There are women who spark revolutions.

And then there are women like Savitri Bai Phule,

who build them from scratch, step by step, girl by girl.

In 1848, she opened India’s first school for girls.

Not in defiance, but in devotion.

To those denied books by caste, class, and patriarchy.

To the girls told they didn’t deserve to dream.

Every morning, she carried an extra sari,

knowing upper-caste men might hurl dung or stones at her.

Still, she walked.

Still, she taught.

Still, she rose.

She fought for widows, for Dalit girls, for pregnant women,

for those cast out by Brahminical society.

She wrote poetry that burned with pain and resolve.

She didn’t just challenge injustice, she built new worlds.

Over a century later, her spirit lives on

in the pink-walled sanctuary of Sister Library,

South Asia’s first feminist library,

founded by Indigenous artist aqui thami.

aqui created Sister Library as a space for collective care.

A place where stories of women, and girls aren’t just archived, they’re amplified.

It is here that the Walking with Savitri Mai Fellowship was born.

A living promise to support girls from oppressed communities through school and college, fully, tenderly, fiercely.

We pay fees. We buy books. We send pads.

We talk late into the night when the weight of it all threatens to undo them.

We remind them: you are not alone.

This is not aid.

This is blood memory.

The fellowship is for the girls who don’t get named in policy documents.

Girls who write poems in tight, unlit rooms.

Girls who want to be judges because they’re tired of watching their people lose.

Girls who want to paint the world pink.

Girls who work.

Girls who care for siblings.

Girls who bleed quietly in class.

Girls who want more than what was handed down to them.

Girls who should not have to ask.

We give them what is already theirs:

support, dignity, education, space.

We don’t just remember Savitri Mai.

We follow her.

We open wells.

We say no to dowry.

We speak even when no one listens.

Every girl, a revolution Savitri Mai imagined.

Each school bag, a manifesto.

Each exam passed, a refusal to disappear.

We walk to return what was taken.

We walk because dreaming is a practice.

We walk to say: you matter. your future matters. your life is yours.

It is one of the most tender and urgent projects to grow from Sister Library, a commitment to support girls from oppressed communities through their education, from school to graduation. Most of them are the first in their families to ever walk into a college. They carry notebooks like shields, much like Savitri Mai once did. They too face caste violence, economic instability, and gendered silencing, and yet, like her, they keep walking. This fellowship offers more than financial aid. It offers accompaniment. A circle of care, mentorship, dignity, and belonging. Because we believe no one should have to walk alone, especially not girls with dreams as fierce as Savitri Mai’s.

But this work, like hers, can’t be done alone. Sister Library is entirely sustained by the community who believe in collective futures. This isn’t a charity. It’s a refusal to let caste, class, and gender decide who gets to learn.

With your support, we can help these girls not just survive, but soar.

Every contribution fuels their journey one page, one step, one life at a time.

And now, we ask you to walk with us.

This is not charity.

This is a movement.

A refusal.

A remembering.

Not behind, but beside.

Step by step.

Girl by girl.

Dream by dream.