Social Worker, Researcher & Co-founder of Heart of Nepal and Antardhoni Nepal
Age: 28
Nationality: Nepal
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Aishworya is a social worker and researcher building community-led systems of justice and care. She is the co-founder of Heart of Nepal, a community-led ecological development model working with Dalit and Indigenous women and children through economic empowerment, skill building, education, food security and child development; and Antardhoni, a nonprofit providing free mental healthcare across Nepal. Her work challenges top-down development advancing decolonial, survivor-led and community-driven models of change.
She is a PhD student at the Columbia School of Social Work, researching community-led interventions to prevent sexual abuse against women and girls. At Columbia, she works with the Anga Center and the Sauti Mashinani Lab in Nairobi’s informal settlements. Her mission is to redistribute power within systems so that the most affected communities dismantle the power structures that have confined them. She is the recipient of the Globethics Youth Leadership Award (2024) and Estee Lauders Beautiful Forces Award (2025).