Bulandi Fellowship Program
From self-discovery to real-world leadership. A fellowship where growth is built by doing.
About the Fellowship
I was 18 year old when I founded the Bulandi Fellowship Program, not as a charity project, but as a platform for developing real facilitators, real leadership, and real ownership.
Bulandi Fellowship Program was designed as a leadership program for recent graduates and young professionals. The program empowered them to recognize both their personal potential and their community’s pressing challenges, and to take ownership in solving them. The program was offered under the umbrella of Beyond the Classroom Education.
Bulandi was unique in its approach: blending self-reflection, facilitation skills, curriculum design, and real-world problem-solving to help fellows discover their leadership capacity. This personal and professional growth became the foundation for meaningful, sustainable community action.
18
Schools
4
Cities
120+
Fellows
2,500+
Learners Trained
The Journey
The Build
Fellows trained were trained first through activity-based workshops focused on leadership and facilitation
Then delivered activity-based leadership workshops directly inside underserved school
Scaling
Started off from Lahore and then expanded to Karachi to Gujranwala to Faisalabad.
Then to Hunza & Skardu with 20-day Residential program)
Received 200+ applications per cohort
COVID Pivot
The parent organization closed down but I was eager to continue regardless.
Redesigned into a fully virtual leadership accelerator to train fellows to design and execute their social action projects
Some Glimpses:
“Coming from a psychology background, I have heard the words empathy and identity and the issues revolving them one too many times. Unfortunately, our education system though teaches what these things are in theory but fails to help us practice them or put them to use in real life. As to why anyone should be a part of this program is because firstly it helps one with their own empathy and identity development and then gives an opportunity to facilitate and impart that knowledge in nontraditional and much more effective ways to children. And considering how impressionable children are, it is an important step being taken by this program to plant a seed which could grow and make them better people.”
I would very proudly like to call myself a Bulandi fellow. Even though the program was only 16 days long, but the impact that it made on me as a person, the lessons it taught during the training sessions and how our trainers managed to make 12 strangers into a cohort, the program truly was able to inculcate in me its key values and lessons i.e empathy, identity and leadership. I have carried back what I could but yet I still want to go back to that Bulandi through this Bulandi program and relive it. To be more specific, I think being able to really understand and experience the core values is what makes me feel as a Bulandi fellow. Each activity hit a specific part of me or a specific thought pattern.
Whatever went on during the sessions taught me empathy, the activities taught me leadership skills and compromise, and strangely facilitating the children helped me understand more about identity and its development and goals".
“ This fellowship was a roller coaster of emotions and personal growth. I had no idea that I could be that resilient. Every single experience is carved in my heart. My experience with the students was wonderful, it was difficult to discuss with 5th graders about all these concepts, but they exceeded our expectations. This journey has taught me so much about myself and about the difficulties that we all face, in fact, it has made me a better person and more empathetic human being.
"If anybody asks me to put a hierarchy to the multitudinous experiences I have encountered, I might not be able to do in a zillion years because each and every aspect of the whole journey has provided me with something to cherish for my lifetime.
What fellows say about Bulandi?
Where Bulandi Stands Today
I left the organization in 2021, but a part of me never really left Bulandi. I had designed the plans for Bulandi 2021, some of those plans came to life, others never got the chance. Eventually, the program faded. Perhaps because no one else cared for it the way a founder does.
It still weighs heavy on me. I wish it had continued. But I know this model works and it can be built again.
The full 2021 plan — the last chapter of Bulandi’s operations
Let’s Build It Again
Big open call:
If You’re Thinking About Building Something Similar, let’s Talk. I’d love to co-build, advise, or help design your own version.