Twenty five years ago Vishal Talreja founded Dream-a-Dream as a voluntary effort in Mumbai with eleven other individuals who were committed to working with young people. 

Since then, Ðream-A-Dream has become a non-profit that works with close to 5 million children across six Indian states, with a vision to provide transformative educational experiences that impart life skills to children living in poverty.

Deval and Vishal have known each other since the beginning of their journeys in the social sector, and over the years their relationship has grown from one of co-travellers in the same sector and strengthened into one of friendship.

After a brief stint in investment banking and running Dream-A-Dream as a volunteer effort, Vishal committed to Dream-A-Dream full time, a decision that wasn’t met with approval by his family. Listen as the Ashoka Fellow and Eisenhower Fellow  speaks candidly about his early years setting up Dream-A-Dream, the societal pressures to conform and get a ‘real’ job and meeting his life partner Suchetha who is now the CEO of Dream-A-Dream. 

In this episode, Vishal also opens up about how building an organization came at the cost of his own mental health and the well-being of his organization.  He speaks of his burnout and depression, and how his physical and mental health forced him to pull back and recalibrate, which led him to found The Cocoon Initiative, which allows civil society leaders to take a break from their work to rest, rejuvenate, reflect and revive their core strengths, clarify their purpose and heal their body, mind and spirit from years of having given fully into one’s cause.

 To know more about the work of Dream-A-Dream please visit www.dreamadream.org. You can find The Cocoon Initiative at https://www.cocooninitiative.org/. 

For more information on No-Cost Extension go to https://www.dasra.org/nce  and follow Deval on X at @deval_sanghavi  and @Dasra