Youth Alliance is guided by a number of brilliant and committed mentors who support us to stay in touch with our vision, challenge us from time to time and also encourage us as individuals and team members. We are grateful to their unconditional love and uncompromising truth. Here are some of them we engage deeply in the present times:

Sushma didi has been a pillar for us in teaching and grounding us in the ecosystem of Kutch. For many Gramya Manthans, with her wise knowing and experience of the Kutch living and the culture there, she has taken us into deep questions about our own cultural histories, about looking at the villages with a lens of abundance and unknowning.

Watch Webinar on Harmonious Ecosystems

**Dev Tayde**
**Anant Zameer Fellowship**

Asking difficult questions, exemplary participation, incessant commitment to live simply and value-based leadership are among many legacies that Youth Alliance has been blessed with, due to Dev Bhaiya’s presence. He currently mentors many social enterprises and also runs an intensive fellowship called Anant-Zameer. In the past he has lead the Indicorps Fellowship.

**Rajni Bakshi**
**Journalist and author**

Rajni Bakshi is a journalist and author writing about the themes of peace, Gandhi's work, about how our markets and economies are designed currently. She has grounded us in the ideas of collaboration, community and culture that has sustained homo sapiens for centuries.

**Sadanand Ward Mailliard**
**Mount Madonna School, California**

Sadanand Ji is an embodiment of listening with curiosity and being present. Around him, we experience the freedom to explore our own selves and ideas. To a lot of us, going to him intensifies our search for meaning or more precisely as he says, search for our स्वधर्म: (swadharma). Sadanand Ji is a founder of Mount Madonna Center, California and a senior teacher at Mount Madonna School.

Dena has been a steady spiritual guide for Youth Alliance, supporting us to deepen our practises and our connections with the worldwide community. She leads the Global Peace Initiative for Women, bringing her own leadership and various ideologies together.

Ravi Bhaiya does magic for us each time he is part of the circles at YA. He has a way to move deep strings in the hearts of people that let them access a sacred inner space. Walking with him, each member in the team has emerged a better version of oneself. Ravi Bhaiya created a learning space called Manzil where every student is a teacher and every teacher a student.

Watch Webinar on Living In harmony

**Purvi Vyas**
**Farmer and Food Politics Professor**

Purvi didi has been an epitome of love and care for us at the team.She has brought the lens of understanding and unpacking the politics of food and continues to ground us in the powerful work of change through how we engage with food on an everyday basis. She runs a wonderful farm near Ahmedabad and hosts regular workshops around the Politics of food.

Watch Webinar on Systemic Change through Food

**Sandeep Virmani**
**Co-Founder, Hunnarshala Foundation**

Sandeep Ji has been our host and mentor in the Kutch ecosystem, opening our perspectives to the possibilities of earth architecture. His work over the decades has been at the intersection of architecture, crafts, livelihoods and local communities.

**Ashish Kothari**
**Founder, Kalpavriksh**

Ashish's soft demenaor yet decades of experience in the environmental movement has taught us a lot at YA.With him, we have delved deeper into the alternatives across India and the world and learnt to slow down to observe the various birds in the neighbourhood.

Aseem’s meticulous thinking and his deep study on modernity and its impact on human beings and cultures have shaped our work at Youth Alliance in many ways. In him, we have found an elder who supports individual journeys and encourages opening of the mind. He writes and hosts groups of students at his Ashram in Uttarakhand.

Mentors' Testimonies

PAST MENTORS

We have been blessed and guided by these amazing mentors in the history of Youth Alliance and we are very grateful to them!