01/09/2026
I grew up in Malwani, Mumbai’s second-largest under-resourced community, and I never imagined that this is where I’d become a teacher. My path into education started small, as a community teacher at a local school. Then I saw a Teach For India classroom, and I realised what an excellent education could actually look like for children like the ones I grew up with.
I had to join.
During my Fellowship, I went looking for the roots of the problem in my own community, and found teachers who cared deeply about their Students but had never been given professional training. Some hadn’t even studied past Grade 10 or 12, yet they showed up for their Students every single day. That’s when my question changed. Instead of “How can I teach one class better?” I started asking, “How can I help every teacher around me teach better?”
That question became Shikshakon ki Nayi Dasha (New Direction for Teachers), my Be The Change Project centred on training teachers in the Malwani community I call home.
Through the project, teachers are trained on lesson planning, joyful learning, and classroom culture, through monthly sessions, daily observations, and Learning Circles where teachers learn from each other, not just from me. I’ve watched a Science teacher move from textbook-only lessons to hands-on experiments, and Students who never spoke up start raising their hands. Classrooms became more settled, teachers started finishing lessons on time, pass rates improved, and attendance went up. All small shifts that added up to children who actually wanted to be in class.
Today, the ripple effect of that project has reached multiple schools, impacting 90+ teachers and 1,500+ Students.
Goes to show that when you build one teacher, the impact moves through every Student they teach.
- Mehtab Saiyed, 2022 Fellow, Mumbai
