Avnish Kumar

Siddharth Nagar, Uttar Pradesh

Education: M.Com, Lalit Narayan Mithila University

Last Employer: Piramal Foundation, Aspirational District Transformation Program

Growing up in rural Bihar has given me a deep understanding of socio-economic issues faced by the rural population. I was always passionate to drive change in next generation and found that it can be only done with the help of proper education. This was a fact cemented afterI completed my masters in commerce. In a bid to increase access to education in my village, I started a night school for child workers and ran it for one year.

During my time running the night school, there was a desire to delve deeper into the various barriers to education that children face. Hence, I joined the Gandhi Fellowship to work on scale and to find solutions to those barriers. My role in the fellowship was to work as a consultant to an aspirational district; help enhance the leadership skills of middle managers, and to improve student learning outcomes. After getting 2 years of experience on the district level, I worked with ETASHA Society to enhance life chances of students.

Both organizations helped broaden my vision and capacity to create impact. Therefore, I sought out the Aspirational District Fellowship to drive change through various indicators at a larger scale. I believe that this fellowship will enable me to drive development forward through strengthening the government system already in place in a sustainable and effective way