‘Why Had I Been Given So Much?’: The Question That Sent Sandra Lavie To India

It was a question, not a plan, that changed Sandra Lavie Gojkovic’s life. Fifteen years ago, she was a Swiss-educated professional with a comfortable corporate job in Dubai — an apartment, a car, regular international travel — when one thought kept resurfacing: ‘Why had I been given so much while so many others had so little?’

She didn’t wait long to act on it. She resigned from her job, packed two shirts and two pairs of trousers, and booked a one-way flight to India with no fixed itinerary and no clear plan for what would come next.

What followed was an extended solo trip across the country, largely by train. ‘India was a culture shock, but it also gave me exactly what I had been searching for: simplicity, purpose and perspective,’ she has said of that period.

Her first instinct was simply to donate to organisations already active in the country. That changed once she began noticing recurring financial mismanagement and projects that weren’t delivering results. She decided instead to build her own, run transparently and shaped by what the people she was trying to help actually asked for.

The place she eventually chose was far from easy to get to — a two-and-a-half-hour train ride and an hour-long boat crossing to Sagar Island in West Bengal, home to the ashram of Kapila Muni. She spent her first stretch there listening, visiting three villages and speaking with residents before deciding what to build.

Building trust with local families took repeated door-to-door visits, asking parents directly to send their children to a school run by someone they had just met. That patience has paid off: 150 children now attend her free primary school across five classes, another 120 receive tuition support and daily meals in government schools, and 20 women have completed sewing training aimed at financial independence.

‘Helping people who are less fortunate is not simply something I do,’ she has said. ‘It is my life’s mission.’

Wikimedia Commons/by Mettle30