Sohini Bhattacharya is the CEO and President of Breakthrough, a global human rights organization working to drive culture change to build a world where all people live in dignity, equality, and respect. Among its many initiatives, Breakthrough reaches nearly half a million adolescents in India through school and community programs, ensuring girls face less discrimination, complete school, and delay their age at marriage. James Nardella, former Skoll Foundation Principal and current Chief Program Officer for Last Mile Health, sat down with Sohini to talk about the hard work of shifting culture norms of gender-based violence and discrimination. James started the conversation by asking Sohini about her childhood in India.

It’s girls not being able to complete education and compete in the job market.  So if you allow girls to complete education, delay of marriage, learn a skill, you are actually empowering family after family to be able to get themselves out of poverty.  People are not seeing that because girls do not get to complete education.  Girls get married early.  Girls cannot find jobs which are at par with boys, so you have to constantly work on redirecting these beliefs, showing the community that this is possible.

Read the full interview with Sohini Battacharya about making an impact on gender discrimination in India by James Nardella at Skoll Foundation.