She Quit A Dubai Corporate Job, Packed Two Shirts And Flew To India: Sandra Lavie’s 15-Year School Project

Sandra Lavie had built the kind of career most people spend decades chasing: a well-paying corporate job in Dubai, a nice apartment, a car, and enough travel to fill several passports. Fifteen years ago, she gave all of it up and boarded a flight to India with, by her own account, two shirts, two pairs of trousers and no fixed plan.

‘Why had I been given so much while so many others had so little?’ was the question she says she could not shake while moving between airport lounges and boardrooms. She resigned from her job and travelled through India largely by train, alone, with no safety net of familiar faces waiting on the other end.

That open-ended journey eventually led her to Sagar Island in West Bengal, a two-and-a-half-hour train ride and an hour-long boat trip from the mainland, and home to the ashram of Kapila Muni. Rather than arriving with a ready-made plan, she spent time sitting with villagers across three settlements on the island, listening to what they actually needed before deciding what to build.

What started as door-to-door conversations to convince wary parents to send their children to school has grown into a free primary school educating 150 children across five classes. Another 120 children enrolled in government schools receive tuition support and daily meals through her organisation, while 20 women have gone through sewing training aimed at financial independence.

Sandra says the work now extends well beyond the classroom, into awareness campaigns on domestic violence, child marriage and human trafficking. ‘Material possessions are temporary,’ she told TOI Women. ‘True purpose comes from serving others, creating opportunities, and standing beside those who have been denied them.’