What Happens When Opportunity Is Intentional: The Vahani Story Of Education And Mobility

Rashmani Singh is the Managing Director at Vahani Scholarship, overseeing organizational network, strategy and impact.

The higher education landscape of India has seen a massive expansion over the past two decades; while bringing up gross enrolment numbers shows a rise to 28.4 per cent, with institutions consistently multiplying across states. However, despite the infrastructural expansion, the lived reality of millions of young students in our country reveals a subdued truth, where the dissociation between talent and grasping opportunities still remains deeply ingrained.

This lacuna doesn’t stay restricted to just being economic in nature; when looked at closely, it is deeply social as well. Often, shaped by whether a young student has the guidance to navigate competitive exam processes, the networks to find mentors, sometimes even the absence of confidence to occupy seemingly exclusive and elusive class-ridden academic spaces, and of course the need of sustained support throughout these inescapable transitions.

In a country where caste, class, religion and geography shape access to information, learning and exposure, the road to college gates is rarely linear.

Vahani found the root of its inception to fill this exact gap: to ensure that the brightest minds from the most socio economically challenged sections are not dimmed because of unequal access to resources. It was grounded in the belief that while brilliance can be found anywhere, building opportunities has to be deeply intentional.

The origin of Vahani lies in the conviction of its founder and chairperson, Reeva Misra, who grew up profoundly aware of where you’re born could often dictate a child’s trajectory long before they even set foot into a classroom. Her belief was not just ideological but gradually turned into experiential in nature. The process to shape Vahani occurred from that conviction, where the early years of this initiative were not entangled with grand scale but with depth: a small, determined effort guided by empathy and a lived understanding of inequality.

Reeva did not imagine Vahani as charity. She envisioned it as a structural reform. The fundamental idea has always been simple yet radical: the country needs robust systems of scholarship provision that do more than just subsidize tuition fees. It is the entire architecture of how opportunities are shaped that needs to witness a shift. Thus, Vahani emerged as an experiment in reimagining how potential is identified, nurtured, and accompanied in a profound way.

Across global contexts, scholarships transform lives not because money alone creates mobility, but because they function as gateways into ecosystems that cultivate confidence, aspiration, and direction. A student entering a premier institution is only the beginning; thriving within it often requires an intersection of access to social and cultural capital that millions of children in our society often do not inherit.

Vahani’s scholarship therefore functions as what we call a methodology for mobility. It supports students in high school transitioning or dreaming to transition into higher educational institutions, not only through financial assistance but also through a network of mentors, exposure opportunities, skill-building programmes, exposure to employment networks, year-long engagements, annual conferences and gatherings that strengthen both skills and a belief in oneself. Education, in this imagination, does not exist in a vacuum or just in notebooks and laptop screens. It becomes an ecosystem that surrounds a young person with the tools needed to translate their achievements into concrete lived possibilities.

Today, as we celebrate a decade of this initiative built with heart and passion, Vahani has evolved from an idea into a larger-than-life living community. Its scholars now study at institutions such as IITs, AIIMS, NLUs, LSR, NIFT, and NID, and its alumni can be found working at global and national organisations including BlackRock, Tata Motors, Deloitte, KPMG, InMobi, Accenture, and Google. A growing number of them are posted in countries like Japan, Brazil, and Australia, carrying with them ardent stories that begin in small towns, villages, and margins of cities.

Many of these scholars are first-generation learners, young people whose achievements alter the trajectories of entire families. They return as mentors and ambassadors, embodying the truth that an investment in one student often extends its return to an entire community.

At the centre of Vahani’s impact silently resides its commitment to addressing the quieter, but equally decisive, elements of inequality: exposure, confidence, and of course belonging. The organization’s annual calendar includes an English programme, computer and professional literacy training, mentorship engagements, creative initiatives, internship and placement support, and national conferences that bring scholars together to learn, imagine, and lead. But beneath these programmes lies a deeper philosophy: the philosophy of passion, which believes in transforming the emotional architecture of change.

I would like to highlight the importance of more Vahani models to be replicated as we see and applaud Reeva Misra’s dream become a reality where she gave young students the Right to Dream.

The above information is the author's own; Outlook India is not involved in the creation of this article.