I was a young girl when my father told me that he sees in me the traits he had in his youth! The same breath of courage, of doing something unique and of looking at a world from a different lens.
In 1989, as soon as my father turned 19, he moved from India to Japan to begin a journey of a lifetime! He went there, completely alone, and made a wonderful life for himself. He worked many jobs and played a lot of table tennis! He always reminded me that it took a lot of strength to stay away from family, but he had found his purpose. He learned the values of simplicity and pure hard work from the country which he passed on to his children.
I understood from my father’s story that finding a true purpose in your life can give it real meaning. Ironically, my purpose came to me when I was least looking for it! I was traveling alone across India, motorbiking in the mountains or painting graffiti in hostels, while I volunteered to teach young children. After 25 solo trips and 2 years of volunteering, I realised that there is something lacking in us as the ‘youth of tomorrow’. In my fortunate travels, I met thousands of other youth volunteers who worked on various different issues e.g. Education, Climate Change, Blood donation etc.
However, I realised that even though as volunteers we have the best intentions at heart, we do not always know what to do in the field! To ensure that no volunteer ever feels lost, I started Project LEAP in 2017. In the first month of the project, I mobilized 300+ volunteers to work towards equal education for all sections of society (SDG 4). I provided clear guidelines on identifying vulnerable sections of society, imparting quality education, and building community participation. Alongside this, I personally trained 300+ volunteers on topics like recognizing and dealing with personal biases, creative thinking, digital working, and social entrepreneurship. The biggest outcome was that all my volunteers stayed with me for 3+ years and not even a single volunteer left.
We taught 1400+ families topics like Math, Science, English, Personality and confidence, alcohol misuse, etc. When we were hit by COVID in 2020, I started training the volunteers online and in fact across the globe! Today, my dream is to upskill and empower all volunteers, no matter which SDG and cause they support, to be able to achieve their goals with the best results. I want to give back to the volunteers who give so much to society and I am going to work tirelessly toward this goal. This is my true purpose! This is the form of leadership that I truly believe in.
Currently, I am looking for stories of local heroes, of everyday miracles, of true kindness. I feature these heroes in an initiative under Project LEAP titled “Social Library”, where I invite these heroes to speak to strangers in a one-to-one, judgment-free and safe space. This concept has gathered so much love and given relief and hope to hundreds of people that I want to bring it to different cities of the world. I am currently trying to bring it to Australia, Berlin, Toronto, and New Zealand and I will get there, slowly but surely!
A promise to myself: Remember you are true purpose, especially in times of big success and huge failures because purpose is my guiding light.