What are kanthari TALKS ?
kanthari TALKS mark the grand finale of kanthari’s intensive, hands-on, seven-month on-campus part of the impact leadership program.
Throughout this journey, participants from across the globe transform their visions for social change into actionable, sustainable project plans.
Each participant, who is a change maker, returns home equipped with the skills, courage, and strategies needed to challenge injustice, reshape mindsets, and build innovative solutions within their communities.
In powerful ten-minute talks, they share their personal stories, the challenges they’ve confronted, and the social ventures they’ve created to tackle them.
Over two inspiring days, you’ll experience 20 unique stories and solutions from voices that are redefining leadership from the margins.
The kanthari TALKS are live-streamed for a global audience.
Speakers from Around the World
Speakers come from Cameroon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe.
Exciting times: For many of the participants it is the first time to be on a stage giving a public speech and most of them English is not their native language!
So let’s encourage them the best we can!
Livestream
kanthari-TALKS featured on kanthariTV, showcases inspiring stories of change-makers from diverse backgrounds who have overcome adversity to drive social impact. These videos highlight graduates of the kanthari leadership program, who share their unique experiences and innovative solutions to pressing global issues. Through personal narratives, each speaker offers insight into their journey, fostering empathy and encouraging viewers to engage in meaningful social transformation.The platform serves as a powerful tool to amplify the voices of those working at the grassroots level to create a more just and inclusive world.
PROGRAM
kanthari TALKS Day ONE
FRIDAY 12-12-2025
The agriculture alchemists (11:00-12:30)
Are we still able to rescue our planet?
Don’t we need to change our agricultural habits to save the environment?
Are we prepared to save people and our planet through better practices?
Three eco-farmers and environmental advocates from Malawi, Uganda, & Indonesia will tell their stories, the challenges they faced and the unique solutions to problems that are of our all concern.
Buthelezi Kagwa Sichali - Malawi Date 12-12-2025, Time: 11:20 - 11:40 IST
Moris Muhindo - Uganda Date 12-12-2025, Time: 11:45 - 12:05 IST
As a child in Kasese, Moris grew up in facing poverty and hunger. His childhood hunger became purpose when one day, he found a five-year-old girl who had fainted from starvation. Where children suffer malnutrition and men often prioritize alcoholism and smoking over family provision, how can innovative gardening teach the whole community to fight hunger and restore dignity?
Ika Putri Novita Wati Date 12-12-2025, Time: 12:10 - 12:30 IST
After questioning religious conservatism, Putri moved across continents, only to return to her hometown to see lifeless soil and monocultures replacing the once-vibrant ecosystem. She advocates for smallholder farmers, restoring depleted land through regenerative agriculture. What economic pressures and harmful chemical dependencies are forcing the stewards of Indonesia’s land to destroy the very soil health that guarantees their, and our food security?
Empowering young minds
(14:00 - 15:55)
How can we include those youth who are marginalized in our society?
Meet four inspiring change makers from Uganda,, Zimbabwe and Nigeria who grew up facing tough realities but refuse to stay stuck. From poverty and addiction to environmental collapse and cultural trauma, Justus, Memory, Gilbert, and Emmanuel show us how resilience, creativity, and hope can spark real change in their communities.
Justus Muhwezi - Uganda Date 12-12-2025, Time: 14:10- 14:30 IST
Growing up in Kabale, Justus watched poverty force his siblings and friends out of school. Ruth, who dropped out after primary school, was married off at 16 to a 40-year-old man. Haunted by forgotten youth left skill-less and jobless, he asks: How can a generation trapped by inherited poverty, who often turn to child labor or addiction, be taught the resilience to become self-sufficient ‘water walkers’?
Memory Siyapiya - Zimbabwe Date 12-12-2025, Time: 14:45- 15:05 IST
Memory, inspired by her mother’s tireless sewing and driven by the loss of her elder brother to substance abuse, witnessed marginalized youth (16-30) turn to drugs and crime due to poverty. In Bindura, where substance abuse is rampant, she seeks to prove: Can practical, eco-friendly skills transform a generation trapped in destitution into proud, self-reliant entrepreneurs?
Gilbert Tafara Rupere - Zimbabwe Date 12-12-2025, Time: 15:10- 15:30 IST
When Gilbert returned to Matibi, the lush forests of his childhood were gone, replaced by drought and a generation of idle youth. With high unemployment and economic collapse, many young people either migrated or turned to addiction. Channeling their competitive spirit through sports directly linked to environmental restoration offers a path forward, engaging them in rebuilding their climate-stricken home and reclaiming its future.
Emmanuel Adebayo - Nigeria Date 12-12-2025, Time: 15:35 - 15:55 IST
Burned on the chest with hot coal and forced to walk on stones as punishment, Emmanuel survived a traumatic childhood. He tackles the Nigerian cultural belief that ‘strength is not crying’. His creative hub, MENDAYA (The Resilient Fern), uses fashion design and emotional literacy to empower adolescents and young men to turn their deep trauma and pain into purpose.
Feminist friendly future?
(16:45 - 18:00)
Are we still alert enough when it comes to gender inequality?
Can we ensure a future that is safe for all?
Will society offer freedom for women to travel, to trade and to contribute?
From Cameroon to Nigeria, Kenya to India, these fearless change makers shine a light on the hidden barriers holding women and young people back; shame around sex, pressure to conform, lack of opportunity, and lost freedom to move.
Through their powerful stories they remind us how breaking silence can spark change and how every choice can reclaim freedom.
Rita Bih Fon - Cameroon Date 12-12-2025, Time: 16:45- 17:05 IST
At 18, Rita faced profound shame and dropped out of school due to pregnancy. She realized her struggle stemmed from a society where sex is a dangerous taboo. Now, she meets young mothers like 16-year-old Brendaline, burdened with raising children in poverty. How does the pervasive cultural silence and lack of honest sex education leave Cameroon’s youth vulnerable to early pregnancy, stigma, and a cycle of hardship?
Esther Oke - Nigeria Date 12-12-2025, Time: 17:10 - 17:30 IST
Esther defied her father’s dream, dropping out of medical school to pursue art, while her childhood friend, Ayanfe, was forced into an abusive marriage at 17. These opposing stories, suppressed passions versus sabotaged dreams, show how external pressures and patriarchal norms limit teenage girls in rural Nigeria. How can these girls pursue higher education when society demands early motherhood and obedience?
Faith Siele - Kenya Date 12-12-2024, Time: 17:35 - 17:55 IST
Faith watched strong women, including her grandmother, a Female Genital Mutilation survivor, and a Maasai neighbor, silently suffer under relentless patriarchy.
The “cut” persists, now often financial, limiting women to 1% land ownership. Empowered by surviving her own crisis, Faith asks: How can collective economic strength help rural Kenyan women reclaim their independence and finally unleash their financial “roar”?
Pranali Chikte Date 12-12-2024, Time: 18:00 - 18:00 IST
Pranali left her polluted village and two years cycled 25,000 km across India, discovering true freedom on two wheels. Along her journey, she saw village girls dropping out of school because transport was unsafe and unaffordable. She also witnessed a devastating road accident a symbol of the chaos created by our obsession with speed and motorized convenience. As the world races toward comfort and luxury, it forgets the cost to our nature, our health, and our humanity.
Why has the bicycle symbol of freedom, change, and self-reliance been pushed aside by polluting vehicles that destroy the environment and deny citizens their right to safe, simple mobility?
The Courage to Redefine “Normal”
(20:00 - 21:20)
From Ghana to India to Zimbabwe, Samuel, Manish, and Archford challenge powerful myths that hold people back; whether it’s chasing false dreams abroad, living under parental control, or being defined by disability. Through their personal journeys of courage and conviction, they show what happens when we dare to rethink success, rebuild trust, and design a world that includes everyone.
Samuel Akorful Date 12-12-2025, Time: 20:10- 20:30 IST
Samuel left northern Ghana chasing the symbolic ‘gold in the south,’ only to endure six months of harsh isolation in Qatar. Returning determined to break the cycle, he faced a community losing its most energetic youth to debt traps and exploitation because they believe true success can only be found elsewhere. What misleading narratives drive youth to risk everything abroad when opportunities for dignified livelihoods could be built right at home?
Manish Kumar - India Date 12-12-2024, Time: 20:35- 20:55 IST
Manish’s choice of an unconventional career caused deep discomfort for his father, creating an emotional distance between them. This personal struggle reflects a larger issue in rural India, where parental pressure and societal fears often suppress children’s curiosity and critical thinking. The challenge lies in helping families move away from control and conditional expectations toward trust, enabling them to raise independent thinkers prepared for an uncertain future.
Archford Kiwiti - Zimbabwe Date 12-12-2024, Time: 21:00 - 21:20 IST
Archford was called a ‘curse’ and was bullied for his disability, which fueled his defiance. His Zimbabwe Anti Bullying Society model pioneers Reverse Inclusive Education in Zimbabwe, designing schools around accessibility first. Learn about why his students, including those in wheelchairs, are trained in CPR and swimming rescue to become community “protectors,” challenging deep-rooted stigma.
PROGRAM
kanthari TALKS Day TWO
Saturday 13-12-2025
Beyond Pain:
Redefining Care in Africa
(11:00 - 12:10)
From Ghana to Tanzania to Zambia, Adelaide, Alfred, and Alick are redefining what it means to care. Their stories confront the hidden costs of weak healthcare systems, unsafe self-medication, and cultural silence around illness. By turning pain into purpose, they are restoring dignity, transforming access, and proving that true healing begins when compassion meets action.
Adelaide Bih - Cameroon
Date 13-12-2025, Time: 11:00 - 11:20 IST
Adelaide’s experienced a childhood in which she was sick most of the time. She felt like a burden because her family could not afford health care she needed. Witnessing a friend’s sister die due to self-medication after failing to access affordable treatment motivated her to study medicine, with a goal to combat unsafe self-medication and trauma neglect among internally displaced persons by transforming pharmacies from barriers into bridges, providing life-saving subsidized care.
Alfred Ngulo - Tanzania
Date 13-12-2025, Time: 11:25 - 11:45 IST
A malaria survivor who collapsed alone as a child, Alfred Ngulo now fights nature’s most deadliest killer. His social enterprise, Afya Guard, empowers women to produce organic repellents. Curious how his “Buy One, Give One” model uses tourism revenue to protect thousands of vulnerable pregnant mothers in rural Tanzania, tackling endemic malaria deaths and miscarriages?
Alick Mandandi - Zambia
Date 13-12-2025, Time : 11:50- 12:10 IST
Alick questioned, ‘What if strength is not hiding pain?’ after his strong father secretly suffered from chronic disease. His project, HIMZ, challenges harmful patriarchal norms that cause silent suffering in elderly Zambian men. Discover how mobile medical vans (H4HIM) and organic HIM Gardens offer healing, dignity, and a new model of masculinity.
Building Bridges:
Leading Nonviolent Change
(12:30- 13:50)
Are we able to counter violence through peaceful communication?
Do we allow ourselves to dream and break out of our traditions?
From India to Zimbabwe to the Democratic Republic of Congo, these change makers are confronting violence and oppression through peaceful communication and action.
Together, they reveal how courage, community, and creative peacebuilding can reshape futures and heal fractured societies.
Yadeendar - Tittu - India
Date 13-12-2025, Time: 13:40 - 14:00 IST
Tittu escaped indoctrination to confront the most urgent crisis: climate change. He sees Gen Z, burdened by climate anxiety and social justice, being forced to chase short-term gains while those in power silence activists. Tittu asks why youth are convinced they “can’t make an impact” when pollution is destroying places like the Ennore coast. What power structures are stifling the only generation that might still save our shared future?
Nyasha Marylyn Munetsi - Zimbabwe
Date 13-12-2025, Time: 14:05 - 14:25 IST
Nyasha endured violence, abandonment, and near death but refused to be silenced. Her courage highlights Zimbabwe’s deep-rooted patriarchy, where normalized gender inequality, harmful traditions, limited justice, and economic dependence perpetuate violence and stigma. Addressing these systemic failures is crucial to protect women’s rights, empower survivors, and breaking cycles of abuse for a just future.
Elie Mastaki - DR Congo
Date 13-12-2025, Time: 14:30 - 14:50 IST
Elie fled war for two years as a child and resisted recruitment into armed groups fueled by DRC’s mineral curse. His project, Elikia (Hope), empowers youth with skills, not weapons. Find out how his six-pillar peacebuilding model, featuring a Peace Award and cross-border dialogues, heals mistrust and cultivates ethical leaders in Goma.
Testimonials
kanthari TALKS is an inspiring platform that showcases powerful stories of change-makers who turn challenges into opportunities for social impact.
Each talk motivates and empowers viewers to take action for a better world
kanthari TALKS is an event I recommend joining;
A unique opportunity to get inspired by change-makers who come from the margins of society and who present their solutions for a better tomorrow.
Narayana Murthy
founder Infosys
kanthari TALKS was a turning point for me. I first attended kanthari TALKS a few years ago and it was an exceptional experience – educational, emotional and inspiring; all at the same time. The ‘dream speeches’ of kanthari participants transported me to many different countries and communities, exposed me to deeply rooted social issues and reminded me of the incredible power of human spirit and will. It is an event without any boundaries; equally meaningful to everyone – students, professionals, social change makers, entrepreneurs, policy makers and absolutely anyone else too. I am eagerly looking forward to kanthari TALKS 2025!”.
Ms Priya Joshi
Former Managing Director ,HR
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kanthari Intake
Are you a change- maker?
You know the change society needs… We just give you the tools…
Do you carry a plan to make a difference within your community and are you looking for a leadership training course to acquire the necessary skills? Then check out the kanthari Curriculum and apply to become a participant in the next kanthari course that starts in April 2025. Apply today at www.kanthari.org/admission
Since 2009, 303 participants from 57 countries were trained at the kanthari campus in Trivandrum, Kerala, India.
This has resulted in 200+ social initiatives and organisations that are creating a positive impact in the lives of thousands of people within their communities and therewith contributing to a more peaceful world, every day.
At kanthari our aim is to annually train 20 – 25 leaders:
The course is a final stop before starting an own organisation / venture /NGO or social enterprise.
If you are selected, a scholarship will be provided.
