Mehraj Khourshid Malik

Mehraj Khourshid Malik is an educator who chose teaching not as a profession, but as an act of resistance—against hopelessness, extremism, and generational trauma. Raised amid conflict in Kashmir, he grew up studying under shutdowns and candlelight, watching his father preserve dignity in hardship. After earning what many considered a dream job at Microsoft, Malik confronted a deeper question: What is success if it does not help others rise? He returned to Kashmir, leaving behind corporate certainty to build futures in a region where education itself is an act of courage.

His return was met with suspicion, shaped by decades of fear and instability, yet he persisted with patience and purpose. Malik teaches in classrooms without electricity and in spaces few consider classrooms at all—rehabilitation centres, madrassas, community halls, prison units, and even under the shade of chinar trees. For over ten years, he has reached vulnerable youth at risk of radicalisation, addiction, or social alienation, transforming public spaces into sanctuaries of learning, healing, and hope. Some sessions stretch ten hours because, as he says, “changing a mind is never instant.”

His teaching approach blends emotional healing with ethics, debate, psychology, local storytelling, and lived experience. His signature “Before & After” method, where students rewrite their beliefs after deep reflection, captures profound behavioural transformation—from resentment to aspiration, from isolation to belonging. Malik’s pedagogy centres on listening, emotional safety, and dismantling inherited prejudice through guided dialogue and immersive experiences.

Malik has created two pioneering intervention models:
1. Insaniyat Curriculum – a school-based empathy and values framework.
2. Sahi Rasta – a 23-day rehabilitation programme for in-prison and vulnerable youth, credited with helping over 500 young people step away from despair, militancy, and self-destructive paths. More than 75 dropouts have returned to school, others have started small businesses, and many now work across India in Bengaluru, Pune, and Delhi. The program avoids force; it heals wounds of conflict through trust, self-reflection, and reintegration.

His community impact extends far beyond classrooms. Malik leads a network of 1,000+ volunteers, educators, imams, lawyers, doctors, and activists, trained by him to promote peace, dignity, gender respect, and civic responsibility in mosques, courts, media, and local institutions. He has spearheaded drug-awareness campaigns, interfaith dialogues, women’s empowerment initiatives, and large-scale environmental projects such as Clean Jhelum and Clean Wullar. Through these, young people learn that protecting nature is part of protecting society.

Malik embeds global citizenship by exposing students to diverse faith spaces, historical coexistence sites, and mentors working on climate, poverty, and human rights. His climate education uses vivid metaphors and ethical reasoning, turning sustainability into a personal responsibility rather than a unit in a textbook.

For the teaching profession, he has trained hundreds of educators, faith leaders, and principals, restoring dignity to teaching and promoting trauma-sensitive, values-driven pedagogy across Kashmir.

If awarded the Global Teacher Prize, Malik aims to expand his healing initiatives and establish a Centre for Transformative Education and Counter-Radicalization in Kashmir. He sees the award as belonging not to him, but to every young person who chooses light over darkness.