Girish Mehta (27)
Founder and director, CLiC Forum
Anisha Sharma (27)
Co-founder and CEO, CLiC Forum
When Girish Mehta was told he would have to leave the orphanage he had grown up in, panic and depression set in. He made a few calls looking for a job that would also provide him a roof over his head and landed one with a children’s helpline, 1098, in Jaipur.
That led to interactions not just with children in trouble but also the police, orphanages and non-profit organisations. In 2019, he set up an informal WhatsApp group of about 20 to 25 people from orphanages who could reach out to each other in times of need, something that stood them in good stead when the Covid-19 pandemic hit. In 2021, he approached Unicef for support and help for careleavers, and when he was advised to register a non-profit, he set up CareLeavers Inner Circle Forum or CLiC, a social impact platform for and by careleavers.
While Josh.Community was one of the first mentors and sponsors, Unicef joined in in 2022 to support them. Anisha Sharma, another careleaver from Delhi, too joined as co-founder in 2022. “I faced the same struggles that many careleavers face today: Confusion, fear and the sudden pressure to survive on your own at 18. When I started volunteering, I saw that the situation in Rajasthan was even more challenging, especially for girls in child care institutions,” she says. “I felt if my experiences and efforts could support even one young person, especially a girl trying to stand on her own feet, it would bring real meaning to my life. That belief made me stay, grow and work with CLiC as a co-founder.”
At an awards event in 2023, Sharma brought the issue of careleavers to the attention of Smriti Irani, then minister of Women and Child Development. CLiC secured a meeting for the next day where they advocated for a systemic shift, leading to a central order to states to develop verified careleaver databases and aftercare services.
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“One of my proudest moments was releasing a national letter for careleavers which was circulated to secretaries of India & Union Territories mentioning CLiC as a point of contact—something that changed the system across multiple states. That letter created real impact,” says Sharma. CLiC today offers support with everything from shelter and jobs to skills and emotional care.
The world of startups and raising funds has not been without its challenges though. “No one took us seriously initially,” recollects Mehta. After Unicef started them off on their journey documenting careleavers, and six months later putting in funds, the organisation was part of the Nudge Incubation Cohort, 2023, in Bengaluru and NSRCEL (IIM-B), where, Mehta says, they learnt more about the social impact sector and gained confidence in their model. CLiC is also currently part of the accelerator programme at Change Engine, an accelerator for non-profits.
“We have many non-profits working on education, health and other areas—and they are all necessary—but this was a problem we didn’t even know existed. It almost seemed like a gap where no one had paid enough attention, and as a result, these youth were essentially slipping out of the system,” says Shubham Bansal, co-founder, Change Engine, which supports founders to build non-profit unicorns.
Girish and Anisha, he adds, have the rare combination of deep, lived expertise and the ambition to build a high-leverage intervention.
So far, Mehta says, they have over 3,000 careleavers connected with CliC, and have helped over 500 with documentation. “About 150 have been settled in skilling, and we have helped over 300 careleavers financially,” he adds.
The road ahead? “I want to create many Girishs who continue the work and the aim is to make CLiC a self-sustaining model where careleavers who have been helped contribute to help others like them.”
First Published: Jan 21, 2026, 16:25
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