VARDHISHNU

We opened applications for our Community Collectives program in February. A few days later, one of our team members received a call from a grassroots leader in Uttar Pradesh. With a polite tone, he asked if he could submit the application a bit later. The reason he gave shook us: he had just lost his wife, who was only in her late twenties, two days earlier. A few days after that, during the virtual final panel selection, I was speaking with one of the finalists. When I asked him how his week had been, he shared that just three days after our panel, his elder brother had committed suicide. It had been only five days since that tragedy, yet he was still determined to participate in our process. I apologized and offered to postpone the conversation, but he said he wanted to continue—for his brother, who had always supported him. Through Community Collectives, I have the privilege of meeting grassroots leaders working in some of the most remote corners of the country. Every time, I am h...