SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP

URVASHI SAHNI

CAREER SUMMARY

Urvashi Sahni is a social entrepreneur STUDY HALL EDUCATION FOUNDATION (SHEF)

Dr. Urvashi Sahni is a disruptive innovator, social entrepreneur, and women's rights activist who has
worked and worked to transform education for 35 years. She is an explorer in her field, she is a
leading expert and practitioner in the areas of educational innovation, school governance, curriculum
reform, and teacher education.

Urvashi Sahni was Married at 17, she had 2 daughters at 23, both unwelcome in a patriarchal culture.
When she was 27, her sister was burned alive for her dowry. Such experiences fueled her anger at the
oppression and dehumanization of girls and women and led her to wonder why, despite their high-
quality education, she and her sister lacked the power to make important choices in life. In response,
she founded Suraksha (a women's rights organization), followed by the Study Hall Educational
Foundation (SHEF, an educational organization that empowers students and teachers to effect
change), and DiDi's (a social media, sustainable livelihoods for women). She is currently the
President and CEO of SHEF, through which her work has impacted over 1,00,000 teachers and 5
million children, most of whom are girls from marginalized communities.

Dr.Sahni earned her Masters’s and Ph.D. in Education from UC Berkeley. She is an Ashoka Fellow, a
Non-Resident Fellow at the Center for Universal Education, Brookings Institution, USA, and a former
member of the Rajasthan Chief Minister's Advisory Council. In 2017 she was named Social
Entrepreneur of the Year of India by the Schwab-Jubilant Bhartiya Foundation and joined their
international community of social entrepreneurs.

She is co-founder of Catalyst 2030 (a global network to accelerate the SDGs through innovation) and
has been featured in Time Magazine, NBC News, Sydney Morning Herald, Toronto Star, Hindustan
Times, Mint, Education World, and Times of India.

Dr. Sahni has participated in consultations on the development of the SDGs as well as India's National
Education Policy 2020. She was nominated by the State Government to serve on the Steering
Committee of Primary Education Groups and secondary for the implementation of the new policy in
Uttar Pradesh.

Few people have acquired the credibility, mindset, courage, and track record to drive systems to
change forward both from within and without. Dr. Urvashi Sahni is distinguished by her extraordinary
ability to shape the education system both as a partner and as an activist.
ABOUT SHEF

Study Hall Educational Foundation (SHEF), an inclusive non-income organization, runs a community
of six specific faculties and 4 outreach programs, instructing assorted populations of kids and younger
adults; each faculty caters to a specific section of society. Over the closing 3 decades, SHEF has
educated over 100,000 instructors and impacted over five million kids (predominantly women from
deprived communities) via SHEF’s numerous faculties and programs.

The Study Hall Educational Foundation has continued its mission to provide quality education to
disadvantaged girls and youth in urban and rural areas of India. Use of feminist pedagogy, gender
sensitization techniques, and adolescent empowerment discussions on social issues in the classroom.
SHEF has developed over 2,000 content videos covering state curriculum, special education, digital
stories, and teacher training workshops. SHEF places the girl and her development at the center of all
initiatives, empowers girls through drama and drama education to become equally empowered
individuals who have the right to equal participation in society.

Together, SHEF units work across the continuum of privileged and marginalized children,
demonstrating that its social justice-centered educational model, grounded in an ethic of care,
addresses the full range of challenges children face in the world. in personality.

SHEF schools also act as centers of innovation where new curricula and pedagogies are developed.
Once tried and tested the Outreach Branch shares and evolves these innovations.
 VISION
MISSION SHEF will transform formal and informal learning
A world where everyone is educated for spaces to empower educators and students,
gender equality, social justice, personal educating them for gender equality and social
flourishing and active democratic citizenship. justice to make them active democratic citizens
and caring changemakers.It will:
-Shape and scale innovative curricula, pedagogy and
technology for democratic citizenship education
foregrounding gender equality and social justice
-Seed and strengthen educators, students and
champions of democratic citizenship education/gender
equality and social justice
-Script democratic citizenship education, foregrounding
gender equality and social justice, into the government
education and other learning ecosystems.
 AWARDS AND HONORS

One of the twelve Social FCCI – 1st FLO Women

Tatler Magazine’s Asia’s
Entrepreneurs of the Year BBC’s list of 100 Inspirational Award for outstanding
Most Influential: The Impact
worldwide - by The Schwab- and Innovative Women-2017 contribution in education
List 2020
2018 2016

Hindustan Times Award for Honorary Membership, Echidna Scholarship for Girls
Professional Excellence.- Clinton Global Initiative- Education at The Brookings The Ashoka Fellowship-2011
2014 2013 Institution. -2012

Best Paper Award – by

Joint Tech Laureate award,
American Educational Outstanding Women’s
Global Citizen Award – by with Randy Wang, by Tech
Research Association Achiever Award by Lucknow
United Nations Association, Museum of Innovations,San
for“Cosmopolitan Imaginings Management Association-
USA-2011 Jose, USA to Digital Study
of Self and Other: Girls in 2009
Hall-2008
India Go Online”-2010

Dr. Ned Flanders Myrtle L. Judkins Memorial

International Haas Award - David H. Russell Fellowship,
Scholarship, University Of Scholarship, University Of
by University of California at University Of California,
California, Berkeley, USA California, Berkeley, USA
Berkeley, USA-1999 Berkeley, USA 1992-93
1992-1993 1991-1992
 URVASHI SHANI CURRENT POSITIONS

CURRENT POSITIONS

Founder and President SURAKSHA: Women's rights organisation and first  

family counselling center in Uttar Pradesh 1983- Present
Founder President And CEO, Study Hall Educational Foundation, India 1986- Present
Founder and Academic Director: Prerna Girls School 2003-Present
Founder President and Academic Director, Vidyasthali Kanar High School 2005- Present
Co-Founder and Director: Digital Study Hall 2005-Present
Founder President and Chief mentor Sisters in Solidarity: Didi's Foods and Creation 2008-Present
Founder: The Aarohini Initiative 2011-Present
Founder and Academic Director: Study Hall Center for Learning 2013- Present
Founder and Academic Director: Prerna Boys School 2013-Present
Founder and Academic Director: The Study Hall College 2016-Present
Echidna Fellow, The Brookings Institution 2012
Non-Resident Fellow, Center Of Universal Education, The Brookings Institution 2013-Present
Member, Chief Minister's Advisory Council, Govt. of Rajasthan  
Member of sub group on Education and Skill Development 2015-2018
Member of Global Girls Alliance, led by the Obama Foundation  
Leader of the South Asian Hub 2018-Present
Member of Steering Committee for National Education Policy 2020, Govt. of  
Uttar Pradesh 2020-Present

Urvashi Shahni Publications to name a few

“Classrooms as radical In Child

“Reaching for the Sky: spaces of possibilities.” Cultures,Schooling, and
Empowering Girls Research in Drama Literacy: Global
Through Education” Education: The Journal of
Perspectives on
(2017) Brookings Applied Theatre and
Composing Unique
Institution Press Performance. 2016.
Lives, (2016).

What Can You Do and Empowerment “The Harry Potter

who Can You be: a Case pedagogy from young phenomenon.” In
Study in Girls' Education children’s perspective.” Journal of Adolescent
in India.” (2012) 2001. & Adult Literacy (2001)
THE FEMINIST PEDAGOGY

Dr. Sahni established critical feminist pedagogy via her work at Prerna Girls School, which is used in all
of SHEF's schools. According to Paolo Freire's work, critical feminist pedagogy is a combination of
critical and feminist learning strategies that helps girls and boys develop consciousness by raising their
greater awareness of overbearing cultural rules, power structures, cultures, and the gender relations that
impact them. Children get an understanding of the unfair and unjust power systems that come to define
and constrain their lives in this way, and are therefore able to name their reality.

The pedagogy is based on the idea that children must be taught to think critically and to challenge
societal norms and behaviours. It also attempts to teach youngsters (particularly males) that feminism is
not just for female. Rather, it is the pursuit of equality and human rights, as well as the provision of equal
rights and opportunities to all persons.

At the center of basic women's activist instructional method is the utilization of basic discourse to help
young ladies and young men name their world and analyze the foundational separation and mistreatment
looked by them and everyone around them. Thusly, they become fundamentally mindful of their social
and political reality and furthermore gain an underlying comprehension of man controlled society and
how it shapes their lives. They discover that man controlled society is a social build, not a characteristic
one, and that implies that it tends to be changed. Through conversation with their instructor and
companions, understudies become enabled and figure out how to act both exclusively and all things
considered as self-advocates, testing out of line social constructions. This turns out to be particularly
significant in assisting young ladies with accomplishing better life results and aiding young men figure
out how to be more libertarian.

Basic women's activist teaching method likewise incorporates the broad utilization of show and basic
education. Understudies consistently participate in both of these exercises, as well as dance, pretend, and
intelligent composition. Such exercises help understudies in communicating their sentiments,
understanding their own right to fairness, and practicing opposition and equivalent approaches to living
in a protected setting, subsequently empowering them to foster voice and organization to liberate them
from abusive social definitions and assumptions. They figure out how to envision a substitute self and a
substitute reality in a populist social request, and altogether pursue accomplishing it.
 LEADERSHIP STYLE AND CULTURE

The SHEF community of instructional tasks engages four hundred people, who're led through a group of
12 girls and men. Each program, faculty and initiative having its personal devoted leader/s and the
Foundation is headed through a Chief Executive Officer and ruled through the Board of Directors, the
president of which is likewise the CEO. Over the ultimate three a long time SHEF has developed a
completely unique management style, that's consultative, supportive, mentoring, coaching, dialogic,
collaborative, democratic and invitational. It is primarily based totally on trust, autonomy and based on
an ethic of care. The organizational management has labored intentionally and consistently at growing a
robust group of leaders, primarily based totally at the perception that management is the cornerstone of
any corporation's fulfillment and growth. SHEF is a gaining knowledge of corporation and the leaders
see themselves as gaining knowledge of and evolving continuously. They experience loose to learn, to
test and fail.

Dr. Urvashi Sahni

Founder & Chief Executive

Study Hall Educational Foundation

Mrs. Meenakshi Bahadur Mrs. Meenakshi Shah Mrs. Bani Malhotra Mrs. Surabhi Kapoor
Principal Vice Principal Headmistress Principal
Study Hall School Study Hall School Study Hall School (Junior DOSTI, Study Hall School
Section)
 Mrs. Rakhee Panjwani Mr. Utpal Mishra Dr. Pratima Srivastava Ms. Anusha Sharma
Principal Director Principal - Study Hall Principal
Prerna Girls School Study Hall College Centre For Learning Vidyasthali Kanar Inter
Assistant Coordinator - College
Study Hall NIOS Centre

Mr. Anand Chitravanshi Mr. Siddharth Shukla Mr. Kali Saurabh Shanker
Director of Programs, Head, Communications & Head, Finance
SHEF Outreach Resources Mobilization, Study Hall Educational Foundation
SHEF Outreach

Ms. Pooja Sood Mr. Ashwini Malhotra Ms. Shibani Sahni Ms. Kirti Narain
Assistant Secretary Jt Secretary Secretary Member
Mr. Sunil Sahni Ms. Vrinda Sarup
Treasurer Member

SHEF SCHOOLS

PRERNA GIRLS VIDYASTHALI STUDENT STUDY DOSTI

SCHOOL HALL

PRERNA BOYS STUDY HALL CENTRE FOR NURSERY AND

COLLEGE LEARNING PRIMARY TEACHER
LEARNING
OUTREACH PROGRAMMS

AAROHINI INITIATIVE

The initiative of Aarohini, founded in 2011, is an empowering and educational

program of girls who are firmly rooted in philosophy that girls and boys should
receive an education that teaches them, critically examining the role and gender
construction in their own lives and communities

GYANSETU

GyanSetu (Learning Bridge) is a network of micro-educational social enterprises run

by the Study Hall Educational Foundation. They are small, intimate learning support
centers in rural and urban areas where poverty, gender and caste intersect to prevent
children from attending school. Out-of-school children who are at high risk undergo
an accelerated learning program at the GyanSetu center. After completing the
program, they enroll in formal schools and receive further training and support at
their local GyanSetu center to ensure they stay in school.
 DIGITAL STUDY HALL

Digital Study Hall (DSH) aims to improve the education of poor children in slums and rural
schools in India. They digitally record live lessons from top-notch grassroots teachers, collate
them into a large distributed database and distribute them to rural and inner-city schools.
Education professionals and teachers use the system to explore pedagogical approaches that
involve local teachers who actively “deliver” video lessons. By tapping into a “viral
phenomenon” of community involvement, DSH aims to support teacher training and provide
quality instruction to underprivileged children. The project is a collaboration between
technology and education experts.

DIGITAL SAATHI

To facilitate access to online courses for children (particularly girls) from socio-economically
vulnerable and marginalized communities, SHEF proposes digital technology and to selected
students, alumni and teachers who will then be responsible for facilitating learning in their
communities to provide connectivity. The project was named "Digital Saathi" because one
device will facilitate and enable education and learning for many.
SHEF OVERALL IMPACT

 SHEF college students have a Avg attendance of over 85% in comparison to a countrywide
common of 71.1 percent.
 SHEF's teachers' attendance charge is 94.5 percent, while in comparison towards a
countrywide common of 85.8 percent.
 Prerna recorded a mean dropout charge of eight.14 percent, in comparison to a countrywide
dropout charge of 46.7% for girls.
 97.4% of Prerna college students have transitioned to better education.
 52.2% of Prerna graduates are employed.
 The common age at marriage of Prerna alumni is 21.five years.
 In our parents' survey, a 100% respondents rated Prerna as an awesome faculty, with ninety
percentage pointing to fine training because the reason.
 684 out-of-faculty youngsters had been transitioned to normal faculties via our GyanSetu
software that targets to train extraordinarily terrible out-of-faculty youngsters and transition
them to formal faculties.
 In 2018, no baby marriages had been stated among ladies of Kasturba Gandhi Balika
Vidyalaya - authorities faculties that SHEF is running with - upon finishing elegance eight
because of the efforts and perseverance of instructors educated withinside the Aarohini
software. In 2016, forty four underage ladies had been pressured into marriage upon
completion, and in 2017, 32 underage ladies had been pressured into marriage. In 2011, 53%
ladies confirmed vulnerability to baby marriage as in line with a pattern study.
 Partnership among faculties and baby safety offerings has enabled 313 instances of baby
rights violation to be introduced to the eye of the Aarohini Tele-mentoring Cell.
 In 2018, 93% of women completing magnificence 8 (13,256 women) of Kasturba Gandhi
Balika Vidyalaya transitioned to magnificence 9.
 SHEF's network outreach program - India's Daughter Campaign - has reached over 2 million
network individuals, such as 232,000 college students from 2320 authorities faculties.
 An extra 1592 network conferences and panel discussions with individuals of main political
events have additionally been held, and a complete of 3279 focus marches have taken region
throughout the state.
 More than 200,000 network individuals from almost 2000 villages have signed pledges
towards baby marriage because of the women' campaigns. The involvement of nearby officers
and regulation enforcement officials withinside the marketing campaign has helped convey an
air of lawfulness to those groups with reference to baby marriage and women' rights.
SHIFT IN ATTITUDE

As a result of SHEF's work with children on gender equality, children have experienced and
demonstrated positive changes in the following areas:

Confidence And Self-expression,

Gender Sensitization,

More Equitable Perceptions Of Girls,

Influencing Their Families And

Advocating For Their Sisters,
Non-dominant Perceptions Of
Masculinity And Manhood,
Increased Awareness About Other Social
Inequalities
Attempting To Influence Peers To
Change Similarly

Skills And Abilities

FIVE YEAR PLAN

Increase SHEF's impact on both literacy and life outcomes (transition to higher education and work,
less child marriage and gender-based violence, more agency) to an additional 1.12 million children

22,000 more educators become agents of change

Deepen and expanding SHEF network in the states of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh

Increase subscribers to SHEF's YouTube channel to 200,000

More than 1900 public schools would practice SHEF's gender curricula social justice

Collaborate with 20 civil society partners and campaign against child marriage and gender-based
violence

Increase community participation by establishing more than 150 community centers in areas with
limited or no access to schools

support so that we learn from the feminist and educational ecosystem to spread our approach. Recent
examples include:

Trained 40 NGOs in Washington DC in 2019

Through lectures and webinars, Dr. Sahni embedded SHEF's approach and philosophy in leading
educational institutions such as Indian Institutes of Management, Indian Institutes of Technology,
Tata Institute of Social Sciences and many more.

PUBLICATIONS

Publications:

SHEF’s girls’ curriculum

 SHEF’s boys’ curriculum

Brookings blogs

Sahni, U. (2017). Reaching for the Sky: Empowering Girls Through Education: Empowering Girls
Through Education. Brookings Institution Press.

Gallagher, K., & Sahni, U. (2019). Performing care: re-imagining gender, personhood, and
educational justice. Gender and Education, 31(5), 631-642.

Sahni, U. (2019). The Prerna girls’ education initiative in India: Scaling literacy to reach for the sky.
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 62(5), 568-573

PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS

STORIES OF TRANSFORMATION