Mumbai, (Maharashtra) [India], September 21, 2026: Fifteen-year-old Deeyan R. Mehta is the founder of Beyond Fear Global, a youth-led initiative focused on personal safety, self-defence, boundaries and empowerment.
Built around four principles — Protect, Prevent, Respect and Empower — Beyond Fear Global aims to help children and young people become more aware, prepared and confident without making safety education fear-based.
What began as an awareness initiative on Instagram through @beyondfearglobal has now expanded into a growing series of online and offline community workshops across different age groups and organisations.
Deeyan’s first offline field session was conducted in collaboration with Umang Foundation Trust, reaching 25 children from the community. The workshop focused on three key areas: Safety Awareness, Rights and Safety Tools, and Practical Self-Defence.
Participants were introduced to ideas such as recognising personal boundaries, knowing when to ask for help, identifying trusted adults, remembering emergency contacts and using tools such as location sharing responsibly.
Drawing from his background in Taekwondo, Deeyan also introduced basic self-defence principles including guard stance, balance, creating distance, forearm protection, controlled palm-heel movements, front push kicks and technical stand-up.
The focus was never on fighting, but on a simple principle:
Protect. Create space. Move towards safety.
Beyond Fear Global has since expanded through several community partnerships.
In collaboration with Calcutta Foundation, Deeyan conducted an online session for more than 20 young women aged 15–20, focusing on safety awareness, personal boundaries, confidence and practical safety tools.
In a separate online session with Kolkata Foundation, Beyond Fear Global worked with participants aged 13–17, adapting the same core ideas of awareness, preparedness and personal safety for a younger audience.
The initiative also conducted an offline programme for around 30 young women aged 16–20 who had been affected by human trafficking. To protect the privacy of the participants, the partner organisation is not being named publicly. The session was designed sensitively, focusing on practical safety skills, boundaries, support systems and confidence without requiring participants to share personal experiences.
Beyond Fear Global has also worked with Sahaara Charitable Trust in Mumbai, where Deeyan conducted a session with 10 boys. The session introduced themes of respect, personal boundaries, safety and shared responsibility, encouraging boys to understand their role in helping create safer and more respectful communities.
Although each audience is different, the central message remains the same: young people should not only be told to “be careful” — they should also be given practical knowledge and tools that help them make safer decisions.
Beyond Fear Global is also expanding its work through its “Know More, Fear Less” campaign, which looks beyond physical self-defence to topics including digital safety, SOS tools, personal boundaries, legal awareness, financial literacy and knowing when to seek help.
One of the campaign’s central questions asks:
“We teach our daughters to be careful. But are we teaching them what to do when being careful isn’t enough?”
For Deeyan, the answer is not to teach young people to fear the world, but to help them navigate it with greater awareness, confidence and preparedness.
At 15, Deeyan R. Mehta is continuing to build Beyond Fear Global as a youth-led initiative that brings safety education into classrooms, community organisations and digital spaces — with the belief that learning how to stay safe should begin before someone finds themselves in an unsafe situation.
Beyond Fear Global
Protect • Prevent • Respect • Empower
@beyondfearglobal
