Akanksha’s School Leadership Academy (SLA) goes beyond boundaries to ensure our leaders get the best exposure in order to explore their potential.

In their mission to create transformational and visionary leaders, the academy trains the aspirants through a one-year experiential program, where candidates are immersed in the realities of school leadership and develop leadership competencies.

One such activity was the village immersion at three tribal villages of Deherewadi, Umrale, and Rasegaon in Nashik district.

The purpose of the immersion was for the aspirants to experience living differently and completely embracing a different life as their own. It was an opportunity for the SLA cohort to understand people, their context, and the importance of keeping that in mind when they interact and work with school communities. It was an opportunity for them to make their values come alive and push themselves and their peers to experience a humbling engagement that is deep and honest.

The three-day immersion enabled the aspiring leaders to be involved in all the daily activities that the host families engaged in. Be it farming, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, supplying the produce in the markets etc; our leaders did it all. It was challenging but the team pushed themselves out of their comfort zone to make the experience meaningful.

The SLA cohort members shared their reflections about the experience. Gaurav Sharma shares, “Village immersion has been an experience which made me value the culture that beholds a family. Selfless love, care and respect are what I came back with. No matter what the challenges we have in our lives, we can strive to be happy. Work towards a better day instead of cribbing about the struggles.”

The immersion was an intense experience for all our aspirant leaders and they took back insightful learnings.