The NYRA foundation wanted to utilise the propitious eve of Navratri to raise awareness about the need for female education while celebrating womanhood. Our team led by our founder and chairman, Mr Rohan Gaikwad, set out with a quest to eradicate the stigma associated with the contrastive challenges of femininity in our ever-changing society.

While the NYRA foundation focuses on the education and well being of adolescent females by working with multiple volunteers and students at a grassroots level to spread awareness and help the socio-economically challenged members of the society, but the message regarding the need for advancement in the field of female education can only be propagated to the mass by conducting regular seminars and awareness programs.

While conducting our Jagar Navratricha celebration, The NYRA foundation had a humbling opportunity of discussing the awareness of femininity and widen the scope of work with non-other than Ms Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar who was a former mayor of Mumbai as well as an advocate during her admirable and prodigious career. She is not only well renowned for her work as a former mayor of Mumbai but is the embodiment of feminism and gallantry.

Ms Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar is the metropolitan's second female mayor, having been elected to the position in 1994. Among her many accomplishments, she was also the chief functionary for the Centre for Study of Social Change (CSSC) as well as an integral part of the National Commission for Women. Ms Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar became an indispensable member of the Maharashtra Women and Child Department's ten-person committee tasked with minimising the number of adolescent marriages in the state.

Ms Priyanvada Sawant interviewed the discussion panel, which included Mr Rohan Gaikwad and Ms Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar, as they addressed the importance of gender awareness and Ms Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar's fascinating journey that lead her to become an awe-inspiring cornerstone of our society.

Several major topics were discussed throughout the discussion, including topics such as the importance of women being legally literate which was beautifully covered by Ms Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar who stressed the importance of advocating for legal rights and the need for legal literacy for the females of rural areas or tribal areas which can help them in their day to day life. Mr Rohan Gaikwad also discussed about the issues and trouble the NYRA foundation faced in its early days regarding its operations in many rural areas like the lack of acceptance from the tribal communities and the insufficiency of teachers in the tribal areas which created a lot of big gaps in the education and how these issues served as a learning opportunities for the team.

The interview then moved on to Ms Nirmala Samant Prabhavalkar's outstanding work with our nation's elders through the non-profit organisation Centre for Study of Social Change (CSSC), which is working with senior citizens with the goal of conducting problem-oriented research on the country's socio-economic problems and assisting the community in implementing integrated social change programmes. Ms Priyanvada Sawant also praised the zeal Ms Nirmala Samant Prabhavalka has towards her work and her commitment. The interview ended with Mr Rohan Gaikwad giving an interesting insight on how he is working on keeping the NYRA foundation relevant throughout the time.