When youth are enabled to lead change, they become problem-solvers, innovators, and change-makers, and schools become platforms for them to learn, lead and contribute.
India is home to the world’s largest youth population. Their energy, ideas and action can shape the future of public education.
The Youth Leadership Collective (YLC) puts young leaders at the heart of change, enabling them to lead micro-improvements in schools and communities.
Across schools and communities, youth leaders
Through Yuva Hejje, youth-led efforts for school improvements are being crowdsourced, amplified, and celebrated across Karnataka to drive action and change in government schools.
580+ Micro Improvements
have been led by the youth so far to create enriching learning experiences for children.
123 NSS Volunteers across 22 colleges
formed student clubs to undertake micro-improvements for school improvements— from rallies on drug prevention to role plays on avoiding junk food, from career fairs to cleanliness drives. These interventions directly engaged students and communities, fostering a culture of responsibility, awareness, and innovation.
The impact
Meet the young leaders who are changing the future of education, one improvement at a time.
Anand Gandwane grew up hearing his own caste thrown at him as an insult, so he recognised the same look on the faces of the children begging on Bagwad's streets instead of sitting in a classroom. Through SHEDO's youth programme, he started showing up at their homes to convince parents education was worth the risk, and at teachers' staffrooms to convince them these kids were worth teaching. Eighteen of them are in school now, showing up regularly. Anand's since been picked for the Gandhi Fellowship in Odisha.
Khushbu was labelled a "slow learner" in her own Indore classroom, a tag that made her feel inferior and cost her the confidence to chase what she actually loved: dance and art. She carried that memory into her work as a youth facilitator with Had-Anhad, now running experiential learning in the same city's government schools. She breaks classes into small, shuffling groups, checks in with every student every 20 minutes, and keeps her lesson plans flexible enough to meet each child where they are. Nobody in her classroom gets left at the back the way she once was.
In villages across Puducherry, many families quietly gave their sons the chance to study while keeping daughters home. Satish set out to shift that as NSS Coordinator, sending volunteers door to door, keeping tutoring going through the pandemic when it would've been easier to stop, and sitting through meeting after meeting making the same case: every girl deserves an education too. The work earned him the President's Award, and more girls in his villages are back in school because of it.