About Margshala Foundation
A BRIEF HISTORY
In 2019, a team of motivated development sector professionals came together to solve tough problems in hard places. We asked ourselves a simple question – how can we create opportunities for young people in the most remote of communities?
Since then, we have run a number of innovative experimental pilots related to livelihoods, entrepreneurship, career awareness and environmental sustainability for close to 2000 young people.across remote districts of Uttarakhand. Over the last 3 years, our flagship program – the Margshala Swarozgar Fellowship – has grown into one of the few well-recognized youth entrepreneurship programs in the Himalayan region.
Margshala Foundation works with the mission of creating sustainable rural livelihoods by enabling rural youth change makers with experience, exposure, and capacities to create local futures for themselves. We seek to empower underserved communities in rural and remote parts of the country, with a unique focus on the Himalayan region.
Till now, we were fortunate to be incubated by India and Bharat Together, or IABT Foundation. In 2022, Margshala Foundation has been incorporated as a non-profit Section 8 Company to take forward this mission independently and build on the early success of our programs in the Himalayan region.
Meet The Team
AADYA SINGH
FOUNDING DIRECTOR
AADYA SINGH
FOUNDING DIRECTOR
Through her work, Aadya has been exploring the intersection between economy and ecology with a focus on Himalayan communities. Following a masters in Development Studies from IIT-Madras, she gained experience in non-traditional livelihoods with organisations in Uttarakhand and Ladakh. At Margshala, she is focused on building a strong model for empowering youth to create sustainable local livelihoods for themselves through entrepreneurship and local ecosystem creation. In her spare time, she enjoys playing pretend naturalist, musician and photographer, and has dabbled in freelance writing for various digital platforms. She enjoys being outdoors and exploring new landscapes in the mountains as well.
VPJ Sambhavi
PROGRAM ASSOCIATE
VPJ Sambhavi
PROGRAM ASSOCIATE
Sambhavi manages and coordinates the Margshala Swarozgar Fellowship, Margshala’s flagship program as well as workshops to promote entrepreneurship among youth residing in rural Himalayas. She has Masters’ degrees in Psychology and Education and has an ethnographic research background in the area of Environmental education. She is also an alumna of University of Delhi, India and KU Leuven, Belgium the latter where she was an Erasmus Mundus Scholar and an IRO Scholar. In her spare time, she enjoys practising yoga, hiking and loves to dabble with art.
Deepika Nandan
CONSULTANT: DESIGN AND STRATEGY
Deepika Nandan
CONSULTANT: DESIGN AND STRATEGY
Deepika is an artist from Bengaluru whose practice explores the use of found objects and natural, sustainable material. Her enchantment with the natural world began with observing ants as a young child. Now, she uses her art to communicate about the fascinating life around her. Using location and context-specific media and visuals, she investigates the biosphere and how humans interact with it. She hopes her curiosity is contagious and her work inspires sustainability and conservation.
Arunima Pande
GROWTH & STRATEGY LEAD
Arunima Pande
GROWTH & STRATEGY LEAD
A passion for fostering collective growth through sustainable, alternative livelihoods fuels Arunima's days. Her professional journey began in the corporate fintech space, but a desire to reconnect with her roots led her to transition into grassroots development work. She has integrated her experiences in product management and sustainable process development into community-centered initiatives, including her run as an entrepreneur to promote Uttarakhand's entrepreneurial and cultural ecosystem. She believes women and youth empowerment holds the key to long-standing social change.
Arunima enjoys field visits that allow for close engagement with the community. Being a mountain child at heart, that overlaps with her love for exploration, photography and new stories, which keep her energised.
Ruth D'Costa
LEAD FACILITATOR
Ruth D'Costa
LEAD FACILITATOR
At age 12, Ruth figured she could sell graph sheets and maps to fellow students for a small profit. The business bug in her brain has found a comfortable home at Margshala. The bug has other interests. Civic action, which led to the banding together of youth social leaders at HaiJalo, Ruth's side hustle. Her big dreams are to grow many forests and give wings to a nature-based rehabilitation project in prisons.
Somewhere along the way, there was an MBA in social entrepreneurship and years of non-violent environmental activism.
Ekta Aggarwal
Co-Facilitator
Ekta Aggarwal
Co-Facilitator
She loves to put things together. Donuts and oreo, words and feelings, Dehradun and Wada Paav, life and adventure, and so on. She finds peace among village folks and in spaces that are filled with children and femine energy. Two main characteristics of Ekta that run her life are being sucker for stories and a life long learner. This has enabled her to widen her skillset to writing, strategy, outreach, facilitation, management and operations. The white spaces of her life are spent dyeing and painting clothes using natural colours with village women and selling them through her founded organisation, Pagdandi Foundation.
RIJUTA DUTT
MEDIA CONTENT ASSOCIATE
RIJUTA DUTT
MEDIA CONTENT ASSOCIATE
Rijuta is a writer and storyteller with a background in advertising and the impact sector. Passionate about crafting narratives that bring out the significance of change and impact, Rijuta believes in combining her expertise in audience analysis and narrative skills to bring out meaningful stories.
She has a keen interest in research and at Margshala, as a Media Content Associate, she will work to amplify the organization's mission and stories of change of the fellows through storytelling.
GOKUL MER
MEDIA AND OUTREACH CONSULTANT
GOKUL MER
MEDIA AND OUTREACH CONSULTANT
Gokul holds a Bachelor's degree in Business Administration, but his passion lies in front-end development. He channels his creativity into designing social media collaterals and editing videos. At Margshala, he is a Social Media Consultant and is excited to explore social media and website development aspects.
Beyond the digital realm, Gokul loves driving and exploring new travel destinations, whether solo or with friends. He's also an avid cricket enthusiast, enjoying playing it locally.