Sharanya Rao (Nepal)

Sharanya is the Programme Manager at Atoot, a sport-for-development nonprofit which uses football, educational classes and life-skills workshops to help educate and empower girls in rural Nepal. Sharanya is a teacher, football coach and mentor to hundreds of young girls, as well as a guide and mentor to the young female staff at Atoot. A graduate from the Women’s Sports Leadership Academy (WSLA) 2022, she has a Bachelor’s of Arts (Hons.) in psychology-sociology from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, and a Master’s of Arts in education from Azim Premji University, Bengaluru as well as is a National Eligibility Test (NET) qualified teacher, by the University Grants Commission, Ministry of Education, Govt. of India.

As a personal mentee to the then British Ambassador to Nepal, H.E. Nicola Pollitt in 2022, Sharanya brings her experience and expertise in the field of education to the sports field, where she combines the two. She strongly believes in the power of sport to educate, empower, bridge gaps, and bring about gender equality. An avid reader, an outdoors lover and a polyglot fluent in 6 languages, Sharanya has always been strongly drawn to children and believes that all children deserve a safe and happy childhood.