Fellowship Project: Strengthen the organization’s capacity to address key issues facing Tibetan refugee women and girls and incorporate a gender perspective in the design, implementation and monitoring of all existing programs.

Highlights: Trishla is serving as an American India Foundation (AI)F Clinton Fellow with the Central Tibetan Administration (CTA) in Dharamshala, Himachal Pradesh. For her fellowship project, she is developing guidelines and policies, tools, and implementation strategies for gender mainstreaming across programs to strengthen the capacity of the Women's Empowerment Desk within the Central Tibetan Administration. Trishla has always been passionate about gender, justice and affecting change. As a student of History, she learnt the value of interpretation and thought processes which aids her in any social or other change she aims to bring about. Her internships with the CSR department of Tata Steel (for underprivileged children), NGO Kolkata Sanved (empowering victims of abuse through Dance Movement Therapy) and other development organizations encouraged her to pursue Human Rights for her higher education. Her dissertation was an experimental intervention which focused on bridging the gap between the theory and practice of gender equality through making ‘Gender’ a subject taught in schools. She also interned with the British Red Cross in London to understand the nuances of women-led sponsorship in international development. She worked at UNOPS Sri Lanka as the Partnerships Intern for a year wherein she not only gained international exposure but also experience in project conception and management across sectors with gender mainstreaming an important aspect of her learnings. The AIF Clinton Fellowship gives her a unique opportunity to understand gender at a grassroot level as well as to formulate scalable strategies for attaining gender equality. Her ultimate aim is to work in the development sector to make the laws, policies and theories of gender equality and Human Rights accessible and applicable to all by means of education and other practicable change-making solutions. In her free time, Trishla loves to read and sometimes write quirky feminist rants for her blog, travel, dance and enjoy her mother’s cakes whenever possible.