Ishita Chaudhry, Founder and CEO, The YP Foundation, India

Ishita Chaudhry is an Ashoka Fellow and founder and CEO of The YP Foundation (TYPF) in New Delhi, India. TYPF is a youth-led, youth-run nonprofit organization founded in 2002 that supports and enables young people to create programmes and influence policies in the areas of gender, sexuality, health, education, the arts and governance. TYPF works with youth groups from 18 states across India who are both in-school and out-of-school to set up community-based interventions and policy initiatives. Ms. Chaudhry has worked with over 6,500 young people across India and South Asia and has contributed to setting up over 300 projects.

Ms. Chaudhry has worked as a consultant with UNAIDS Geneva, UNODC India, the Ford Foundation, the Development Communication Division of Doordarshan and with the Government of Nagaland, UNDP and UNICEF in India. She is a founding member of RESURJ (Realizing Sexual and Reproductive Justice), an international alliance of feminist activists seeking full implementation of international commitments to secure all women’s and young people’s sexual and reproductive rights and health by 2015. Since 2010 she has served on UNESCO’s Global Advisory Group for Sexuality Education and was a member of the civil society group involved in developing the National Strategic Framework for HIV Prevention for the National AIDS Control Organization (NACO), India (2009).

She is an INK Fellow (in association with TED) and recipient of the Change Looms Award for Social Entrepreneurship from The Ashoka Foundation (2009), the Seen and Heard Award from British Telecom and the UK Youth Parliament (2008), the Karamveer Puruskaar – National Award for Social Justice and Action in India (2007) and is the first Indian youth to receive the Young Achiever’s Award from the President of Nepal (2009). Ms. Chaudhry graduated with an Honours Degree in English Literature from Lady Shri Ram College, Delhi University.