Meenakshi

Changemaker for me is a person who not only leads but is also an enabler, a collaborator and co-creator who builds leaders and empowers emerging changemakers. I am a changemaker, Atlas Crops fellow, Starting Bloc fellow and a delegate for Global Pathfinder Summit and Global Leadership Forum for emerging youth leaders across the globe at the Presidential Prescient.

I was born and raised in India with limited access to resources and abundant curiosity to learn, collaborate, and co-create solutions for some of the most pressing problems around the world. Being a changemaker the most significant value that I hold true is responsiveness to the community and creating an internal social fabric tapping into the talent of youth across the globe. From the experience of working with different communities, I’ve also learned that it's important to “be one” with the community and to focus on optimally utilizing the resources and network.

In 2016, I collaborated with youth from India, local government, and communities to launch Community Entrepreneurship Labs with a vision to solve community-level challenges with a global perspective. Taking an example of challenges surrounded around limited electricity in many parts of India, recently a solution-based approach was implemented with the support of youth. Under this project, youth from local villages came together to develop a solar school bag for children. The bag is charged while children study during the
day and utilize the light to safely return home after school that is located across the Dirang River. It is important to note that women of the community were trained to make these bags, resulting in building local capacities, generating employment, and confidence in recognizing communities’ collective talent. Additionally, for the youth of the community felt empowered and enabled to identify sustainable solutions for challenges across communities.

I want to become a Youth Lead ambassador, because being a changemaker and an emerging global leader, I deeply resonate and feel that the youth has the power to create a better world and it is my ethical responsibility to fuel this fire; utilize my network, resources, connect, mentor, collaborate and co-create sustainable solutions so that the learnings have multifold impact on many generations.