Founder of 17000 ft, Sujata Sahu, A Famous Social Entrepreneur

Sujata Sahu is a social entrepreneur from India. She founded the 17000 ft Foundation after working as a teacher to enhance learning environments in isolated communities in Ladakh and Sikkim. The non-governmental organization has implemented Whole School Transformation Projects by supplying isolated border schools with libraries, playgrounds, and DigiLabs in addition to intensive teacher training. In acknowledgment of her efforts, she received the 2019 Women Transforming India Award and the 2015 Nari Shakti Puraskar.

17000 feet was founded with the straightforward goal of improving the lives of local mountain communities and preventing forced migration. Sujata is the driving force behind the foundation and the foundation of the educational programmes at 17000 ft.

One day, while on a solo trek in Ladakh, she came across a school in the middle of nowhere with just one room and seven children and one teacher. She was astounded by the children’s, their parents’, and instructors’ attempts to show up every day despite the challenging location, where a local would go for two or three days to obtain the materials for the mid-day lunch. She questioned why children couldn’t have a more accessible education with appropriate books and furnishings after hearing accounts of families making perilous travels and crossing icy rivers simply to put their children to school. She founded the 17000 fts Foundation as a result of this incident.

The work of the 17000 ft Foundation has extended to include the whole Ladakh region’s geography, encompassing around 900 schools and assisting the local government to raise the standard of education for the area’s youngsters.