Sujata Sahu is an Indian social entrepreneur. Having worked as a teacher, she set up 17000 ft Foundation in order to improve school conditions in remote villages in Ladakh and Sikkim. The non-governmental organisation has undertaken Whole School Transformation Projects by providing Libraries, Playgrounds & DigiLabs to remote border schools along with rigorous training of Teachers. Sahu was awarded the 2015 Nari Shakti Puraskar and WTI (Women Transforming India) Award 2019 in recognition of her work.

Career

Sahu worked in the corporate sector in the United States for nine years before moving to

Gurgaon Gurgaon (pronunciation: �ʊɽɡãːw, officially named Gurugram (pronunciation: �ʊɾʊɡɾaːm, is a city located in the northern Indian state of Haryana. It is situated near the Delhi–Haryana border, about southwest of the nationa ...

and becoming a teacher at the Shri Ram School in

NCR Delhi The National Capital Region (NCR) is a planning region centred upon the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi in India. It encompasses Delhi and several districts surrounding it from the states of Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. The N ...

, teaching mathematics and computer science. In June 2010, she went on a solo trek in Ladakh and when she experienced high-altitude pulmonary edema she stopped to recover at a remote village. Having witnessed the conditions there, she decided to set up a non-governmental organisation (NGO) to provide improved facilities for the local school children.

17000 ft Foundation

Sahu set up the 17000 ft Foundation with her husband Sandeep Sahu and Dawa Jora in 2011. They named the NGO after a trek they made which reached 17,000 feet above sea level. Having made a volunteer-run study they identified and mapped 600 schools across Ladakh. The foundation has provided playgrounds to 140 schools and donated libraries to 230 schools, giving books in Hindu, English and Urdu. Since there were no books in Bhoti, the Ladakhi language, in 2015 the foundation funded translations and supplied 21,000 storybooks. In 2013, the foundation launched the Voluntour program, in which volunteer teachers are matched with schools. The volunteers are limited to one per school per year. For her social entrepreneurship Sahu received the 2015 Nari Shakti Puraskar. In 2019, she was honoured by

NITI Aayog The NITI Aayog (; abbreviation for National Institution for Transforming India) serves as the apex public policy think tank of the Government of India, and the nodal agency tasked with catalyzing economic development, and fostering cooperative ...

with the Women Transforming India Award.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sahu, Sujata Indian social entrepreneurs Nari Shakti Puraskar winners 21st-century Indian educators 21st-century Indian women educators People from Gurgaon Indian schoolteachers Women educators from Delhi Living people 1968 births