Alinery Lianhlawng

Alinery Lianhlawng is a social entrepreneur, a passionate advocate for quality Education, Social Change and Women Empowerment.

She is actively engaged in providing quality of education through building libraries and one-on-one mentorship and consultation for urban poor and marginalised rural communities. She is a mentor and Rising Star at Wedu Organization, a TEDx Speaker and a community change-maker for her indigenous tribe’s in Mizoram, India. Aside from her social venture, Alinery works as a strategy manager at an IT company based in Oxford, United Kingdom upon finishing her MBA.

How to become a changemaker: Pathways for women empowerment through social entrepreneurship amongst landlock indigenous tribes in Mizoram, India.

This paper begins with the background and overview of gender inequality and challenges in education to give a clear picture of issues and challenges for women in the Mizo society. A definition and conceptual framework of women’s empowerment by Naila Kabeer is presented to further illustrate three models: resource, agency, and achievement. The research explores and further investigates a broad range of literature and discourse of relevance to women’s empowerment through case studies and interviews and specifically focus on education through case studies and interviews. The research attempt to inquire about the cultural understanding and potential role of social entrepreneurship in women empowerment in the context of Mizoram. Importantly, how social entrepreneurship links with education and how can it be used as an instrument of women empowerment. Analysing these case and interviews provide in-depth meaning and understanding, looking at different mechanisms, strategies, best practices and examples of how to promote women’s empowerment to integrate into broader perspectives and holistic approaches. Based on the findings and analysis, recommendations are provided for the social enterprise Rochun: Pay it Forward as a set of guidelines for standard practices and the implementation of plans going forward, expansion, improvement in providing essential educational service focusing on women empowerment through building libraries and leadership consultation.

“As the only woman and the first person from my community to study abroad and being the youngest child amongst five siblings, who undergone an extra-mile to convince my parents to access resources such as education, I want nothing more but to help empower girls and women through education to realize their full potential. Building the first library in my high school was when I realized I wanted to empower girls and women through my social entrepreneurship approach focusing on education by building libraries and conducting leadership academy and consultation. We now have libraries with digital laptops and books from BookAid International and mentor hundreds of youths every week.

Organization Profile: Rochun: Pay it Forward

Starting off as a library construction project under Wedu.org, the library project is now expanded into eight more schools in Mizoram, Jharkhand, and Bihar and Myanmar impacting hundreds of lives. The first library was in my village where I studied till high school. Since the funding was mainly for the construction, I started collecting papers and taps into Labdoo.org who provided me with 20 laptops to run the library. The project then turned into an organisation and we envision a world in which every student, from rural communities to urban poor, can access resources for education and are provided with the support that enables them to pursue their dream and unlock their full potential. We aim to build and administer libraries and run leadership academy and consultation in every school in Mizoram with a workspace to provide aspiring students of all ages with the means to access basic education and supporting resources and thus escape poverty. The core value of the social venture is a passion for Education, Women Empowerment, and Social Change; Focus on a local led bottom-up approach and grassroots partnership; Determine to close the digital divide through innovation and collaboration.”