she talks

Ashoka Youth Venturer, Olivia Deka, aims to build She For Change as a platform to provide mentorship to young girls across different fields. Ashoka Youth Venture by Ashoka India is a programme that encourages young changemakers to take up innovative ideas for social entrepreneurship.

In 2017, she launched her project She For Change to address important issues like education, economic empowerment, healthcare, gender-based violence, women empowerment and environment.

Deka said, “I want to create a safe space for young girls and help provide mentorship to them through interactions with change makers. I want to build leaders so that eventually each young girl can go on to start their own initiatives,”

Olivia Deka also started She Talks, a series of conversations around gender issues and to build a platform where people could share and learn from each other’s stories. The first talk of the series was held on Monday at Gauhati Artist’s Guild.

To tackle gender-based discrimination, an early intervention plays a key role.

“If young girls have good mentors while they are growing up, I believe that it will change their perspective,” Olivia Deka said.

A final year student pursuing energy engineering at North Eastern Hill University, Olivia Deka represented India at the ChangemakerXchange (CXC) Summit in Phillipines last year with her socio-progressive start-up Finderbridge Tourism.

As the Co-Founder and Director of Finderbridge Tourism, Olivia Deka promotes community based rural tourism in the Northeast.

“At the ChangemakerXchange Summit, I got the opportunity to interact with twenty-five other entrepreneurs and learn from them. It inspired me to start ‘She for Change’,” Deka said.