My name is Navendu Mishra, and I’m a grassroots activist from Seoni district, Madhya Pradesh and the co-founder of Agrini Samaj Kalyan Samiti, a nonprofit working on education, leadership building, and constitutional literacy. As part of this, we run a school for around 172 children in Kurai, a small forest village near the Pench National Park. We also work with government and private schools to promote experiential learning and conduct teacher training programmes.

My entry into the development sector was by accident. Originally, I wanted to study engineering. I cleared the exams and even managed to get admission, but my family did not have the resources to fund my education. So, I had to drop out. I started working and studying simultaneously, in order to support my family. Around the same time, I came across a local nonprofit working on empowering gram panchayats. I joined them, and as part of my job I would go to different villages, organise gram sabhas, and understand the issues people were facing.

Slowly, I started getting involved in local movements and community campaigns. It was at one such event that I met Gourav, my co-founder, and we started working together in 2011.

Early on itself, we had learnt the importance of knowledge and information, and so we made education—not academic, but holistic education—our priority at Agrini. Our focus has always been to make education as accessible as possible, to everyone. This became a challenge during the COVID-19 imposed lockdown, when we had to shut our school, and stop our training programmes with other schools. Initially, we decided to focus on making sure that the children’s education was continuing, rather than getting into relief work. However, when we saw the panicked migrant workers walking home on the highway that passes near Seoni, we knew we had no choice. As things have started returning to normal, we have stepped away from relief work, and now our focus is back on our school and other movements we are a part of.

Read the full article about grassroots activism and education rights by Navendu Mishra at India Development Review.