Programs | Maitri

How Maitri works

A long-term ecosystem that moves with a girl across key transitions: school, college, and early work.

Co-created vision (Maitri Canva visual).

Raising aspirations (Maitri Canva visual).

Instilling courage (Maitri Canva visual).

Empowering girl leadership (Maitri Canva visual).

Collaborated mission (Maitri Canva visual).

Safe space to share (Maitri Canva visual).

A platform to shine (Maitri Canva visual).

Express with confidence (Maitri Canva visual).

Community model Maitri (Maitri Canva visual).

The Maitri Pathway

From Grade 9 to first jobs

Maitri stays with girls across the transitions where support matters most, so aspiration can become access, and access can become leadership.

Grade 9-10

Aspiration and Pehchaan

Identity, confidence, communication, self-expression, and early exposure to possibilities beyond immediate surroundings.

Grade 11-12

Choices and scholarships

Stream choices, board transitions, scholarship awareness, documentation, applications, and guidance for post-school pathways.

College

Mentoring and exposure

Peer circles, mentor continuity, internships, skill-building, voice platforms, and access to role models and networks.

Early work

First jobs and leadership loop

Job readiness, first-work handholding, alumni support, and members returning as peer leads for juniors.

A girl's journey through Maitri

From first session to first job, each step builds on the last. Weekly and bi-weekly workshops, monthly milestone sessions, and quarterly showcase events mark the way forward.

Peer mentoring

A layered mentorship model where seniors guide juniors in small, relationship-oriented groups. Trained mentors provide accountability, emotional safety, and continuity through school, college, and early work transitions.

Skill building

Practical modules on interview preparation, resume building, professional etiquette, goal-setting, critical thinking, and storytelling for impact. Future tracks include financial literacy, digital literacy, and leadership labs.

Pathways

Scholarships, internships, exposure visits, public speaking showcases, and first job placements through partner organizations. Each pathway is mapped to the skills and confidence built in earlier steps.

Sisterhood model (core of the program)

Maitri's core is sisterhood: every girl is held by peer circles, seniors, and mentors through school, college, and first-work transitions.

Level 1 — Core Girls

Participants at the heart of the program. They join structured sessions, build confidence through peer circles, and are paired with mentors who walk alongside them through school, college, and early career transitions.

Level 2 — Peer Mentors

Senior girls who have completed a full mentorship cycle. They lead small groups, provide day-to-day accountability, and model the confidence they once built as core participants.

Level 3 — Senior Mentors

Experienced mentors who train and support peer mentors. They facilitate mentor training on feedback techniques, structured storytelling guidance, maintaining boundaries, and ensuring emotional safety.

Level 4 — Founding & Leadership Team

The leadership layer that designs curriculum, manages partnerships, sets program standards, and ensures the mentorship culture stays relationship-oriented and rooted in the community it serves.

Small-group based Long-term Relationship-oriented Accountability-driven

Voice as leadership

Girls carry wisdom forward

Voice is not an add-on at Maitri. Girls tell stories, host conversations, mentor juniors, and turn lived experience into guidance for the next cohort.

Maitri Voices

Girls write and reflect

Community members document their journeys, choices, confidence, and leadership so younger girls can see pathways through voices like their own.

Ninaad

Stories travel farther

A community podcast carrying success stories from Maitri and girls from similar contexts into the wider ecosystem.

Sakhi^AI

Lived wisdom becomes support

An AI-supported, peer-anchored reflection companion grounded in anonymised experiences from the Maitri community.

Ninaad: community podcast

Ninaad inspires and carries success stories from the community and outside of girls from similar context and lived realities to the Maitri members so that voice of these trailblazer girls can inspire Maitri girls to lead and pursue their ambition with courage and conviction.

Episode highlight

Meenakshi Yadav

From LSR College to campaign manager at I-PAC. A Vahini scholar who turned mentorship into a career in public policy.

Episode highlight

Sumitra Bharti

Transitioned from Humanities to an Advanced Diploma in Software Programming. Proof that pathways can be rewritten.

Episode highlight

Subhoshree Saha

Excellent 12th board results, selected as a Karm Fellow. A story of academic grit and mentorship.

Listen to more such powerful stories of trailblazer girls on our Spotify channel

Team Maitri

Maitri is led by the very community it nurtures. Girls who once received guidance return as scholarship guides, content leads, outreach anchors, event builders, and peer mentors for their juniors. Built on sisterhood, compassion, and paying it forward, Team Maitri turns lived experience into leadership and keeps the community growing from within.

Sisterhood Compassion Paying it forward Youth-led growth