The first airplane Jharna Roy ever boarded was taking her to a workshop in Bengaluru. This was not, strictly speaking, the most important thing that happened there. But it was a good place to begin.

Starting in 2013, Jharna worked as a Community Health Promoter, educating parents, children and patients in her community. When that program ended, Jharna spent most of her working life at Pinaki Ray Eye Foundation in Malda, India, learning the hospital’s particular ways of doing things. She knew its routines, its systems, its rhythms. She knew how to run the outpatient department, manage electronic medical records, and assist in the operating theater. Then, when the hospital’s operating theater supervisor couldn’t attend a Seva workshop, Jharna was asked to go instead.