Gayathri Vasudevan has seen it all, right from the topmost institutions where policies emerge down to the ground where they are tested and shaped. The founder and chairperson of Sambhav Foundation has spent over 25 years shaping labour, skilling and livelihood systems across the country. Ms Vasudevan – a Delhi University graduate in economics with a master’s in social work from University of Mumbai – spent over eight years of her career at the International Labour Organization (ILO). This stint honed her expertise in labour policy, gender-transformative skilling and the informal economy. Ms Vasudevan – who also has a doctorate in development studies from the Institute for Social and Economic Change (ISEC) – decided to put these policies to practice, and thus was born Sambhav Foundation. In a lively chat with Sharmila Chand, Ms Vasudevan speaks about herself and her wide-ranging social work.      

What is your philosophy of work?
Work should create lasting, positive change in the lives of those who need it the most.

What is your philosophy of life?
The truth that everything includes the good and the bad, the loud and the soft

What is your passion in life?
My passion is to ensure that talent which exists everywhere meets the opportunity. A young man in a garage who needs training to work on the cars he loves, or a woman from a marginalised community who discovers she can earn Rs 1.5 lakh a month as a beautician, or a child with autism who says “Amma” for the first time after patient intervention – these moments are what drive me.

Your source of inspiration…
A beautician from Vadodara joined our vocational programme to support her child with special needs. Two-and-a-half years later, she was earning Rs 1.5 lakh a month from her own parlour. Stories like hers are my source of inspiration.

What do you enjoy the most in life?
Conversations that challenge my thinking, time with my family, and the quiet satisfaction of watching someone transform their own life through opportunities we have helped create.

Where do we see you 10 years from now?
I hope to be in a place where the models we have built for skilling, for livelihood creation and for inclusive education have been adopted widely enough that they no longer depend on any one individual to sustain them.

Lastly, how would you define yourself?
Someone who has spent most of her life trying to bridge the gap between talent and opportunity and opportunity.