Our Team

Punam Mishra

Punam was born and raised in India in a middle class family, she had access to basic education and had to get aid from government to complete her higher education.

The struggle in India is been a big part of her life but her natural ability to plan, schedule and manage multiple tasks at once rewarded her with being able to raise her three children and put them through education and now be the proud mother of three professional children.

She has worked in education for more than 15 years as a Hindi teacher for non-hindi speakers. She has experience working with different age groups, different language speakers and cultural backgrounds, nationalities and religious beliefs. This experience helps her in working with children as they all have very unique needs and personalities, their ages and backgrounds are very different so this makes the learning skill and style vary from one kid to another.

The mother & and creator of Nanhe Sitare School and the Navchetna Foundation in Varanasi, India.

Stuti Usha

A graduated PhD student from the Banaras Hindu University, for the past several years Usha has been working with children as an educator. Her passion for teaching and spending time with children has become a life’s commitment and she focuses all of her time to work on the Nanhe Sitare school project.

Self motivated, independent woman, daughter of Punam Mishra and sister to Akshya Anand, they have found education to be the keys to raise above poverty and move forward into the future and now they together have decided to start this endeavor and use education as a tool to raise consciousness, intellectual and social abilities for the poorest kids of Varanasi.

Akshya Anand

Akshya Anand is a very humble Indian man who lives by and through respect, he has a very unique ability to motivate anyone about anything.

Born in a village in Binar, India in 1994. After his birth his family moved to Varanasi to pursue a better education for him and his 2 sisters. Coming from very poor backgrounds, his parents had to work really hard to give them a better opportunity in life and provide them with the best education they could get.

Graduated Engineer (B.Tech) Jsom Mahabastitsa Universtity in India. He has worked professionally with 3 different companies and currently works for a government gas agency.

After the death of his father he came back to his home town Varanasi to create together with his mother and sister this NGO. He serves in the school as the manager. He pays special attention to know what children want to become in life to be able to serve that purpose and keep them motivated about their dreams.

“I use our struggles as strength & our knowledge as keys.” Akshya Anand