Saptarshi Ray

Saptarshi Ray is a social entrepreneur, educator, and community media practitioner based in Kolkata, India. As the President of Prayasam, Salt Lake City, he has spent more than two decades working at the intersection of creative media, life-skills education, and youth empowerment — helping young people from marginalized communities find their voice, build confidence, and shape their own futures.

From Learner to Leader — Two Decades with Prayasam

Saptarshi Ray joined Prayasam in February 2005 — not as a professional, but as a learner. That early experience of being shaped by the organisation became the foundation of everything that followed. Over the next two decades he grew through every layer of Prayasam's work, taking on increasing responsibility until he became its President.

Today he steers the organisation's vision and long-term strategy, expanding its reach from a single community to more than 35 communities across Kolkata, including multiple blocks in Salt Lake City. His leadership is defined by a simple principle: carry forward the core values of the organisation while continuously adapting to the real and changing needs of children and youth from underserved backgrounds.

Prayasam Visual Basics — Where Creativity Meets Social Change

One of Saptarshi Ray's most significant contributions as a social entrepreneur is his leadership of Prayasam Visual Basics (PVB) — a media and capacity-building initiative developed in long-term collaboration with Adobe. For over 11 years, PVB has grown from a digital learning platform into a thriving community production space, where young people use filmmaking, audio storytelling, and digital media as instruments of self-expression and social change.

Under his guidance, PVB has produced more than 100 original media works, including:

• 72 short films documenting lived realities and local narratives
• 30 audio stories from community voices
• 14 music videos created by youth from marginalized backgrounds
• 3 documentaries addressing pressing social issues
• 20 public service announcements
• 3 podcast series
• 10 CSR films in collaboration with corporate partners
• 10 editions of the Bad and Beautiful World film festival — a platform that brings community stories to wider audiences

These works do not merely represent creative output. They represent young people — many of them non-actors — stepping into roles as storytellers, directors, and change-makers within their own communities.

Recognised Globally as an Adobe Youth Voices Lead Educator

Saptarshi Ray's work in community media education earned him global recognition when he was selected as an Adobe Youth Voices (AYV) Lead Educator — one of only 75 educators chosen worldwide. He represented his work at the AYV Summit at Santa Clara University, California, accompanied by two of his own mentees from Prayasam — a moment that embodied the very spirit of his approach: lifting others as he rises.

Training, Facilitation, and Life-Skills Education

Beyond media production, Saptarshi is a highly experienced trainer and facilitator working across the fields of life skills, theatre, gender, and child rights. He has served as Chief Facilitator for Life Skills for the students of Nabadisha Schools, a Kolkata Police initiative guided by the globally recognised educational philosophy of Amlan Ganguly.

His professional training spans several disciplines:

• Theatre of the Oppressed — Abhivyakti Media for Development, Maharashtra
• Community Video — Video Volunteers, USA
• Gender Diversity and Development — Xavier Institute of Social Sciences
• Juvenile Justice Act — NIPCCD (National Institute of Public Cooperation and Child Development)

These programmes inform an approach to facilitation that is participatory, rights-based, and deeply respectful of the communities he works with.

National and International Partnerships

As a social entrepreneur, Saptarshi Ray has partnered with some of India's most respected development organisations and international bodies. His training and facilitation work includes:

• Master Trainer in Comics with World Comics India, co-facilitating with World Vision India
• UNICEF-supported trainer for Shishu Shiksha Kendras and NPEGEL Schools in Purulia and Bankura
• Media trainer for migrant children in brick kiln communities in Bhatpara and Barrackpore, supported by DFID and Kolkata Urban Services for the Poor

Through Prayasam, he has led collaborative media and development projects with institutions including Johns Hopkins University, Coal India Ltd., FICCI, Global Fund for Children, Omprakash, Indian Oil Corporation Ltd., and the US Consulate — among them a promotional film supporting vaccine adoption across India.

Impact by the Numbers

 

A Grassroots Leader at Heart

What sets Saptarshi Ray apart as a social entrepreneur is not the scale of his achievements alone — it is his insistence on remaining rooted. Despite heading the organisation, he continues to mentor individual young people, facilitate workshops on the ground, and explore new approaches to community engagement. For him, leadership is not a distance from the work — it is a deeper immersion in it.

For Saptarshi Ray, Prayasam has never simply been an organisation. It is a living space of transformation — where creativity builds confidence, stories build identity, and the young people of Salt Lake City and beyond are empowered to write their own futures.