ABOUT THE MILLENNIUM FELLOWSHIP - CLASS OF 2020
United Nations Academic Impact and MCN are proud to partner on the Millennium Fellowship. In the three months the application was open in 2020, 15,159 young leaders applied to join the Class of 2020 on 1,458 campuses across 135 nations. 80 campuses worldwide (just 6%) were selected to host the 1,000+ Millennium Fellows. The Class of 2020 is bold, innovative, and inclusive.
UNITED NATIONS ACADEMIC IMPACT AND MCN PROUDLY PRESENT AISHWARYA SUNAAD, A MILLENNIUM FELLOW FOR THE CLASS OF 2020.
Ashoka University | Haryana, India | Advancing SDG 1 & UNAI 1
" I believe that when young people stand up for each other and support each other‚ 'rrespective of gender, race, religion, orientation, ethnicity, caste, class, identity and any other background', we can transform the world into a better and kinder place. The Millennium Fellowship is a chance for young people like myself, who are working towards changing statusquos, to support each other in furthering our individual endeavours collectively. This is why I feel fortunate to be a part of this cohort. I look forward to learning about the world from the perspectives and stories of my peers, to contributing to the discourse on sustainability and emerging a more informed, encouraged and inspired individual in the process of working on my Fellowship project. "
Millennium Fellowship Project: Ordinaire
Ordinaire is a social business built by women from constrained Indian villages, who, with every
item sewed, are scripting a new narrative for themselves and their communities. It is a woman
led, 'woman made' organisation.
Ordinaire exists to enable opportunities for talented and skilled village women to take ownership of their work and thus, themselves. They deliver on this goal by being a competitive lifestyle brand creating aesthetic, durable and utilitarian fabric products that bear the story and courage of their creators.
Presently operating out of two villages, Ordinaire hopes to adopt two more villages by the end of 2020 and employ 30 women, while putting back revenue to build the business's social initiative wing to sew and distribute eco-friendly, safe and sustainable cloth pads in villages using their employee-stakeholders as grass-roots level advocates for safe menstrual hygiene and practices.
About the Millennium Fellow
Aishwarya is an explorer of the back-alleys of cities, piecing together the narrative of a city through its working class neighbourhoods. She believes cities have personalities of their own and her research lies in Subaltern Studies with the quest to understand the lives of subaltern communities and peoples: Who are these people, as individuals, outside of the constraints of poverty and deprivation which have come to define their identities? For instance, what is the beggar girl's favourite colour?
She is also an entrepreneur and writer. She studies Sociology and Anthropology along with Economics, and is passionate about business innovation. She believes in the promise of business solutions to solve the world's social problems.
