Planet Impact

Louise Emmanuelle Mabulo is a 22-year-old chef, farmer, and entrepreneur. She is the Founder of The Cacao Project, which cultivates resilient and Climate-smart livelihoods, positioning farmers for sustainable success in San Fernando, Camarines Sur, Philippines. Louise is a National Geographic Young Explorer, a featured honouree for Forbes Asia’s list ‘30 Under 30’, a Young Champion of the Earth under United Nations Environment Programme, an honouree of Tatler’s ‘Generation T’, and was awarded Outstanding Young Farmer of the Year in 2018. She is a recipient of the Friend Of Humanity Award under Friendship Ambassadors Foundation New York, Social Entrepreneur award from the University of Connecticut, Champion for Sustainability Award from the Economic Times India, and on Straits Times ’30 Under 30 to watch for’ Asia list. Louise has also hosted pop-up dinners that source local ingredients and highlight locally produced components of her menus. She was the host to the cooking show ‘Simply Sarap’, aimed at promoting cultural diplomacy under the Department of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of the Philippines. Mabulo strives toward empowering farmers and advancing climate action & environmental stewardship through her work. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Satyajeet Tambe is an educationalist, an entrepreneur, and a young Politician from Maharashtra, India. He attended Pune University and John F Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Ara is the founder of the Aha! Project (www.ahaproject.id | @aha.projectid ). It is a social initiative that provides quality and fun learning tools for young students at home. Within less than 12 months since its inception, her initiative has already impacted ~2,400 children across 13 provinces and 35 villages in Indonesia.  "We need every one of us to take action and solve the problems we face around us, instead of waiting for a hero and demanding the change from other people we all must reflect and understand what can we do to make the world a better place". Background:  Ara is a serial social entrepreneur and she began her social entrepreneurial journey at 10 years of age with the Moo's project 🐄. Ara was quickly recognized as a Changemaker of the future, and she became an Ashoka Youth Venturer at the age of 11.  Growing up, Ara experienced a range of schooling systems. In her elementary years, she was home-schooled, then she went to a local school, followed by a stint as an international undergraduate student living in a new country. Following her studies in marketing and management in Singapore, she returned to Indonesia and at the age of 21, and started a travel-learning project URTravelearner to help others envision changemaker lives by seeing social entrepreneurs in action.  In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic stuck, she launched Aha! Project, a scheme to improve the access of study resources for children during the pandemic. A Changemaker in every sense, in this podcast episode Ara shares her journey of correcting the problems she sees in the world, keeping her eyes open to new ways of making an impact and paying it forward.  Recommendations:  Book: Totto-Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi Get in touch with Ara: Ara's Instagram and LinkedIn Aha! Project website, and Instagram  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Mesut is an Ashoka Fellow, and founder-CEO of E-Bursum. E-Bursum is the biggest educational finance platform in Turkey that digitizes and democratizes financial opportunities for students. Background:  Mesut established E-bursum to build a democratization and digitization movement aiming to make student scholarships and loans more transparent, fair, and impactful in Turkey. Mesut is turning a dysfunctional financial instrument in education into an empowerment tool and fundamentally changing the ways scholarship givers and recipients interact with one another. Mesut grew up in a large family in Eastern Turkey. When a devastating earthquake hit their city and his father’s business went into bankruptcy in 2011, Mesut came across financial hardship for the first time in his life. Having spent his youth years away from home, in boarding schools, Mesut mentioned his first year at the university as the hardest one of his life due to many other problems following the earthquake incidence. Mesut spent his first year at university searching for scholarships, loans, and flexible job opportunities while observing many others like him dropping out of school or ending up homeless. Being one of the members of the city council at the age of 18, Mesut tried his best to persuade municipalities to build living centers for homeless students. After failing in this exert, he started to contemplate the ways of building a democratic and transparent system that triggers citizens to work for the overall wealth of the youngsters. A computer engineer by education, Mesut started to design an online platform to ease the processes of scholarship applications and evaluations by the age of 20. After the launch of the beta version of E-bursum, Mesut kept innovating and improving his platform, while also noticing other challenges youth face because of financial difficulties in Turkey. He dedicated himself to solving these problems one by one by using the opportunities of 21st century, especially the internet and new technologies. Links: Mesut Keskin | LinkedIn --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Layusa Isa-Odidi is an Associate Partner, leading Dalberg’s presence in Melbourne, Australia. She focuses on strategic planning and financing across the areas of education, employment, agriculture, and gender.  Her recent work in Education to Employment includes working closely with the Secretariat and Board of Directors of the Global Partnership for Education to develop a new financing and funding framework and supporting a large private foundation on its 2018-2030 strategy, a realignment of its current and planned investments towards increasing youth employment across Africa. Layusa’s work at the intersection of agriculture and gender includes collaborating with the African Development Bank to outline its $2bn 10-year agriculture strategy, supporting a large private foundation to develop its initial strategy for Women’s Market Inclusion in agricultural transformation, and developing the gender component of IDH’s service delivery model analysis. Before joining Dalberg, Layusa worked with McKinsey & Company in Lagos and the Boston Consulting Group in Boston advising private, government, and public sector clients. Layusa holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA-ID) from the Harvard Kennedy School, a Master in Business Administration from the Harvard Business School, and a Bachelor in Arts from Harvard University. Links: Layusa Isa-Odidi - LinkedIn LAYUSA ISA-ODIDI - Dalberg --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Dr. Arunabha Ghosh is a celebrated public policy professional, adviser, author, columnist, and institution builder. In this warm conversation, we chat about Dr. Ghosh's Inflexion Points, which is also the name of his monthly Business Standard column. From making documentaries with Jay Z, and working with the United Nations in New York, to coming back to New Delhi, and starting a policy think tank from scratch, Dr. Ghosh has done it all. While his TED talk crossed over 250,000 views, this podcast episode is the only show that opens you to the person behind the genius.   As founder-CEO of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water, since 2010, he has led CEEW to the top ranks among Asia's leading policy research institutions (8 years in a row); and among the world’s 20 best climate think-tanks. He conceptualized and designed the International Solar Alliance. He conceptualized and is a founding board member of the Clean Energy Access Network (CLEAN). Co-author/editor of 4 books and with experience in 45 countries, he previously worked at Princeton, Oxford, UNDP (New York), and WTO (Geneva).  In 2018, the UN Secretary-General nominated him to the UN's Committee for Development Policy. In 2020, Govt. of India appointed him Co-Chair of the energy, environment, and climate change track for India’s Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (STIP2020). His 2019 TED Talk on air quality (Mission 80-80-80) has crossed 240,000 views. He is co-Chair of the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Clean Air and a member of the international high-level panel of the Environment of Peace initiative. He is the lead author of Jobs, Growth and Sustainability (CEEW, 2020). He is co-author/editor of four books: The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy (2016); Energizing India (SAGE, 2016); Human Development and Global Institutions (Routledge, 2016); and Climate Change: A Risk Assessment (FCO, 2015). Arunabha’s essay “Rethink India’s energy strategy” in Nature was selected as one of 2015’s ten most influential essays. Arunabha advises governments, industry, civil society, and international organizations around the world. This has included India’s Prime Minister’s Office, several ministries & state governments. He was invited by France, as a Personnalité d’Avenir, to advise on the COP21 climate negotiations. He advised extensively on HFC negotiations. He has been a member of Track II dialogues with ten countries/regions. His columns have been widely published (Business Standard, Financial Express, Forbes, Hindustan Times, Indian Express, Nikkei Asian Review, The Times of India, etc.). He has hosted a documentary on the water in Africa, featured in National Geographic and Discovery Channel documentaries on energy and climate change. He has been regularly interviewed on Al Jazeera, CNBC, CNN News 18, India Today TV, NDTV, etc. He is a World Economic Forum Young Global Leader; & Asia Society Asia 21 Young Leader. He holds a D.Phil. from Oxford and topped Economics from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi. Links:  LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arunabhaghosh/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/ghosharunabha CEEW Website - https://www.ceew.in/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Caitlyn is the author of You Are Where You Go: A Traveler’s Coming of Age Journey Through 70 Countries and 7 Continents During College.  She wrote this book to inspire others with her personal stories of how travel has changed her perspectives about the world. Her goal is to prompt readers to see travel as a tool for personal development and to spark readers’ desires to learn and grow outside of their comfort zones because everywhere you go becomes a part of you! From visiting penguins in Antarctica to riding motorbikes in rural Vietnam, from camping in eastern Africa to solo traveling in Australia, she has done it all.  Caitlyn Lubas is a graduate of NYU Stern School of Business and a former Product Specialist at Instagram who recently quit her full-time job to pursue her dream of being a travel author, content creator, and entrepreneur full time. You can BUY a copy of her book at: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/you-are-where-you-go-travel-memoir-book#/ Follow Caitlyn on Personal Instagram: @caitlynlubas Author/Book Instagram: @you.are.where.you.go Personal TikTok: @caitlynlubas Author/Book TikTok: @you.are.where.you.go Personal Twitter: @caitlynlubas Book Twitter: @YAWYG_book Subscribe for email updates at www.youarewhereyougo.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Mr. Allavaru is a lawyer by profession who has been associated with student politics since his days at the University of Delhi. He deems the youth as the catalyst of societal and political change. He spearheads the Indian National Congress's initiatives on all fronts, be it in taking on the government on any issue or making outreach programs in different parts of the country.  He has an LLM from Georgetown University and an MBA from INSEAD. Formerly, he worked at KPMG in India, and The Boston Consulting Group in Singapore for many years before joining politics. At Indian National Congress, he shares the responsibility of drawing the roadmaps of the organization. This conversation was originally recorded for a book interview. In this episode, he talks about how youngsters should be a changemaker. He recommends youngsters to strive for positive, and sustainable change that is achieved through positive means. His key advice to the young listeners is to, "Have the tenacity to see things through. Have persistence and conviction in your goals." --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Kiran Bir Sethi is the Founder-Director of the Riverside School in Ahmedabad, India and the Design for Change organization. She has a design background, having received her diploma in visual communication from the National Institute of Design (NID).  She is also the Founder of “aProCh” – which stands for “A Protagonist in Every Child” – an initiative that is attempting to make Ahmedabad more child-friendly, for which she was made an Ashoka Fellow in 2008. Kiran ma'am developed a Design for Change curriculum for middle school students, which is being piloted in 64 schools in India and 5 schools in Spain, Peru, the USA and Taiwan. The related Design for Change (DFC) School Challenge was initiated in 2009 and has since spread to over 72 countries, challenging children to design and implement solutions to problems they see around them. DFC has a collection of over 50,000 stories of change by children across the globe and involving 2 million young students through their programs. Links:  Follow Kiran ma'am on Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn Kiran ma'am TED Talk --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Felix Finkbeiner is a German environmentalist and the founder of the international tree-planting and environmental advocacy organization Plant-for-the-Planet.  Starting in fourth grade, he attended Munich International School from which he graduated in 2015. After living in London for three years, he graduated with a BA in International Relations from SOAS, the University of London in 2018. Since September 2018 he is a PhD student of environmental sciences at the Crowther Lab of ETH Zürich, where he studies the most effective approaches to forest restoration under Prof. Tom Crowther. In January 2007, when Felix was nine years old and in fourth grade, he gave a class presentation on global warming in which he suggested to classmates that children should plant one million trees in each country of the world. Together with many of his classmates, Felix planted a tree on 28 March 2007 and launched Plant-for-the-Planet. After three years, the initiative planted its millionth tree. At age 10 he spoke in the European Parliament and at age 13 at the UN General Assembly. The organisation currently restores 22,500 hectares of forest on the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico by planting on average one tree every 15 seconds. Furthermore, Plant-for-the-Planet leads the UN Billion Tree Campaign, as part of which 14 billion trees have been planted so far by contributing companies, organisations and governments. Links: Felix's Twitter  Plant for the Planet Website  Felix's A Trillion Tree Campaign Speech --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Riddhima works with Goldman Sachs’ Sustainable Finance Group in New York, which partners with the firm’s global businesses to drive sustainable solutions related to climate transition and inclusive growth. She is also a Non-Residential Fellow at Aspen Institute for the Energy and Environment Program. Riddhima has experience working on climate policy at the United Nations, World Bank and the Global Commission on Economy and Climate. She graduated from Yale University in 2018 with a B.A. in Ethics, Politics and Economics. She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the We Are Family Foundation. Links:  Reach out to Riddhima through her LinkedIn.  [https://www.linkedin.com/in/riddhima-yadav-35a44290/] --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Dr Girish Kulkarni is the founder of Snehalaya, an NGO based in Ahmednagar, India. Snehalaya means 'Home of Love', and was founded in 1989 to provide support for women, children and LGBT communities, who have been affected by HIV and AIDS, trafficking, sexual violence, and poverty. In India, 93 women are raped every day. It is estimated that 135,000 children are trafficked every year. Over 120,000 women a year will suffer domestic violence. There are 2.1 million people living with HIV, and an estimated 130,000 people die of AIDS each year.  At Snehalaya they believe that grassroots outreach and education is the key to drastically reducing these figures. Their mission is to provide rescue, rights and rehabilitative services to the communities in most need and to offer a safe exit point to women and their children trapped in the crippling cycle of poverty and abuse.  Thus they aspire to develop the awareness and capabilities of individuals who have been deprived of their fundamental rights as a result of the inequalities that exist in our society. They provide services to over 45,000 beneficiaries and are a strong and passionate family, united in the belief that no one should stand alone. About Dr Girish Kulkarni: He grew up in Ahmednagar enjoying life in a middle class, loving and supportive family. A former journalist with several graduate and postgraduate degrees to his name, he now combines working as a political science lecturer with driving Snehalaya, which he founded in 1989. For the past 32 years, he has been connecting with other NGOs, social workers, politicians, celebrities and anyone else who can help raise awareness of the plight and make positive changes for those who society would like to ignore. Quote: “I was motivated by my own burden of guilt. I found that working to satisfy that, was much more sustainable than being moved by compassion. To me, that creates unrealistic expectations and places the burden on others. Ultimately their responses to your actions remain out of your control which can lead to frustrations and dissatisfaction, it’s much more rewarding to be clear and focused on your own purpose.” Links: Dr Kulkarni's Ted Talk Snehalaya Website Radio Nagar Website Contact: Volunteer for Snehalaya link Email: info@snehalaya.org --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Dr Girish Kulkarni is the founder of Snehalaya, an NGO based in Ahmednagar, India. Snehalaya means 'Home of Love', and was founded in 1989 to provide support for women, children and LGBT communities, who have been affected by HIV and AIDS, trafficking, sexual violence, and poverty. In India, 93 women are raped every day. It is estimated that 135,000 children are trafficked every year. Over 120,000 women a year will suffer domestic violence. There are 2.1 million people living with HIV, and an estimated 130,000 people die of AIDS each year. At Snehalaya they believe that grassroots outreach and education is the key to drastically reducing these figures. Their mission is to provide rescue, rights and rehabilitative services to the communities in most need and to offer a safe exit point to women and their children trapped in the crippling cycle of poverty and abuse. Thus they aspire to develop the awareness and capabilities of individuals who have been deprived of their fundamental rights as a result of the inequalities that exist in our society. They provide services to over 45,000 beneficiaries and are a strong and passionate family, united in the belief that no one should stand alone. About Dr Girish Kulkarni: He grew up in Ahmednagar enjoying life in a middle class, loving and supportive family. A former journalist with several graduate and postgraduate degrees to his name, he now combines working as a political science lecturer with driving Snehalaya, which he founded in 1989. For the past 32 years, he has been connecting with other NGOs, social workers, politicians, celebrities and anyone else who can help raise awareness of the plight and make positive changes for those who society would like to ignore. Quote: “I was motivated by my own burden of guilt. I found that working to satisfy that, was much more sustainable than being moved by compassion. To me, that creates unrealistic expectations and places the burden on others. Ultimately their responses to your actions remain out of your control which can lead to frustrations and dissatisfaction, it’s much more rewarding to be clear and focused on your own purpose.” Links:  Dr Kulkarni's Ted Talk  Snehalaya Website  Radio Nagar Website  Contact:  Volunteer for Snehalaya link Email: info@snehalaya.org --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Gavin Thurston is the award-winning Blue Planet II and Planet Earth II cameraman who worked with Sir David Attenborough for over 20 projects. In this podcast, he shares with us the extraordinary and adventurous true stories of becoming a legendary cameraman.  I met Gavin in Dubai on his book tour at Emirates Literature Festival, and instantly I was moved by his stories and his kind personality. Gavin has been a wildlife photographer for over thirty years. Against a backdrop of modern world history, he's lurked in the shadows of some of the world's remotest places in order to capture footage of the animal kingdom's finest: prides of lions, silverback gorillas, capuchin monkeys, brown bears, grey whales, penguins, mosquitoes - you name it he's filmed it. From journeys to the deepest depths of the Antarctic Ocean and the wide expanse of the Saharan deserts, to the peaks of the Himalayas and the wild forests of the Congo, Gavin's experiences describe much more than just the incredible array of animals he's filmed. He invites you to come inside the cameraman's hidden world and discover the hours spent patiently waiting for the protagonists to appear; the inevitable dangers in the wings and the challenges faced and overcome; and the heart-warming, life-affirming moments the cameras miss as well as capture. Buy Gavin's book on: Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D6LD2NJ/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 Waterstones: https://www.waterstones.com/book/journeys-in-the-wild/gavin-thurston/9781841883106 Foyles:https://www.foyles.co.uk/witem/art-fashion-photography/journeys-in-the-wild-the-secret-life-of,gavin-thurston-9781841883106 Audible: https://www.audible.in/?ref=Adbl_ip_rdr_from_UK&source_code=AUDTM0020803180034&ipRedirectFrom=GB&ipRedirectOriginalURL=pd%2FJourneys-in-the-Wild-Audiobook%2F1409184463%3Fqid%3D1559653498 Personal Website: http://www.gavinthurston.com/ Follow Gavin on: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thegavinthurston/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavinthurston --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Melati is an 19-year-old Indonesian/Dutch activist and an absolute change maker. She and her younger sister, Isabel, ounded Bye Bye Plastic Bags and have been leading the movement driven by youth since 2013. As of 2019, they successfully banned plastic bags, straws and Styrofoam on their home island Bali.  She has spoken at TED and the United Nations and has also been selected among FORBES top ten most inspiring women in the country. She is very passionate about protecting the ocean; Alumni Member of the World’s Ocean Day Youth Advisory Council of the United Nations. Most recently, graduated from high school one year early at the Green School and has since been honoured by TIME as part of the annual list of most influential teens in the world along with CNN Heroes Young Wonders. Is launching a new youth empowerment project YOUTHTOPIA to empower youth through education and provide them with the tools they need to be change-makers. Links: World Economic Forum  Wikipedia  Instagram  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Sujay worked in IBM & Oracle for over 12 years, before founding iKure in 2010. The social venture was incepted with the vision to provide affordable and accessible, quality primary healthcare up to the last mile using technology intervention. Realizing that there will never be sufficient doctors to treat patients in India individually, iKure led by Sujay is changing the public healthcare system from an individualized curative model to a community based preventive healthcare system to ensure holistic well-being of communities. Within 9 years of its journey, iKure is catering to 8 million underserved people across seven states in India. Today, iKure is recognized as a prominent sustainable primary healthcare model in the world. Sujay’s strong technology & business skills backed by his never-say-die spirit has led iKure to many milestones. In recognition of his outstanding efforts in the field of social innovation, he has been awarded the Ashoka Fellowship & received appreciation by the Hon’ble President of India, Shri Pranab Mukherjee in 2016 and conferred with the ‘100 Most Impactful Healthcare Leader Award’ by World Health & Wellness Congress in 2018. An eminent speaker across the global platform, Sujay did MCA from IETE and EPGM from MIT Sloan School of Management, USA. Links:  Mr. Sujay's LinkedIn  Ikure Website Email address: contactus<at>ikure<dot>in Apply for internships with Ikure in finance, operations and data science by emailing them at contactus<at>ikure<dot>in --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Taylor graduated from Harvard in 2015. When most of her friends were choosing jobs in finance and consulting, she decided to become a YouTuber.  On her first channel, YesReneau, she uses poetry, storytelling, and sit-down talks to help her subscribers better navigate the “real world”. On her second YT channel, Ivy Advise, she shares the content that will enable anyone to get into the Ivy League or any top-tier colleges in the USA.  She has now created a course that prepares you for college applications by increasing your chances of getting into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Dartmouth, Cornell, UPenn, and other elite colleges (e.g. Stanford) by coaching you through the process. In order to best prepare students, it uses a hybrid approach of an online course plus individualized consulting. Planet Impact listeners can use a special coupon code to get US$200 off on the Ivy Advise online course. The coupon code is PLANETIMPACT and it's limited to the first 20 students who enrol. Use this link to see the course and purchase it: https://ivyadvise.lpages.co/enrollivyadvise/ Links:  YesReneau Youtube  IvyAdvise Youtube IvyAdvise Website Taylor's Instagram Taylor's LinkedIn  Email: contact@ivyadvise.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Vikra Ijas is the co-founder and the Chief Marketing Officer at Kitabisa.com. His mission has been to leverage tech to connect and amplify kindness.  Vikra graduated from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, in 2012 with a Bachelor's in Commerce specializing in Marketing and International Business.  In 2013, along with his co-founder, Timur, Vikra established a social initiative called Kitabisa. It is an online fundraising and donation platform. When this podcast was recorded in 2019, Kitabisa had facilitated donations work USD 70 Million. The platform has become even more popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, as it now collaborates with major celebrities and media outlets for various fundraising projects. For instance, Kitabisa is a partner for online benefit concerts hosted by Narasi TV and Kompas TV, which managed to collect more than IDR 10 billion (USD 670,700) and IDR 7 billion (USD 469,500), respectively, and directed the money to vulnerable communities, such as informal workers whose income has evaporated because of social restrictions. In the last two months, Kitabisa channelled USD 10 million towards COVID-19 relief efforts.  In this podcast, Vikra talks about the spirit of 'gotong royong' that means a collective action or sharing a burden within a community. He also talks about his journey, personally and professionally, of creating a bigger impact in a very warm and heartwarming fashion. Links: Vikra Ijas: LinkedIn, Instagram and Medium  Kitabisa Website  Vikra's favourite book: The Power of Now Vikra's Slideshare and 'Theory of Disjoined Triangles for Success'  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Ms Aysha grew up in Lahore, Pakistan. She completed her BA in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College in 1995 on a scholarship and graduated Magna Cum Laude. Her time at college sparked her passion for development and she chose to return to Pakistan to work in the non-profit sector. She quickly learned that girls and women in villages needed access to economic resources before they could voice their demands for social justice.  After completing her MBA from LUMS in 1998, she founded the Kaarvan Foundation, a pioneering economic development not-for-profit organization focused on poverty alleviation through the provision of business development and market-led training for girls and women. She headed the Kaarvan Foundation up to 2013 when relocated to Singapore. Here in Singapore in 2019, she wrote her debut novel, 'Beyond the Fields'.  In part 2 of this podcast, we explore Ms Aysha's journey as an author where she shares the development of her book, the inspiration behind the characters in this story and most excitingly she narrates two important excerpts from her book.  If you haven't heard the first part of this episode, we will highly recommend you to go back and listen to it.  About the book: Beyond the Fields is a gripping tale of resilience and reclaiming honour in which the rape of a fifteen-year-old girl living in a remote village of Pakistan drives her twin sister on a dangerous quest for justice. Set in the early 1980s against the backdrop of martial law and social turmoil, beyond the Fields, brings up close the fears and hopes of women in Pakistan. Born to a poor, landless farmer in the month of the monsoon rains, twins Zara and Tara grow up amongst the fields of wheat and cotton in a remote village in Pakistan. During an afternoon spree of games, Tara is kidnapped from the fields and raped. All seems to be resolved after her parents accept an unexpected marriage proposal for their "dishonoured" daughter. But the nightmare resurfaces when a newspaper clipping emerges, calling the union into question. Determined to rescue her twin, Zara embarks on a harrowing quest for justice, battling keepers of a culture that upholds propriety above all else and braving the unknown dangers of an urban centre. Links:  Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44004142-beyond-the-fields Personal Website: http://www.ayshabaqir.com/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Aysha-Baqir-1784877434968771/ Get a copy from Amazon: https://www.amazon.in/Beyond-Fields-Aysha-Baqir/dp/9814841188  Kaarvan: https://kaarvan.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message

Ms Aysha grew up in Lahore, Pakistan. She completed her BA in International Relations from Mount Holyoke College in 1995 on a scholarship and graduated Magna Cum Laude. Her time at college sparked her passion for development and she chose to return to Pakistan to work in the non-profit sector. She quickly learned that girls and women in villages needed access to economic resources before they could voice their demands for social justice. After completing her MBA from LUMS in 1998, she founded the Kaarvan Foundation, a pioneering economic development not-for-profit organization focused on poverty alleviation through the provision of business development and market-led training for girls and women. She headed the Kaarvan Foundation up to 2013 when relocated to Singapore. In part 1 of this podcast, we explore Ms Aysha's story from an academically driven childhood in Pakistan to getting a scholarship to go to the states and coming back to Pakistan to make a social change through Kaarvan Foundation.  Ms Aysha is currently on the Board of Kaarvan Crafts Foundation, an Ashoka Fellow and a member of Singapore Writers Group. Links: Personal Website: http://www.ayshabaqir.com/ Beyond the Fields: https://www.amazon.in/Beyond-Fields-Aysha-Baqir/dp/9814841188 Kaarvan: https://kaarvan.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/manthanshah/message