Isha Garg, Author at AIF

Isha Garg

Age: 33

Home Town: Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh

Education: BA. LLB (5 year integrated law course), Government Law College, Mumbai

Specific Field Interests: Trust-based philanthropy, access to justice, peace and conflict resolution, resource mobilisation

Placement: American India Foundation

Area of Focus: Resource mobilisation, marketing and development for education, livelihoods and public health verticals

Fellowship Project: Isha will support the fundraising efforts at AIF by developing an institutional partnership pipeline, crafting compelling proposals and other marketing collaterals for visibility.

Highlights: Isha is a human rights practitioner and grant manager with 8 years’ work experience in the non-profit sector. She has previously worked with organisations such as American India Foundation, Magic Bus India Foundation, SEWA, Asian Venture Philanthropy Network (AVPN) in the space of grant management and resource mobilisation. Isha's background includes managing flagship programs, such as the USAID health initiative in Madhya Pradesh, mobilizing philanthropy in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, and leading a fellowship program for peace, justice, and conflict resolution at Utthan. She excels in resource mobilisation, communication, research, networking, coordination, and program implementation, with a keen interest in working with adolescents, peace, gender, and access to justice.

Posts by isha.garg

July 10, 2025 0

Empowering Young Girls Through SAHELI–A Roadmap to Self-Reliance

India is home to 120 million adolescent girls (Ministry of Statistics & Programme Implementation (MoSPI) ‘Youth in India 2022’ report), of which 23% drop out of school when they hit puberty owing to a lack of functional toilets in school premises, according to a 2023 UNESCO report on Menstrual Health and Hygiene Management. Besides menstruation impeding the continuation of schooling, bias also plays a role. The World Economic Forum says, “increasing girls’ secondary school completion rates can lead to a substantial increase in a country’s GDP, with estimates suggesting a potential 10% growth by 2030.” In other words, investing in girls’ education just as we do in boys has the potential to uplift the entire country while also advancing multiple UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

March 17, 2025 0

Circle of Hope: AIF’s Efforts to Mobilize Women in Philanthropy

Rural development programs like AIF’s Maternal and Newborn Survival Initiative (MANSI) work to address systemic and longstanding issues in India’s healthcare space, specifically combatting infant and maternal mortality, childhood malnutrition, anemia prevention, and sexual and reproductive health education for adolescent girls. MANSI’s work is especially crucial in providing quality and affordable healthcare and knowledge to those in remote regions who are all too often left out of mainstream services.

MANSI works to support government healthcare workers, like Accredited Social Health Activists (ASHAs) by providing them with additional training and tools to serve their communities. These ASHAs provide home-based prenatal and postnatal care for pregnant women and are skilled in identifying high-risk conditions, so that they can swiftly deliver lifesaving care or refer young mothers to hospitals when necessary. MANSI-supported workers also educate young girls on menstrual hygiene, contraception, healthy nutritional choices, and anemia prevention and management. MANSI’s work is not only saving lives, but also combating social stigmas against women’s health issues at household and community levels.

To date, MANSI has reached over 438,470 pregnant women, 320,130 newborns, 199,790 children under five, 97,900 adolescent girls, and trained over 10,800 frontline workers.

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