agehi-SACHET  regarded as an institution that visibly advocated for health/SRHR ,education and poverty elimination at public policy and community levels through replicable and scalable  social entrepreneurship in a context, culturally acceptable in Pakistan.  To this end, it has been successful in building partnerships and intellectual alliances with grass-roots organizations, national and international non-profits, and intergovernmental and public sector organizations.

Through the implementation wing of the non-profit SACHET , agehi had been enabled to directly extend free primary health care and essential reproductive health services and information to millions of the rural and slum population, especially the highly vulnerable women and adolescents in 12 districts of Pakistan.

agehi-SACHET  led a number of innovative projects on reproductive health issues.  For example, (a) a project for which a local non-profit (affiliated with agehi) was selected as the implementing partner by the European Commission as part of a 7-country Reproductive Health project.  This involved setting up of youth-friendly centers under the Reproductive Health Initiative for Youth in Asia (2003-2007), (b) a project led by USAID for an AIDS awareness program for university students (2003-2005).  These game-changer models were replicated by several INGOs.

These critical social impacts continue to influence the lives of many who have been touched with agehi -SACHET i.  Very often, these are covered not only in reports generated by the development sector partners and allies, but also in mainstream print media and television channels.  The emerging new media, i.e. social media, also highlights, shares, cites and covers stories of our impact and contribution towards struggle, resilience, creativity and innovation.

As the founder and CEO agehi,  Dr.Rakhshinda’s  role was to engender development through a broad range of complementing activities such as leadership development, talent management, and integration of cross-functional perspectives in designing solutions.  These were based on actual needs of the community and integrate applied empathy.  Additionally, she led research, policy and media advocacy, communication, training, investments in human capital and fund-raising activities.  She also provide technical assistance to a number of successful local and national level non-profits and various local and international partners in development.

Her  role also involved leading and managing Fight Against Dowry Advocacy Network (FADAN) to advocate for legislation against dowry violence in Pakistan.  This platform is the pioneering voice against the most prevalent form of gender-based violence.

Some specific examples of Dr.Rakhshinda’s vision and its impacts are listed below:
a.   A concept shop namely ‘shop for a cause’ was established by agehi which provided a model unique in our local context for the elimination of the exploitative role of the middleman and augmented the direct benefits to small and aspiring entrepreneurs (mostly women) in project areas across the country (2001-2007). A total of 1000 women (20% supported by their respective male relatives) became the consignors. Out of this, 25 women started their own home-based businesses. The gallery part of the shop regularly organized an average of four exhibitions a month that gained extensive media coverage. She played a lead role from the concept to execution phase of this initiative.
b.   Pakistan was hit by a massive earthquake in 2005. At that time, managing community’s expectations and loss of our own skilled staff to bigger organizations emerged as major challenges in our rehabilitation efforts. Dr.Rakhshinda used this situation as a learning opportunity and led my team in initiating consultations with the stakeholders (such as representatives of various donor groups, business community, banks and senior management of some nonprofits).This resulted in the formation of a three-pronged strategy aimed to (a) recruit volunteer interns (b) devolve more responsibilities to the staff and (c) trained both these groups for effective delivery of their jobs. After refurbishing the human resources, she developed two comprehensive fund raising proposals and presented these to the World Bank and to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). Based on the soundness of the proposals and the inventive strategies proposed to respond to the rehabilitation challenge, both proposals were awarded funding. It is pertinent to mention that this was the first time that a social entrepreneurship strategy in emergency from a local institution was recognized by the World Bank.
c.    Her concept of Women Friendly Spaces in Mansehra (province Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa) not only won the acknowledgment of UNFPA but also evolved as a framework from that land-mark project. Later we scaled up the project in earthquake-affected districts with the support of an international nonprofit and a local one by focusing on reproductive health needs of adolescent girls and boys and establish adolescent-friendly centers. Those were also chosen as one of the 50 civil society institutions for effective humanitarian efforts for earthquake survivors, by the Government of Pakistan’s National Volunteers’ Movement. 

As the first Ashoka fellow from Northern Pakistan, she introduced Social Entrepreneurism as a new concept in Islamabad at a time when many in the local development scene were skeptical and had little understanding about the model and its benefits. The continued influence of her contributions with focused enthusiasm to enable growth of youth and women from excluded groups and replication of the ideas based on social entrepreneurism is affirming and validating its impact on a daily basis.