Neel Bagh School motivated me to take social change as a full time career. I enjoyed my school because it emphasized on learning by doing rather than simply being lectured. At 21 when I completed my graduation I was keen to replicate my school atmosphere in other places. I first took this opportunity at an SOS Children’s Village 2000 kms away from home. In the next two years I was able to create an empowering learning atmosphere for 200 children who went to a variety of schools. My work put me in touch with community and other institutions. This experience catapulted me into ActionAid where the gamut of my work expanded into a large integrated rural development project. During the next 10 years I deepened my knowledge and skills in Education and CBR. As the urge in me to give something back to my own community grew I took over MORE in my hometown and delivered a series of projects for 19 years.
In 1990s I worked on Reflect, an innovative approach to adult learning and social change, which fused theories of Brazilian educator Paulo Freire with participatory methodologies. As a result MORE hosted an international PRA conference in Madanapalle. In 2000s I adopted Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) to help people with disabilities, running programs for social integration, equalization of opportunities and rehabilitation. The impact of its work made me an executive member of CBR India Network and a resource person at Asia Pacific Development Center on Disability. I worked with Isha Vidhya as an Academic Coordinator and Karadi Path as their national manager
Experience
Karadi Path
Oct 2019 – Jun 2020
Chennai
Program Manager
Promoting business at the bottom of the pyramid projects
