Souvik PandSahaey

Souvik Saha is a banker turned development professional and founder of People for Change. He has been working with Adolescents and Youth in Jharkhand since the past eight years. Born and brought up in Jamshedpur, he completed his schooling from a private school. In college, he studied commerce and obtained a CFA degree. All he wanted now was to go back to where it all began – to school. He says, “I wanted to create a safe, non-judgmental space that would promote freedom of expression and self-enquiry. A space where students could have fun, trust each other and feel love, where they could have deeper self-awareness, the feeling of connection and the power to create change.”

With this idea in mind, Souvik applied to the Changelooms fellowship and got selected. In 2010, Souvik conceived the idea of People for Change, a social enterprise based on the belief that the schooling system should have formal & structured spaces for adolescents to understand themselves and the world around them. Over the years, People for Change has expanded its work to include government & trust fund schools, colleges in the city and youth groups in rural communities in Jharkhand. People for Change offers a mix of paid and free workshops, sessions and long-term structured programmes to schools and colleges by incorporating non-curriculum elements like active citizenship, critical & creative thinking and decision making skills. Till date, the social enterprise has engaged over 20,000 youth and adolescents by working with 35 schools, 6 colleges and 3 youth resource centers in urban and rural Jharkhand. Currently Souvik leads an 8- member team and works out of an office close to the XLRI campus in Jamshedpur.

“I’d like to see a system where young people can take decisions that are good for them and for the community. My larger vision is to see young people as empowered agents of change who will shift the narrative towards youth development through creating social businesses and having greater participation in all aspects of society,” he says.