Planting the Seeds of Change
The Goa School plants the seeds of change. It is our endeavour to introduce youth to transformative ideas, building a community of support around them, while also offering a platform for Indians to ‘give back’ with their knowledge networks and resources. We encourage positive action, pre-selecting candidates with a penchant for making change, but we do not ‘de-select’ candidates for a lack of these qualities either because we believe that the process of getting onto the path of critical thinking is what counts most. We also do not ‘police’ the mentoring relationships, allowing many flowers to bloom. We believe that everyone can benefit — possibly in uncountable ways and/or through different stages of life — from new knowledge and networks . We recognise that learning and changing mindsets is a long process, and that we cannot force-feed transformation. We also acknowledge that many of our Fellows come from difficult circumstances, and are at the stage of life where aiming for career-success and building a family tends to take precedence over everything else.
However, you might still ask: Has The Goa School been able to demonstrate a clear social impact? Are we helping to build a more equitable society with our efforts to create greater equity of opportunity to learn, network, grow?
These are hard questions to answer.
We measure change at three levels: The first is at the programme delivery or process level, the second is via an attitude survey that tries to capture changes in the self, expanded thinking and community action. Not least, we rely on Fellows’ stories of significant change, as a result of the programme.
Here are some results:
PROGRAMME DELIVERY
A growing community
By the first quarter of 2025, we have built a community of over 80 people directly linked to The Goa School. This includes 25 Fellows, and over 50 mentors, speakers and facilitators. This community is linked to each other via The Goa School Hive Mind, a resource group for life. The community hits about a hundred if we include all our service providers and donors.
Our Fellows are mostly within the 21-29 yr age group, and the majority are women. The Goa School attracted applicants from Goa and other parts of the country such as Kashmir, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, and Delhi. See our fellows line-up.
Mentors specialise in a variety of topics including management, economics, conservation, photography, media and more. The Goa School has attracted professionals from Goa, Delhi and other places in India, as well as from Bhutan, Canada, Italy, Kenya, Mauritius, South Korea, South Africa, and The Netherlands. They have outstanding academic achievements from Cambridge, CASS Business School, Columbia, Harvard, North Carolina, Oxford and Wageningen universities, to name a few. They are also powerful people in public life, including CEOs, well-known photographers and authors. See a sampling of our mentors line-up. | Watch our speakers online.
We have hosted over 35 Open Talks, with speakers keen to ‘give back’ to society what they have learnt over their professional lives. Topics covered include Diversity, AI, Mental Health, Human Behaviour, Changing Career Streams, Photography for Change, Water and Sanitation, Changemaking and much more. All talks are recorded, and available online for anyone who wishes to view them.
SURVEY RESULTS
Thirty one of 80 HIVE members responded to an online survey in April 2025.
Results showed that word of mouth was the most common way of hearing about The Goa School (74%). The majority thought that The Goa School emphasised self analysis/personal development and critical thinking as skillsets (67.7% and 61.3%) and only 41.9% thought we emphasised community action. Learnings were reported to be the highest for knowing the self, and equally for cooperating for community and national change (both 45.2%). However, actual changes to the self and community, attributable to The Goa School, were low at 19.4% and 12.9% respectively.
The majority (51.6%) of respondents thought that The Goa School offered ‘building or widening networks’ best, and also gave us an overall five-star rating. We got a four-star rating from a further 35.5%, and no responses were received at all at the lower end of the star rating scale (one, two stars).
Key conversations around equity and inclusion, planetary debates. community challenges such as housing, cleanliness, safety, corruption, healthcare etc did not feature well in the survey results. Reported changes in value systems were also low, as were learnings around the rights of others.
STORIES OF CHANGE
The first batch of Mentors and Fellows ended their yearlong mentorship in September 2022, giving us our first batch of graduates from The Goa School. This page features storyboards from some of them : Rohit Kumar | Madhu Priya | Karen Dafini | Gauri Khamkar | Simran Varma. They graduated in September 2022, and are still a part of the Goa School Hive Mind. The second batch graduated in March 2023. Here are some of their stories: Sharukh Sheikh | Stephanie Mani.
More stories coming soon. Visit our Fellows line-up.
EVOLUTION OF THE GOA SCHOOL
We have proof of concept, and have transitioned into a public Trust
The Goa School’s inaugural session of a week-long immersion programme in Goa was launched in September 2021. Since then, we have held five batches of immersions, followed by yearlong mentoring, and monthly Open Talks. Additional activities are planned for 2025-26. The programmes are not without challenges, but we’ve got a model that works.
In August 2023, The Goa School was registered as a Trust. The transition from a social impact enterprise to a Trust is complete, with a fresh bank account, website, and applications for tax free status. An all-women Board of Trustees meets quarterly to assess progress, and to oversee the work of its advisors. The Goa School may now raise funds from the public for its work. For donations, please contact madhuri@thegoaschool.org.
For further insights, watch a discussion between The Goa School’s founder-director, advisor and operations head, marking two years of operations.