Who Is Sandra Lavie? The Woman Rebuilding Lives On India’s Sagar Island

The short version of Sandra Lavie Gojkovic’s story is simple enough: a Swiss corporate professional in Dubai gave up her job, her apartment and most of her belongings, and moved to India fifteen years ago. The longer version explains why it’s still worth telling today.

Before the move, she had reached what looks, from the outside, like success — a well-paying job, an upscale apartment, a car, frequent international travel. What she hadn’t reached was peace with one question: ‘Why had I been given so much while so many others had so little?’

She resigned, packed two shirts and two pairs of trousers, and flew to India on a one-way ticket with no defined plan. ‘The contrast was intentional,’ she has said. ‘I went from a life of luxury to travelling with just two shirts and two pairs of trousers.’ She then explored the country largely alone, mostly by train.

Her original intention was to donate to charities already operating in India, not to start one of her own. Seeing recurring mismanagement in some of that work changed her mind — she decided instead to build a smaller, transparent project shaped directly around community needs.

That search took her to Sagar Island, a remote part of West Bengal reachable only by a two-and-a-half-hour train ride and an hour by boat, home to the ashram of Kapila Muni. She spent time listening to residents of three villages there before deciding what form the project should take, then went door to door to earn parents’ trust.

Fifteen years on, her free primary school educates 150 children across five classes, another 120 children in government schools receive tuition support and daily meals through her programme, and 20 women have completed sewing training designed to build financial independence. The wider effort also includes awareness work on domestic violence, child marriage and human trafficking.

‘Material possessions are temporary,’ she has said. ‘They may bring comfort, but they do not bring lasting fulfilment. True purpose comes from serving others.’

Wikimedia Commons/by Mettle30