Shaheen Mistri

Shaheen was born in Mumbai, grew up in five countries around the world and at the age of eighteen, returned to Mumbai to do something about the unequal opportunities that children have in India. Shaheen founded the first Akanksha (“aspiration” in Sanskrit) centre in 1989 with 15 children. The Akanksha Foundation today runs 26 Akanksha Schools across Mumbai, Pune and Nagpur impacting over 14,000 students and 4,000 student alumni.In 2008, searching for a way to impact more children and inspired by the Teach For America model, Shaheen founded Teach For India with the audacious vision of providing an excellent education to all children across India by building a movement of leaders committed to ending educational inequity in India. Today, Teach For India impacts 34,000 children through the direct work of over 1000 Fellows and 230 staff members across eight cities and has produced over 11,000 student alumni. Additionally, the Teach For India Alumni community is 4600+ members strong, impacting 1 million children directly and reaching 50 million children indirectly.Shaheen’s work for children over three decades has mobilised thousands of people to work together for systemic change in education. She has built the largest network of education change-makers in the country.