Elevate 2025 unites children from government and private schools, creating rare opportunities for cross-cultural and cross-economic collaboration.
MUMBAI (India CSR): Elevate 2025, co-founded by Mika Nishimura and Katheryn Murillo, is redefining leadership development for children by blending music, movement, nutrition, and mentorship into a single transformative experience. Rooted in Mika’s decade-long journey as a music educator in Mumbai and enriched by Katheryn’s global education expertise, the camp brings together 125 children from government and private schools, fostering empathy, confidence, and collaboration across socio-economic divides. With mentors from Colombia, Spain, Japan, and India, Elevate offers a unique platform for holistic growth. Culminating in a performance at Mumbai’s NCPA, the program inspires participants to see themselves as leaders in their communities and beyond. Mika emphasizes that leadership begins with empathy, fostered through shared human experiences like music, movement, and food.
Excerpts of an Interview:
1. What inspired you to create a leadership camp blending music, movement, nutrition, and mentorship?
My journey as a music educator began with a strong foundation in Western classical music — trained in world-class institutions like the Franz Liszt Academy, Reina Sofia School, and the Jacobs School of Music. Most of my early experience was shaped through traditional one-on-one lessons and teacher-led group classes. While I deeply value this background, I started to feel a growing desire to create something more collaborative and human-centered.
That shift began when I started working with Muktangan, a progressive NGO in Mumbai. There, I met children from incredibly diverse backgrounds — many facing deep challenges but filled with resilience and potential. We began rethinking how music was taught. Instead of focusing only on technique, we moved to group learning, peer support, and shared leadership. I witnessed something powerful: students started leading each other.
This transformation became the seed for Elevate — a camp designed not just to teach music, but to nurture young leaders who are grounded, expressive, and empathetic. But as we developed the camp, it became clear: in India, leadership development must go hand-in-hand with basic wellbeing. Many children, even of the same age, come with drastically different levels of energy, focus, and physical readiness — often due to lack of nutrition or opportunities for movement.
That’s why Elevate goes beyond music. It includes movement to energize the body, nutrition education to build strength and awareness, and mentorship to nurture inner confidence. But without proper nutrition, children don’t have the strength to move.
Elevate was co-founded with Katheryn Murillo, an educator and social impact leader from Honduras. With a background in engineering, Katheryn transitioned into education through Empieza por Educar (Teach For All Spain) and went on to design impactful programs for schools across Spain, Latin America, and Africa.
2. How do you and Katheryn’s different backgrounds complement each other in driving this mission?
Katheryn and I are total opposites — and that’s exactly what makes it work. We come from completely different worlds — Honduras/Spain and Japan/India, engineering and classical music — but our shared commitment to children, equity, and creativity brings us together.
We often say Elevate means lifting each other — and that’s what we do as co-founders. This diversity has attracted a global team of passionate people who believe in the same values.
3. How vital is bringing together children from diverse backgrounds for shaping future leaders?
This is the beauty and the strength of India — its diversity. But when I first came here over 10 years ago and brought children from different backgrounds together for a music class, some refused to even share a music stand. That moment stayed with me.
I have travelled the world and shaped myself through both good and hard experiences — always with music as my companion. I truly believe music can connect people across any divide.
To me, leadership begins with empathy. To lead, you must understand and care about others — not as categories, but as human beings. Music, movement, and food are universal. We all eat. We all hum in the shower. We all move to a rhythm. These shared human experiences help children see beyond difference. This is how we shape a new kind of leader — and a better future.
But we have also witnessed how many children, simply because of the circumstances they were born into — their families, their neighborhoods — are destined for a certain path, or sometimes not even to attend school. Seeing these injustices made us realize we needed to act to help change that reality.
4. What does including 125 government school children in Elevate 2025 mean to you?
This is the first time we’re welcoming 125 children from government schools into Elevate — they are our pioneers. It means the world to me. After working in India for over 10 years, this is the first time I’ve seen something this big, this inclusive, and this hopeful.
If this experience stays in even a few children’s hearts, they can go back to their communities as future leaders — as community elevators. We hope many of them will return as Young Leaders in the future.
5. What impact has mixing government and private school children had on their confidence, communication, and empathy?
First of all — children are children. Society adds the filter that separates them. And to be honest, I also carried that filter for a long time. Over time, I’ve realized — every child needs the same care, the same trust, the same chance.
In my classroom today, children from all backgrounds play together, teach each other, and lift each other. They laugh, they listen, they lead. It’s beautiful.
6. Why did you bring in international mentors from Colombia, Spain, Japan, and India, and what unique value do they add?
When Katheryn and I started Elevate, we didn’t make a list of which countries to involve. We simply followed the purpose — and that purpose naturally brought together mentors from Colombia, Spain, Japan, and India, each drawn to the same vision of impact through music and movement.
Our mentors bring more than skills — they bring their stories, values, and hearts. For our students, this isn’t just exposure to new cultures. It’s an invitation to believe that the world is connected, and they belong in it.
7. How do you ensure children absorb the diverse learning from music, fitness, nutrition, and leadership workshops?
One of my students once told me, ‘Thank you, Mika. After learning violin with you, I no longer need math tuition.’ She had been at the bottom of her class in math — but after practicing music, she began understanding how to scaffold problems and think logically. Now, she’s at the top.
That’s when I realized: everything is connected. The way athletes, musicians, and leaders train their minds — it’s all about focus, reflection, and structure. Nutrition, too, is not a separate topic. It’s the energy source. Without it, how can a child learn or move?
8. From a CSR and social impact view, what long-term change do you hope this camp creates for the children?
We’ve created this space based on everything we’ve learned through education — not to shape children into something, but to help them discover who they already are. I want them to know: you don’t have to be like anyone else. You were born unique, and your voice matters.
And true civic responsibility is about giving back to the very community, the environment, and the world that sustain you. It means investing not only in your business but in people’s lives, in nature, and in our shared future.
Social impact is not the work of one person or one sector—it is a collective effort. Every part of the community plays a vital role in a child’s learning journey. Imagine families, schools, local leaders, and students working side by side to create an inclusive community where every child is empowered to discover their potential and fulfill their dreams.
9. How does the NCPA performance help build confidence, community spirit, and leadership in participants?
We wanted the children to feel like stars — not just in their own classroom, but on a real stage, in front of a real audience. The NCPA is a special space in Mumbai, known for excellence in the arts. For many artists, performing there is a dream. So why not give that dream to these children?
For them, it’s more than a performance. It’s proof that they belong in the spotlight.
It builds confidence, but more than that, it builds belief. When a child stands in the light and feels it shine back, something shifts. That’s leadership. That’s self-worth. And that’s what we hope they carry forward long after the music ends.
10. Finally, what’s your vision for Elevate beyond 2025? How do you hope this initiative evolves or expands in the years to come?
This is just the beginning. Even before our first Elevate camp finishes, we’ve already received offers from other countries to collaborate on future editions. We’ve already started planning the next chapter, and our vision is to keep Elevate growing — not just in size, but in depth and reach.
We’d love to collaborate with more schools and organizations across Mumbai and beyond. If you believe in the power of music, movement, nutrition, and mentorship to shape future leaders, we’re here. Let’s keep growing this community together.
(India CSR)
