Last week, the children at MyPragati celebrated the completion of four years since we started. A reel came in last week on my insta feed — drums, dancing, a room full of kids and Pragati Yodhas marking four years of MyPragati in their own way, with their own energy. I was reminded how far we have come, and how much we need to do in the years ahead.
I honestly feel like the outsider who is watching this unfold. It feels surreal to me, as this has now stopped being my project to something the community owns today. As parents, we perhaps feel this when I children grow up into adults and start making decisions - its for them to walk their own journey.
I am huge believer of this - everyone in this world is here to learn their own lessons, and walk their own journey. We might walk a few miles with some, and a longer stretch with others.
When I founded MyPragati, it was more from a feeling of deep need to contribute back to a world and a group of people, who seem so selfless in bringing the best mountain experiences to us. I feel drawn to the mountains in ways I cannot explain. In the absence of giving up everything and starting up in the mountains (now if you have watched “Musafir Cafe” on Netflix, you will know what I am saying), this was my second best option. Build something that could keep me connected. Honestly, I did not know if it would last. The first few years was just doing, and putting the process in place. I definitely did not expect it to teach me more than most things I have built. Four years in, here is what each year taught me — less about running a nonprofit, more about what happens when you give without overthinking it.
Lesson 1: Giving is easier than we think. Apply First Principles.
By the end of Year 1, I realised it was easy — once the systems were in place. The first step always feels like the hardest one. What worked for me was simple: talk about the idea to my best friends who didn’t laugh and ridicule it. I owe the name, and the initial excitement to Jagruti, my soul sister in the US. She was as excited about starting this - and we found the name, got the domain and set the idea rolling all in one evening on our walk in California. I did bring in a program manager, document the data, talk to the people we were trying to serve, and only then build the plan. Complexity is usually just a story we tell ourselves to avoid starting. Break down a problem, and apply first principles. It will not fail you.
Lesson 2: Sometimes all you need is just one person to be your anchor.
In life, while it is always about us working and walking our own path, we just need one person to believe in us. When I went to the community first time after we started, we had a grand celebration. There was music, dance and plays organised by the kids - a lot of whom came up to speak. At that event, one of the most senior members of the village felicitated me and said - “what you have given us is the one anchor that gives us hope, and tells us someone cares”. I was a bit taken aback as I have lived by that principle all my life. Most people miss opportunities in life because someone did not take the first bet on them.
MyPragati became the one thread that tied the community together, and became the symbol of hope and love. By Year 2, as the systems were holding, something shifted — I was spending less time, and the community was running MyPragati. Young adults started coming up with their own initiatives: taking the kids to Darjeeling Zoo for the first time, organising cleanliness drives, entering and winning local competitions. The belief was the beginning of something bigger unfolding.
A space had opened up, almost on its own, where the community began coming together often — something I would not have envisaged when we started. We never know what more is possible until we get started.
Lesson 3: Empowerment isn’t always about finding a job. Sometimes it’s a blank page and giving the freedom to fly!
By Year 3, we started paying attention to things we couldn’t measure. We ran a drawing session with no real goal beyond letting the kids express themselves — our Pragati Yodhas stood behind them the whole time, encouraging them to dream in full colour.
Watching children who had rarely been asked what they imagined pick up a crayon and just go, I understood that dignity isn’t only about jobs and exam results. Sometimes it’s simply handing someone a blank page and telling them it’s theirs to fill.
I think when we support people who need help, we limit their growth by what we think they deserve. True empowerment is to allow them to fly - beyond what we can imagine. I have seen that come to life at MyPragati.
By Year 3, we had a classroom (designed in a way where I believed even my kids could study, and a community space designed to bring the community together)
Lesson 4: We didn’t measure until we were ready. The outcomes came because the intent was right.
I run a startup. I know exactly what it means to obsess over metrics from day one — it is sometimes hard to allow things to evolve because we are only measuring outcomes. I think, life like startups, will happen when we work on first principles, stay agile and allow things to flow. If we control the outcomes too much, we risk being limited. If we don’t measure, we risk being scattered.
MyPragati taught me that sometimes not measuring does not mean we are not thinking of the outcome. Sometimes some projects just take time, and we need to keep the patience. For the first couple of years, there was no dashboard, no target we were chasing. We were just showing up, listening, adjusting. However in Year four, when I finally sat down to count, the numbers were already there waiting: three of our youngsters hired at a startup in Bangalore, one now in my own team, two children moving into a better school in Darjeeling. I feel the time paid off for me. The results arrived because the reason underneath it never wavered.
Now for Year 5: I never wanted to scale this. However this year, we are.
I built MyPragati to stay small. One village, four years, deliberately un-ambitious — that was the whole point. Depth over reach. However I have realised this can become bigger. We will keep the Himalayan region our core focus. With this in mind, I reached out to founders who are today building in the mountains: OurGuest in Sikkim and Kashmir Box in Kashmir.
MyPragati is now expanding to include two projects: Arunachal Pradesh and Kashmir. Waste management in Arunachal and healthcare for artisans in Kashmir. I still don’t fully know what that means, or whether the same intimacy holds. But four years in, I have learned not to let my own attachment to “small” get in the way of what is clearly working. I believe I have a playbook and the trust of our supporters and donors to build this bigger. So why not? instead of asking why.
In my view, none of these lessons are really about one village. They apply to our entrepreneurship as well. They are about what happens when you stop overthinking and take one small step. Four years in, the path is still unravelling, one step at a time — and this year, for the first time, it’s stretching beyond one village.
If you’d like to be part of the next chapter, you can read more or support a child at mypragati.in.
Much love for a happy weekend. My warm regards and absolute gratitude to everyone who believes in my story and supports us.
Shanti
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