The Team
What our team is like
Apni Shala team is formed by individuals coming together from diverse backgrounds, experiences, expertise and identities such as gender, sexuality, religion, caste, mental health diversity, neurodiversity, and economic background. Our team strives towards diverse representation and voices at all levels of the organization. Apni Shala’s HR processes are informed by Mindfulness, Narrative Ideas, Diversity & Inclusion and Constructivism and are periodically reviewed and updated by all members of the organization.
School Social Emotional Learning
We're work with schools to provide experiential learning methods like art, drama, games and community projects, that help children nurture better social and emotional skills.
The Outer Circle
Amrita Nair
Director - Human Resources, and Co-founder |
Mayuri Golambde
Govt. Partnerships, Advocacy and Human Resources Lead |
Pankaj Khatik
Operations & Strategy Lead, SEL Programmes |
Rohit Kumar
CEO |
Sangeeta Zombade
Director, Khoj
Director, Khoj
The Connecting Circle
Abhijeet Dhurve
Programme Lead, SEL Programmes |
Hitanshi Sharma
Programme Lead, SEL Programmes |
Pranali Patil
Curriculum Lead, SEL Programmes |
Priyanka Kale
Programme Lead, SEL Programmes |
|
|
|
Priyanka Shrivastav
Teacher Leader, Khoj |
Saesha Pillai
Curriculum Lead, Khoj |
Sandhya Singh
Teacher Leader, Khoj |
Shahbaan Shah
Programme Lead, SEL Programmes |
The Inner Circle
Aniket Magar
Teaching Intern, Khoj |
Antara Umate
Primary Teacher, Khoj |
Daya Chavan
Teaching Intern, Khoj |
Heta Dwivedi
Curriculum Associate, SEL Programmes |
Lalita Satarkar
Language Teacher, Khoj |
Lekha Menon
Founding Social Worker, Khoj |
Mala Naidu
Founding Helper, Khoj |
Parul Mishra
Teaching Intern, Khoj |
Pooja Badekar
Primary Teacher, Khoj |
Pooja Gate
Programme Coordinator, SEL Programmes |
Prasad Teli
Human Resources Associate, Central Team |
Priyanka Tiwari
Teaching Intern, Khoj |
Radhika Kanojia
Teaching Intern, Khoj |
Raj Talekar
Physical Education Teacher, Khoj |
Rashmi Shinde
Pre-Primary Teacher, Khoj |
Riddhi Nikam
Primary Teacher, Khoj |
Sadhna Giri
Teaching Intern, Khoj |
Sadiah Shaikh
Primary Teacher, Khoj |
Safeer Idrisi
Art Teacher, Khoj |
Shital Palve
Programme Coordinator, SEL Programmes |
Siddhesh Bhosale
Admin Associate and Social Work Support, Khoj |
Sita Deshmukh
Founding Helper, Khoj |
Vanisha Shetty
Pre-Primary Teacher, Khoj |
Vivek Zombade
Admin Associate, Central Team |
2023 Apni Shala Fellows, SEL Programmes
Ajmeruddin Shaikh
|
Ami Momaya
|
Drushti Shirsekar
|
Manasvi Awate
|
Meghna Banjan
|
Mukta Kapre
|
Puja Surve
|
Sakshi Kamble
|
Salonee Kumar
|
Sana Shah
|
Shubham Rolaniya
|
Trushal Dongre
|
Board of Trustees
Chetna Duggal is an Associate Professor at the School of Human Ecology, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She is a practising psychotherapist with over 15 years of experience. She is project director for the School Initiative for Mental Health Advocacy (SIMHA), an initiative that endeavours to promote well-being of young people in schools through advocacy, research and capacity building. She also heads Rahbar, an initiative to promote training, supervision and professional development for mental health practitioners in India.
|
Dr. Disha Devi Prasad Nawani is the Dean and Professor, School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She is also a member of Drafting Committee of India Science, Technology and Innovation Policy (2020), a member of Development of Handbook of Textual material, NCERT (2020) and the Managing Editor, Contemporary Education Dialogue, SAGE. Her research interests lie particularly around, curricular, pedagogic and assessment-related issues, teaching-learning resources, teacher education, analysis of educational policies and programmes etc.
|
Rishabh Lalani is an independent fundraising strategist with ~11 years of experience in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors. In the last 7 years, he has consulted with family offices, corporate foundations, business incubators, and civil society groups to raise close to USD 6 million for philanthropic funding for a variety of causes. Most recently, he volunteered to raise funds for 54 causes across India for Covid-19 relief raising nearly USD 720k in a short span of 6 months. He holds a masters degree from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences in Mumbai.
|
Advisory Council
Anukriti Goyal is a co-founder of Apni Shala. Her work in the past decade has cut across thematic areas of grassroots development. She believes in the power of connections and analogies across sectors. You will often find her connecting dots, resources, and people. Anukriti has a bachelor's degree in Polymer Sciences and a master's degree in Social Entrepreneurship.
|
Fiona Reyonolds is the Deputy Head of School at the American School of Bombay. Prior to this, she was an administrator in both the American School of Bombay and Graded School in Sao Paulo and has been an international educator for 23 years, working in Brazil, India, the Ivory Coast, Mexico, and Poland. Her current focus is strategic planning, implementation, and leveraging the expertise of teachers to develop small- and large-scale change. Fiona has presented at a variety of conferences on organizing schools for change, creating developmentally appropriate middle schools, using learning spaces/environment to support learning, professional growth and evaluation, the future landscape for children and why schools have to change, differentiation, and setting a vision and strategic planning.
|
Kavita Anand is the Co-founder and Executive Director of Adhyayan. Through her work, she is catalysing a committed learning community of educators across India, to transform the learning of students. For more than three decades as an educator, researcher, funder, school and system leader, and now edupreneur, she has worked towards ensuring ‘a good school for every child’. She was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship in 2015 for her social entrepreneurship and single-minded focus on bringing quality to schools through leadership development. Over her career spanning 30 years, she has worked in organizations such as Aga Khan Education Services and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust. She has provided long-term consultancy services programmes of the Open University, UK and the National College of Teaching and Leadership, UK.
|
Rahul Gupta is the Founder of Rajalka Consulting. He has worked as the Chief Operating Officer (COO) with The Akanksha Foundation. He has specialised in Ed. Leadership, Program Strategy, People Development and school transformation initiatives. As a Consulting School Coach for Khoj, he advises the leadership on school leadership, results framework and student learning outcome.
|
Sucharita Palepu has over 30 years of professional experience in the area of Human Resources and Financial services, having worked in several global organizations in senior leadership roles. She is an Independent Director and a Strategic Advisor specialising in Organization & HR Transformation initiatives. Her passion includes contributing to the culture building and governance mechanisms in Organizations to be truly inclusive , vibrant and progressive workplaces.
|
Swetha Ranganathan is a co-founder of Apni Shala. Over the past decade she has worked in the space of education, mental health, theatre, and the arts in India and Canada. She enjoys putting together organizational processes and structures to support the complex community engagement programming that non-profits do. Swetha has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering and a master’s degree in Social Entrepreneurship and is a trained Theatre of the Oppressed facilitator.
|