the chance to enhance their interpersonal and leadership skills. With diverse student leadership, Empower CNY creates activities and programs tailored to the needs of all ambitious students. "At Empower CNY, our goal is to equip every student with the resources needed to achieve their full academic potential," said Sravan.
The way this program works is that high school tutors from across Central New York register through their website and undergo an initial interview process. After the interview, tutors are paired with a student in need of tutoring. We hold weekly sessions on Saturday and Sunday, offering both morning and evening times. Parents and tutors can provide feedback through our optional session review forms. "We are currently operating at eight centers and providing virtual tutoring through video conferencing services to 50+ families," states their website.
What began as a small online initiative quickly expanded into a program that now supports nearly 200 students from local schools through both in-person and virtual tutoring. In a short span, they have created an impact. "Through partnerships with key community organizations, our volunteers connect with students in need, identify local problems in education, and help address them with activism, lobbying, and organising. Primarily, we coordinate free, weekly student-support locations in immigrant and refugee hubs and provide volunteer-run workshops at resettlement agencies." So far, their team has collaborated with 12 partners across 4 cities. From refugee foundations to STEAM educational groups, these organizations have contributed to their impactful efforts.
Creating an impact
In 2022, as school shootings surged across the USA, Sravan demonstrated his dedication to tackling pressing societal challenges beyond his academic achievements. On May 26, 2022, he led a protest, supported by a local Senator, to advocate for stricter gun laws and raise awareness about the critical need for reform in response to the escalating gun violence.
His achievements, including his work as a genetic researcher and his co-founding of the youth educational organisation Empower CNY, were particularly notable to the Selection Committee, which reviewed 3,000 applications. This earned him the prestigious ‘Cameron Impact Scholar’ award in 2023 from the Bryan Cameron Foundation, earning a full scholarship for his college education. This honour, awarded to only 15 students nationwide, highlights Sravan’s remarkable community impact, exceptional self-motivation, and outstanding academic achievements.
He is the first student He is the first student from his school in the past 60 years to gain admission into Stanford University. Apart from being a top-performing student, Sravan is a skilled soccer player who actively contributes to societal improvement. In addition, Kodali has gained valuable experience through internships at SUNY Upstate Medical University, UMass Medical School, and Syracuse University, where he worked on various research projects. He also interned with the Village of Canastota, focusing on grant writing. Beyond these roles, Kodali serves as a Youth Policy Consultant with the American Youth Policy Forum, contributes to congressional campaigns, and works as an Immigration Team Intern for the Volunteer Lawyers Project of CNY.
His journey from launching Empower CNY during the pandemic to becoming a Cameron Impact Scholar underscores his dedication to academic excellence and community service. Sravan's story highlights his perseverance, creativity, and significant impact, making him an inspiring role model for future generations.
(May 23, 2023) While people her age were busy making trending reels on TikTok, a young teenager from Illinois was busy getting inspired for her next project on the platform. A student of University High School in Normal, Sirihaasa Nallamothu's spirit was ignited by a serendipitous encounter with a TikTok video. She then embarked on a profound journey to research about Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) - which is a condition that causes a number of symptoms when you transition from lying down to standing up, such as a fast heart rate, dizziness and fatigue - and its elusive association with syncope prediction, including when the patients might faint or blackout. After several weeks of research and study, the Global Indian was able to make a breakthrough, winning the prestigious Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing, which empowers students to pursue computing challenges beyond the traditional classroom environment. Sirihaasa, who has also received a cash prize of $10,000 for her project, is the first person to undertake such a groundbreaking initiative, which in her words, "propelled her into uncharted territory by amassing invaluable human subject field data from individuals afflicted by POTS." But, that's not all that the young student
" rel="noopener">Cutler-Bell Prize in High School Computing, which empowers students to pursue computing challenges beyond the traditional classroom environment. Sirihaasa, who has also received a cash prize of $10,000 for her project, is the first person to undertake such a groundbreaking initiative, which in her words, "propelled her into uncharted territory by amassing invaluable human subject field data from individuals afflicted by POTS."
But, that's not all that the young student has achieved. Sirihaasa also founded Girls Who Code and Dream Coders clubs at her Middle school, for the other young girls who wanted to have a career in the software industry. Fueled by an unwavering passion for coding, she embarked on a transformative journey, not only as a dedicated instructor but as a visionary architect of a comprehensive coding curriculum that propelled her peers into the realm of technological prowess.
A science prodigy
Born to Telugu immigrants from Andhra Pradesh, Sirihaasa has always been the top student in her class. While she was always inspired by her software engineer parents, it was a school friend, who first introduced the young student to computer science and she was immediately enthralled by the subject. However, a disheartening reality came into focus for a young visionary, making her aware of the major lack of support for girls who wanted to learn to code.
Thank you @NCWITAIC and @BankofAmerica for an amazing award weekend. I’m so honored to have received the national award and represent the @IllinoisCS NCWIT chapter. I’m grateful to have met so many inspiring people! A truly awesome community of women in #tech! pic.twitter.com/4A06Scthbe
Not the one to give up, Sirihaasa embarked on a remarkable journey, delving deep into the intricacies of coding languages and processes. HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Python became her companions as she honed her skills, unveiling the boundless potential that lay within her. The young student realised the urgent need to create a programme that would empower young girls in their middle school years, inviting them to explore all facets of computer science. Teaming up with her local library, the student started a groundbreaking computer science programme.
Through the sheer force of her passion, the student undertook the role of a mentor extraordinaire, guiding her eager students along the winding path of coding. Drawing inspiration from the world around her, she orchestrated captivating coding classes, serving as a beacon of knowledge, and illuminating the minds of these young girls. But her impact extended far beyond the confines of the classroom. Interestingly, her programme didn't just impact the other girls, but also their parents, who joined her classes eventually.
The Dream Code Project
In 2021, Sirihaasa started another programming course - the Dream Code Project - teaching girls in grades 5-11 across the country Python, HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Java. Aiming to simplify complicated programming languages into easy-to-understand simple lessons, the young student met with the participants once a week for around one-and-a-half to two hours. "I encouraged the girls to reach out to me even after the programme session ended," shares the student, adding, "They asked me various computer science questions and code bugs/errors."
Eventually, the student managed to expand the community and impart the invaluable knowledge of coding to more than 250 young girls, fostering an enriching environment that sparks their intellectual growth. The community also organised bonding sessions, where the participants shared their stories, hobbies, interests, and more. Sirihaasa also exposes girls to role models in STEAM through the Sisterhood Spotlight, so they can see trailblazers in STEM. The youngster received the prestigious Get Involved Award for her initiatives in 2021.
Sirihaasa started researching the POTS in 2022, and after doing substantial research was able to write a Python script to extract the 15-minute window signal data of heart rate, blood volumetric pressure, EDA, temperature, and accelerometer data. According to the Cutler-Bell Prize statement, the young student's research, "is providing a starting point for future research into real-time prediction and integration into a smartwatch, which will help millions who experience vasovagal syncope research a safe and comfortable position before fainting." After finishing her project, Sirihaasa plans to work toward creating a consumer product and pairing her algorithm with a smartwatch.
(August 6, 2022) About five minutes into the video call with Rishika Karthik, I notice a beautiful painting hanging right behind her. Depicting several masked people, a small note on the canvas read, "I'm not fine." Upon enquiring about the piece, she quips, "Oh! This is something I drew during the lockdown, its called Welcome to the Masquerade. I noticed that along with the physical mask, people also wore a metaphorical mask that stifled their individuality. Many people put on a facade to fit in the society. I think, masking our emotions and vulnerability strips us of true human connection." [caption id="attachment_20443" align="aligncenter" width="544"] Rishika Karthik with her artwork, Welcome to the Masquerade[/caption] Just 17 but wise beyond her age, Rishika is a creative activist, who is committed to increasing artistic and educational opportunities for blind and visually-impaired students since 2018. And for her service to the community, this Tamil Nadu native was presented with the USA President's Volunteer Service Award 2022. "I had just woken up and rushed to get ready for the school when I read the mail announcing the win. It is such a big honour for me. Especially because the list includes some very impressive youth,
USA President's Volunteer Service Award 2022. "I had just woken up and rushed to get ready for the school when I read the mail announcing the win. It is such a big honour for me. Especially because the list includes some very impressive youth, who are working for the community. I cannot wait to collaborate with the other awardees on some project," says Rishika, as she connects with Global Indian from Colorado.
[caption id="attachment_20444" align="aligncenter" width="492"] The artist recently won the USA President's Volunteer Service Award 2022[/caption]
A proud member of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB), Rishika founded a project called Vision of the Artist's Soul (VAS), to create a comprehensive art education programme for blind and visually-impaired youth. The youngest recipient of a two-year Arts in Society Grant Award, Rishika advocates for policies and infrastructure for a more accessible society. Speaking at several panels and events, the young artist has been raising her voice for the rights of blind and visually-impaired individuals to travel independently. Gearing up for her freshman year at Brown University, Rishika plans to take up disability studies for her bachelor's.
Of colours and art
Twenty years ago, Rishika's parents moved to the United States of America in search of better employment opportunities. Born in Colorado, Rishika was a curious kid who was intrigued by everything she saw. "My parents often tell me that I asked the question 'why' more than anyone they have ever met in their entire lives. But I was a curious kid, who questioned everything," laughs the artist. "When I was growing up, I felt like I was too American in the Indian community and too Indian in the American community. Now, however, I understand that being multi-cultural and multi-lingual allows me to look at things from more than one perspective."
Struggling with her identity as a child, Rishika found solace in art, where she could express her thoughts and emotions without any hesitation. "I taught myself how to sketch and colour. Blank pages became a sea of opportunities for me," she shares.
[caption id="attachment_20445" align="aligncenter" width="562"] Rishika's artwork, Blind Vision. The braille engraved on the artwork reads 'Confident'.[/caption]
A bright student of St. Mary’s Academy, Rishika credits her teachers for motivating her to help the kids with disabilities in her locality. "My teachers instilled the value of how education can transform lives, and I really wanted to serve the less fortunate people. My mother also comes from an educational background, so I was very inspired by watching her tutor kids in our home," the artist shares.
Motivated and curious, Rishika approached the Director of Service Learning at her school for volunteering opportunities and learned about the various organisations working to help the visually-impaired kids in her locality. "It was a community that I had never interacted with before. So, when I first went, I was a bit hesitant, but upon meeting them I fell in love with their warmth. I learned so many new things about the community and the challenges that they faced doing the things that are quite simple for us," says Rishika, who learned braille to help these students better.
From visual to tactile
While they had other mediums to study and learn, one thing that grabbed Rishika's attention was the lack of art or colours in these kids' lives. "During my research, I learned about Tactile Art Club, run by Ann Cunningham, who later became my mentor. I realised that tactile art is just as important and powerful, as visual art, and decided to incorporate it into my volunteer work. The results were a revelation for me - it helped many blind students explore new artistic possibilities," shares the artist, who focussed on enhancing the participants' experiences with ceramics, using many tools to form a variety of textures and forms.
[caption id="attachment_20446" align="aligncenter" width="701"] Rishika at the art workshop[/caption]
In January 2020, Rishika became the president of the Tactile Art Club. Although they were making good progress, COVID came as a disrupting guest. "It was hard initially, as no one knew what to do or how to connect to the students. But eventually, we started our workshops and classes online." And that was the turning point - for Rishika and the Tactile Art Club. The online classes attracted visually impaired students not just from Colorado, but across the world. In December that year, the club had twenty-eight participants - all from diverse backgrounds. "It was quite a learning experience. From using just ceramics in our class, we started experimenting with a variety of interesting materials, such as tinfoil, pipes, and paper."
[caption id="attachment_20447" align="aligncenter" width="596"] Air dry clay creations by visually impaired students[/caption]
Interestingly, the 17-year-old artist is also a part of the team researching the impact of COVID-19 on visually-impaired kids, under Dr Penny Rosenblum, the Director of Research, American Foundation for the Blind. "I want to work towards a world that is inclusive, accessible, and safe for people with disabilities. I am also working on developing an interactive game app, that teaches visually impaired people mobility skills," she signs off.
(April 2, 2023) In October 2021, a Lancet study found a 35 percent increase in mental health disorders in India alone. That means one in every seven Indians, amounting to a whopping total of 19.73 crore people. The gig economy and its hustle culture, the advent of AI, the growing pressure on teenagers to get into top-notch foreign universities, and the glamorisation of toxic work environments have had telling effects on mental health. Social media, with its curated, filtered glimpses of people's lives has only contributed to overall stress, leading to feelings of inadequacy and loneliness. Unless, of course, you find Ananya Jain on LinkedIn. The intrepid tech founder works with GenZ's mental health, creating a safe and empathetic space for them to connect and cope. "I help strangers on the internet," she writes, in her LinkedIn bio. That's exactly what she does - she helps people. Not in the way that a mental health professional would - while the stigma around seeking help is reducing, empathetic friends are hard to find. That's the gap Ananya fills with FullCircle. Younger generations want to open up and talk about mental health, but the people who understand are rare. "It started selfishly,"
"It started selfishly," Ananya says, during an interview for Global Indian. "I was trying to figure out what was wrong with me." At 23, Ananya's aura of wisdom is a hard-won attribute. Her early life was filled with challenges and she overcame them, mostly on her own. In the end, she knew one thing: she didn't want anybody, not even strangers, to suffer in silence and solitude. It meant sacrificing, at least for the moment, the financial security that every immigrant seeks, in order to be a tech founder and start up an organisation for mental health in a foreign country.
Early turning points
Ananya grew up in Chandigarh, "always looking for ways to get out of the house because things weren't great at home." Her sanctuary was the chemistry lab at her high school - she didn't have any particular interest in science but it was the only place she had. One day, she noticed cockroaches running around in the laboratory. She decided to run some experiments on them, to distract herself from the boredom, if nothing else. "I made a lot of mistakes but I kept at it. At the end of that year, I was 13 then, I had made a biofertiliser," Ananya recalls. She sent her findings off to the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam IGNITE competition.
When the President’s office called Ananya’s mother to say the “cockroach experiment” had won, the family thought it was a prank. The office persisted and finally, Ananya was on her way to meet Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, who was the President of India then. That was a turning point in the teenager's life. "He cracked a ton of jokes about my obsession with cockroaches," she laughs. "And I realised that if I was ever going to make something of myself, I had better study science."
Georgia on her mind
A few years later, she ended up filing a hurried application to Georgia Tech, starting 30 minutes before the deadline and hitting the send button with 30 seconds to spare. She was accepted- with a scholarship. She arrived in Atlanta, in her own words, as a "really dumb, broke, naive child." She was a good student, though, and was put straight away into the Grand Challenges programme, which was reserved for the best and brightest. "Everyone around me had already done two years of college," she recalls.
In those early days, life looked great on paper but in truth, Ananya Jain was struggling to cope. She was stressed, had no family in the US, and worked five jobs throughout her time in college to pay her way through. "I would sit in a Math lecture, pulling my hair out because I was so stressed." After class, she would rush to work until past midnight. She was also travelling abroad for research.
[caption id="attachment_29043" align="aligncenter" width="418"] Tech founders Ananya and Ankit Kukadia, of FullCircle. Photo: LinkedIn[/caption]
The breaking point
By the second year of engineering college, Ananya Jain had lost all her hair. "I was completely bald," she says, "I had started shedding hair in May 2018 and by the end of that month, my hair had fallen out." For a young woman who had always had long hair, this was shocking. She went to several doctors, but nobody could figure out what was wrong - there was nothing to explain such radical hair loss. And Ananya was keeping it all secret from her family back in India. "I would call my mother every couple of weeks and wear a hoodie. One day, she had had enough and made me remove it," she said.
That day, Ananya Jain landed at a therapist's office, where she was presented with a big bill to be paid by the end of the week. "I had a spreadsheet of expenses. If I had to pay the therapist, it meant I couldn't eat that week. So I didn't eat that week. Ironically, I was more stressed going out of therapy than coming into it," she remarks.
This was the breaking point. Ananya Jain was fed up - she took a photo of herself, completely bald, and posted it on the internet. And she posted her phone number, telling people that if they were stressed out, they could call her (yes, it's a risky thing to do). Twenty-four hours later, 1,00,000 people around the world had seen it. "So suddenly, all I was doing was taking calls from people around the world."
All the lonely people
Why were they calling her, though? This is the age of technology, where everything, even peace of mind, can be coded. Meditation apps, therapists, medicines, everything was a click away. So what was happening? The simple answer: Loneliness. What was the point, she thought, of doing engineering and research when it was such a struggle and there were so many people seeking help? "I cut my education short to work on mental health instead." And that's how things came full circle, so to speak.
FullCircle has two aspects - one, says the young tech founder, is "remaking The Oprah Winfrey Show (it's a figure of speech) for GenZ." Ananya interviews celebrities to talk about what they go through and how they cope. The other aspect is to bring curated groups of ten people together to form small but tight-knit communities. "We facilitate them talking to each other," she explains. "For someone like me, who had just lost her hair, instead of going to Reddit and talking to 50 people trying to find out what was wrong with me, I would go on FullCircle and ask for help." When she was struggling, Ananya recalls, she met a lawyer in Boston. He had lost his hair too, during law school. "If I had met him two years earlier, I would have had an answer."
Ananya’s own life is meticulously planned out. Managing stress is a lifelong affair and everything matters, from diet, exercise, and rest, to intangible aspects like good friends and family to provide emotional support and also hold one accountable. “Everything I can control, I put on an Excel sheet,” she explains. “I try to reduce the number of decisions I need to make daily, so my diet plan, my clothes, my social interactions – everything is planned out. I have learned to listen to what my body is telling me.”
Not another therapy app
The tech founder doesn't comment on the pros and cons of therapy - of course, it is necessary in some cases and helpful to many. Still, people require more - they need emotional and tangible support. "We are here to offer perspective to people," Ananya explains. The FullCircle journey does not end with creating micro-communities alone. "The goal is to support them every step of the way, to make people realise they're not as alone as they thought." The other aspects include coaching, therapy, and growth. Mental well-being is never about just one thing- as the saying goes, 'it takes a whole village'. And that's what this young entrepreneur has made it her purpose to give, to tell people that no matter what, there's hope out there.
(July 8, 2022) Staying in a run-down hotel in Tripura, near the Bangladesh border, with very poor connectivity, Shivakshi Bhattacharya was surprised to receive an early morning call from Canada. Expecting it to be a spam call, she answered to hear a woman's voice at the other end, saying, "Congratulations!" Shivakshi was officially a Schwarzman Scholar 2023 - news she received with a shocked, "Are you sure?" Yes, they assured her, they were sure, she was doing "incredible work." At the end of July, Shivakshi will join a small, very elite group of Indians who have had the opportunity to do a year-long master's in global affairs at Tsinghua University in Beijing. "It's been a tumultuous journey," Shivakshi sighs, as she calls me on a rare day off. The 26-year-old lawyer has founded numerous organisations that work with women – something she began in 2014 - as a law student. Despite having doctor parents, she decided against a career in medicine herself, because she "wanted to be in the impact sector," she tells Global Indian. Today, she runs The Laali Project, teaching entrepreneurship skills to girls from rural areas. Shivakshi is also a campaign manager in Bihar for Prashant Kishore's IPAC, a heavy-duty assignment, it seems, for
ivakshi sighs, as she calls me on a rare day off. The 26-year-old lawyer has founded numerous organisations that work with women – something she began in 2014 - as a law student. Despite having doctor parents, she decided against a career in medicine herself, because she "wanted to be in the impact sector," she tells Global Indian. Today, she runs The Laali Project, teaching entrepreneurship skills to girls from rural areas. Shivakshi is also a campaign manager in Bihar for Prashant Kishore's IPAC, a heavy-duty assignment, it seems, for it keeps her days full. She has also spent two years as a Teach for India fellow in Tughlaqabad, Delhi.
As the founder of the Hunkaar Foundation, Shivakshi has been instrumental in providing rural women access to high-quality, affordable sanitary napkins, with a business model that helps them work towards financial freedom. Her first initiative, Make India Bold, worked with spreading awareness among schoolgirls on issues like sexual harassment and abuse, impacting thousands of students in rural Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir.
Shivakshi Bhattacharya spent her early years in Nepal, where her parents were deputed. She returned to India in time for grade eight, "because of the political struggle schools were shut, buses were being burned and there were strikes."
Her moment of reckoning came on her first day of law school in Haryana’s Sonipat district in 2014. Not long after arriving at one of the country’s top institutions - home to one of the most elite student bodies - Shivakshi dealt with sexual harassment from a fellow student. She posted about the incident on the college social media page and found support among several women who faced similar behaviour by the same student. She decided to fight, becoming the first person to file a case since the school opened in 2009. "It's very sad, more so since it's a law school where you're supposed to create an open and safe space for students."
Shivakshi soon found that fighting a case, even in such a progressive and top-tier institution was a traumatic experience. Authorities were hostile, and as were her fellow students, including women. "People went so far as to ask if I was making a complaint to get attention." She recalls men walking up to her to remark, "‘Hey, Shivakshi, if we talk to you, will you file a complaint against us?' But this was the start of my journey."
The case was resolved, albeit unsatisfactorily, with the perpetrator being handed the minimum punishment. Still, the University decided to set up a committee to hear complaints of sexual harassment. And as she struggled against the system, Shivakshi decided to work with school children and spread awareness about how to counter the various ills that plague our society.
Make India Bold
Worn out but undefeated, Shivakshi Bhattacharya visited a friend's place in Madhya Pradesh, where the latter had contacts in educational institutions. During their morning rounds to visit schools, they discovered the whole gamut of issues, from bullying and neglect to abuse. With a framework of information behind her, she returned to Haryana for college and began working with the 139 villages that surrounded her University town, focusing on private and rural schools.
"The methodology varied but the problems were more or less the same – scandalous videos, sexual abuse, casteism and classism," Shivakshi says. Surprisingly, the caste divides were greater in private schools than in their rural counterparts. "I had a very biased picture, I assumed that there would be more caste-related problems in rural schools." Irrespective of whether the school was private or rural, most children had no idea what sexual harassment meant, how to detect problematic behaviour or how to report it. Most weren't even aware of the child helpline.
Believing that early intervention is key, Shivakshi and her team formulated different training modules - for grades one to five, six to eight and nine to twelve. The programme was a roaring success, almost instantly, with some 500 students in attendance for the first session. Over the next year-and-a-half, Make India Bold impacted up to 30,000 students in and around Sonipat district. "We started getting offers - the Shiv Nadar Schools reached out to us and we signed an MoU with the Haryana government that gave us access to government schools as well," Shivakshi says.
"Being able to talk to so many people who had suffered for years - the energy drove me. I kept knocking on people's doors, going to the Ministry of Women and Child Welfare every day for 15 days." It was a "bottom-up approach," starting with the students, and then moving up the ladder. In 2015-16, during an internship with the Ministry of Education in Kashmir, she gave training sessions to school principals as well.
Hunkaar Foundation
As she did the rounds of Haryana's villages, visiting anganwadis was a routine part of the agenda. Most were shut. In one village, Shivakshi Bhattacharya met seven women who had been shunned by the community for undergoing hysterectomies. "They were a group of about 28 women who had become destitute because they couldn’t bear children," Shivakshi adds.
It led her to consider working with menstrual health in rural areas, an idea that would become the Hunkaar Foundation. The organisation used a microfinance model and collaborated with a biodegradable napkin manufacturer, who helped bring in imported napkins from Korea, for ₹18 instead of ₹85.
After an early round of fundraising for seed money, the Hunkaar Foundation procured the first batch of sanitary napkins which were given to a group of seven girls, who had to drop out of school after they reached puberty. "We wanted to ensure some degree of financial independence for them," Shivakshi explains. The girls sold the napkins and cultivated a source of income, while the fathers and brothers couldn't object as "the customers were women and the girls didn't have to leave their homes." Her seed fund was returned in full six months later and was taken to the next village.
Staying true to her working model, Shivakshi sets up the process and then steps away. "I want to work on multiple things and besides, these projects belong to the people for whom I started them."
With 30 women across different villages, hundreds of girls have access to affordable, high-quality sanitary napkins. Another, unintended consequence was the restoration of anganwadis in Sonipat district. "When we first arrived, they weren't functioning at all." They filed multiple petitions under India's Right to Information (RTI) Act, to no avail. However, the children of the now-empowered women began using them as places of learning.
The Laali Project
Although emboldened by the success of the Hunkaar Foundation, Shivakshi Bhattacharya understood that menstrual health is one piece in a much larger puzzle. "I also understand that change is incremental," she remarks. "You can't walk in to a village as an alien and tell them to change the way they live. Instead, we enable them to create the change themselves."
So, The Laali Project was founded, aimed at bringing entrepreneurship models to students. The foundation works with 15 organisations and has also partnered with the Child Support Initiative, Nigeria and Unity Effect, Germany . "I made training a curriculum objective," she says. The training has a multi-pronged approach - menstrual health, gender sensitisation and sex education make up one module, social and emotional learning is the next. Entrepreneurship skills are a section on their own and include lessons on design thinking and soft policy skills.
The pilot project was run in collaboration with Goonj, a Delhi-based NGO that undertakes disaster relief, humanitarian aid and community development. "The founder, Meenakshi ma'am, helped me a lot," Shivakshi says. Before she logs off, she makes special mention of one of her most cherished outcomes: "Four grade nine students have their own organisation - a learning centre where they teach men about menstrual health. The founder was the shyest girl in class, afraid to even say a word when she first came in. Today, she's teaching men."
Empower CNY[/caption]
The artist recently won the USA President's Volunteer Service Award 2022[/caption]
Rishika's artwork, Blind Vision. The braille engraved on the artwork reads 'Confident'.[/caption]
Rishika at the art workshop[/caption]
Air dry clay creations by visually impaired students[/caption]
Tech founders Ananya and Ankit Kukadia, of FullCircle. Photo: 
Photo: 
Shivakshi Bhattacharya. Photo: 
