Core Team

Director

Rajendra Jadhav

Rajendra Jadhav has joined PUKAR’s Youth Fellowship Project as Director, from August 2009. He brings with him a wealth of experience of working with youth in Maharashtra. Rajendra is a grassroots activist and has been actively associated with the students’ movement, youth and women’s movement as an organizer and grass-root leader since 1993. Rajendra was the state president of Satyashodhak Vidhyarthi Sangatana (1996-2003) and state convener of Dalit Hakka Abhiyan (2006-2009). His work mainly involved organization development and capacity building of youth activists.

Rajendra’s educational background in Mass Communication and Journalism makes him a prolific writer. He regularly contributes articles on stories of grass-root struggle and success for leading Marathi newspapers and magazines. He has written four books. One of his important books is SavitrichiGatha, in Marathi – which uses a traditional rural Marathi format to tell stories of Savitribai Phule’s contribution in the field of education and women’s empowerment

He was a recipient of the Leader’s Quest (London) fellowship under the guidance of Action Aid, for which he studied issues surrounding Dalits – usage of ‘Village Dalit Reserve Budget’ at the state level and crisis intervention in atrocity cases. He has also completed research studies on Gender and Grass Root Governance. He is also a member of Krantisinha Nana Patil Academy – an academic forum with secular, democratic objectives – for the last 16 years.

Through his exposure to grass-root level work with youth, he has gained specific skills of facilitating on issues related to gender, governance, right to information, organization building and election strategies for free and just democratic India.
 rajendra@pukar.org.in

Research Coordinators

Presently there are three co-ordinators in the Youth Fellowship core team. Each co-ordinator works with thirteen to fifteen number of groups to help them with intellectual inputs, strategic executions of workshops, community events etc. Co-ordinators help the research teams by motivating and hand holding throughout the process.

Kapil Chavan

A graduate of commerce from Mumbai University, Kapil has completed his diploma in Journalism from St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai. While freelancing for two major regional daily newspapers, he also participated in the PUKAR Youth Fellowship project over a period of two years; once as a youth fellow and next year as a catalyst and that experience inspired him to join YF as a coordinator.

He believes that as a coordinator of Youth Fellowship, the combination of his journalistic skills and his research skills would help him to spread this movement farther and deeper.

“In the previous two years as a youth fellow I was on one side of the table enjoying the process at a personal level. Since I have become the coordinator, I am on the other side of the table, where my sense of responsibility has been acute and that of enjoyment is different. Now instead of personal enjoyment I must make every effort to enhance the enjoyment for others. That is indeed a difficult task!”

kapil@pukar.org.in

Amrapali Dalvi

Amrapali has completed her post graduation in Social Work in the year 2000 from Tata Institute of Social Sciences; with specialization in Criminology and Correctional Administration. She has been part of interventions on various social issues with a rights based approach. She has more than 10 years of experience of working with various groups in difficult life situations and facing discrimination due to societal structures, where her role varied from volunteer, case worker, group worker, community worker, trainer and team leader.

amrapali@pukar.org.in

Sunil Gangavane

Sunil has completed his post graduate degree, an MA in Psychology, from University of Mumbai in 2010. He has received intense training in behavioural science.

Earlier, in 2006-2007, he was associated with PUKAR as one of PUKAR’s Youth Fellows, conducting research on ‘Caste on the web’ that explored the ways in which caste was being reproduced on the Internet. Subsequently, he worked as a Research Assistant in a Research Action project with PUKAR in 2008-2009.

He has worked for two years in the corporate sector, but his various associations with PUKAR has drawn him towards further engagement with PUKAR. His research interests lie in the areas of youth development and gender. He has published research papers along these themes that have been presented both in national and international conferences.

sunilg@pukar.org.in

ICT Coordinator

Poonam Yewle

With around 5 years of diverse experience in the Corporate sector and freelancing, Poonam is now associated with PUKAR as an ICT Coordinator. She is educationally qualified as an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) and BE (Bachelor of Engineering) in IT (Information Technology). She holds a strong belief that Technology can be leveraged for the benefit of Humans and not replace / substitute the experience of human interactions. And this makes the opportunity with PUKAR very valuable in spreading the message.

poonam@pukar.org.in

 

Office Manager

Rohan Chavan

An alumnus of the Youth Fellowship Programme (2010-2011), Rohan Chavan has joined PUKAR as Office Manager in February 2012.

Rohan is a graduate from University of Mumbai, having studied towards a BCom degree. He also holds a Diploma in Advertising and Public Relations from Welingkar institute of Management and is currently pursuing a Diploma In Finance Management from the same institution.

He volunteers with Adhishthan Foundation. His interests include photography and travelling to new places.

rohan@pukar.org.in