A class apart: Restoring equity through education

Equiverse Voices

What happens when one woman's personal experience with gender discrimination becomes the catalyst for a movement towards gender equality in education? Join us for an inspiring conversation with Dr. Sahni, who shares her powerful journey from growing up in a patriarchal society in India to founding schools dedicated to teaching gender equality, social justice, and democratic citizenship.

Driven by a personal tragedy, Dr. Sahni's mission to empower women led to impactful educational initiatives. Alongside Vandana Verma, we discuss the need for holistic education that prepares girls beyond academics and challenges societal norms. They highlight how early conditioning limits women's social engagement and workforce participation, sharing insights from rural schools. This episode emphasizes the urgent need for educational reforms to foster gender equity and equal opportunities for girls.

The podcast is brought to you by TalentNomics India, a mission-driven organisation focused on scalable solutions for gender equity, especially at leadership levels

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About the guest:

Dr Urvashi Sahni is a social entrepreneur, women’s rights activist, and educationist who has

been a pioneering activist in the field for more than three decades.

She has a Masters and PhD in Education from University of California, Berkeley, USA. In 2017, she won the Social Entrepreneur of the Year India award conferred by the Schwab-Jubilant Bhartiya Foundation. She is a fellow at Harvard University in their Advanced Leadership Initiative of 2024. In 2020 she co-created Catalyst 2030, a global network of over 800 social entrepreneurs. Dr Sahni is an Ashoka Fellow and a non-resident fellow at the Center for Universal Education at The Brookings Institution, USA.

She is also a former member of the Rajasthan’s Chief Minister’s advisory council, heading the education sub-group. The Uttar Pradesh Government has nominated her to serve on the Steering Committee for the implementation of the National Education Policy of India 2020 and by the National Institute of Open Schooling, to serve on their committee for the revision of their Gender Policy. Combining her activism with research, Dr. Sahni has several publications to her credit. She is a leading expert in curriculum design and reform, teacher training and education governance with a special focus on girls’ education and gender equality. She founded Suraksha (a women’s rights organisation), DiDi's (a social enterprise for sustainable livelihoods for women), and the Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF).

Currently, she is the president and CEO of SHEF. Over the last 38 years, Dr Sahni’s work, through SHEF has impacted over 100,000 teachers and 50,00,000 children, most of whom are girls from disadvantaged communities. About Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF) SHEF is a non-profit social enterprise that runs four pre-K to 12 schools, a college and 132 community based learning centers. It also partners with over 800 schools to train the teachers in the use of our curriculum on gender equality. Since 1986, SHEF has impacted 5 million students, most of them girls from extremely marginalized communities, 100,000 teachers and 20 million members of the community. Our vision is to educate everyone for gender equality, social justice, personal flourishing and active democratic citizenship.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-urvashi-sahni-6431b212/

About the host:

Vandana Verma, who recently retired as Program Director of the IKEA cFoundation, has been leading programs in the social and corporate sectors of many well-known international organizations. A large part of her 30-year career has been dedicated to working on programs related to women’s and children’s issues. She is passionate about promoting gender equity and empowering women to improve their lives.

With a background in economics, she has worked with organizations like ICRIER, the World Bank, and the ILO on women’s entrepreneurship and SME competitiveness across Asia. Currently, she is working as an independent development consultant and also serves as an advisory board member of Talentnomics in India.

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vermavandy/