Who Is Sandra Lavie Gojkovic? The Swiss Woman Who Walked Away From It All

Sandra Lavie Gojkovic isn’t a name most people outside a handful of villages in West Bengal would recognise. Fifteen years ago, she was on a very different track entirely: a Swiss-educated professional with a well-paying corporate job in Dubai, an upscale apartment, a car and enough financial comfort to travel wherever she wanted.

She has said the two lives don’t feel connected anymore. ‘I resigned from my job, left my comfortable life behind and flew to India with almost nothing,’ she has recalled. ‘The contrast was intentional. I went from a life of luxury to travelling with just two shirts and two pairs of trousers.’

There was no five-year plan behind the move, and no support network waiting on the other end. She explored India largely by train, alone, for the first time in her life feeling ‘completely free,’ as she has put it, despite — or because of — having almost nothing with her.

What began as an intention to simply donate to existing charities changed once she saw how some of that money was being used. Recurring financial mismanagement and projects that went nowhere convinced her that she needed to build something of her own, run transparently and shaped around what communities actually said they needed.

That decision eventually took her to one of the more remote parts of the country: Sagar Island in West Bengal, reachable only by a two-and-a-half-hour train ride and a further hour by boat, and home to the ashram of Kapila Muni. She spent her early time there listening rather than building, sitting with residents of three villages before starting anything.

Earning the trust of parents took time and repetition — she went house to house asking families to send their children to a new school run by a foreigner they had never met. What started as a handful of students has grown into a free primary school teaching 150 children across five classes, alongside tuition support and daily meals for another 120 children in government schools, and sewing training for 20 women.

Her wider programme now also includes raising awareness around domestic violence, child marriage and human trafficking. ‘Helping people who are less fortunate is not simply something I do,’ she has said, ‘it is my life’s mission. I will continue this work for as long as I live.’

Wikimedia Commons/by Mettle30