Growing up, I rarely saw women in leadership roles. Around me, most women were expected to be caregivers—quietly holding families together, often without recognition or respect. Even that care work, so essential, was overlooked or undervalued by society. Watching this again and again made something stir in me. I didn’t have the vocabulary for it back then, but I knew something was wrong.
I carried a deep desire to change that—to see women not just in the background, but leading from the front. That need for change found direction when I began working as a classroom facilitator in an alternative learning school. It wasn’t a conventional school—teachers were called facilitators, and the role was not to instruct but to create space for learning and exploration. That experience broke a lot of rigid ideas I had grown up with. It taught me to unlearn, to listen, and to trust in people’s ability to shape their own paths. It also showed me that change doesn’t always look loud or dramatic—it often grows slowly, through connection and trust.
Around that time, I started becoming more curious about rural India. Having always lived in cities, I realised I had very little understanding of how life actually looked beyond urban boundaries. That’s when I applied for a grassroots fellowship and spent two years working in the interior villages of Gujarat, and later, in Dantewada. Bastar, with all its beauty, pain, and strength, pulled me in. When my fellowship ended, I felt like my journey there was just beginning. So I joined TRI and have been working for its Community Action Lab initiative in Sukma, Chhattisgarh for the past two years.
What keeps me going every day is my why. I’ve always felt that the world is missing something vital—more women in leadership. And that’s not just a belief. In rural India, the under representation of women in decision-making spaces isn’t just a gap—it’s a missed opportunity for more inclusive,effective, and sustainable development.
That’s what makes our work through cluster-level federations so powerful. We’re helping carve space within the system for women to lead—not just in name, but in action. I’ve seen firsthand how women who were once invisible in village meetings now speak with clarity, make decisions, and shape the course of their communities. In the beginning, Self Help Group (SHG) meetings were dismissed. Men would laugh at them, drunk men would show up and create chaos. But today, women show up to Block Level Coordination Committee meetings so well-prepared that no one can take them lightly. Even in how we’re seen—the community still calls us “SHG waale log,” but the tone has changed. There’s respect in those words now.
One woman who stays with me is Vimla Nag, a sarpanch fighting to remove middlemen from the forests produce trade so that women get fair prices. She’s up against a lot, but she keeps going. Once she said, “Even if a woman earns a little, it changes how she’s seen at home.” That sentence says everything. I’m certain that with the support of village-level organisations, she’ll inspire even more women to lead, and her village will see transformation from within.
A focus area of our work over the past year has been strengthening climate and water resilience in rural communities. Through convergence with Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) and National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM), we have supported initiatives focused on sustainable water management, climate adaptation, and community-led solutions.
We are addressing climate resilience by placing communities—especially women—at the heart of climate action. We work closely with local institutions like SHGs and village-level organisations to identify climate risks, revive traditional water systems, promote regenerative agriculture, and design climate-resilient livelihoods. Our focus is not only on building infrastructure, but on strengthening local capacities to plan, implement, and sustain climate adaptation efforts—creating empowered communities that can withstand future shocks and thrive.
In this process, I have seen women emerge as strong leaders—mobilizing communities, influencing planning processes, and playing a central role in building local resilience to environmental challenges.
And through all of this, I’ve changed too. I’ve learned that development is not a one-size-fits-all formula we deliver from the outside. It has to be rooted in the community’s own vision. Villagers must define it for themselves. My role is not to lead their journey—it’s to walk alongside them. Every time I see a woman raise her hand in a meeting, take a stand in her household, or inspire another woman to step forward, I remember why I’m here. This isn’t just work—it’s a quiet revolution. And I’m grateful to be part of it.
– By Paridhi Sharma, Associate Practitioner, Transform Rural India