Facilitators                                        

Facilitators for TheWorkshop 2011

Ajai Kuruvila Jacob
Ajai has worked on issues relating to child rights, education, displacement and urban poverty -- thematic areas of ActionAid. He has led a process of participatory post disaster recovery with the Community Facilitation Unit of the NGO Coordination and Resource Centre (a UNDP-supported process in Nagapattinam). He is currently working with Praxis on different research assignments as well as developing monitoring standards around community mobilisation. Ajai's areas of work include facilitating engagements with the urban poor, bonded labourers, refugees and coastal, agrarian and Dalit communities.

Anindo Banerjee
Anindo has been involved in areas of policy advocacy, participatory research and capacity building in India, South Asia and Africa. He is in charge of Praxis's internal programme initiatives aimed at furthering equitable development, good governance and community-led collective action.

Indu Prakash Singh
Indu is a practitioner and ardent facilitator of participatory approaches in development. He is associated with Indo-Global Social Service Society as a technical advisor of CityMakers Collective, New Delhi. He is a trained sociologist and philosopher who has learnt from varied experiences and been part of women's movements, rights of the elderly, the poor, children, homeless (through his association with the CityMakers); environment and biodiversity. He believes he has become a better person after having used Participatory Rural Appraisal in his work. He used the participatory approach in campaigns for housing rights of homeless citizens through the Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan.

Lokesh Jain
Lokesh is a theatre artiste with 17 years of intensive experience with diverse theatre forms having completed an advanced diploma course in acting under Ebrahim Alkazi. He has worked on scripting, designing and directing plays. His solo pieces have been showcased in National School of Drama's annual theatre festival. He is a founder member and creative director of Jamghat, an organisation of and for street children. He has trained many diverse groups like homeless people and environmental organisations in participatory theatre.

Paola Pioltelli
Paola is a Peruvian/Italian social communicator with a Master's degree in NGO management and social development from the London School of Economics and a PhD in the use of arts in participatory processes from the European Graduate School, Switzerland. Paola has 10 years of experience designing methodologies and facilitating participatory processes in Asia, North America, Europe, Latina America and the Caribbean.

Pradeep Narayanan
Along with professional qualifications in Management Science and Development Studies, Pradeep has acquired expertise and experience in organising monitoring and evaluation studies and facilitating implementation of organisational strategies. While child rights happens to be the cross-cutting theme, he has worked extensively in the area of community participation and mobilisation in the context of different community groups, with the focus on making participation a political agenda of concerned groups, rather than as a technical requirement. He has more than 15 years of experience of working in development, government as well as corporate sector in India, Singapore and UK.

Robert Chambers
Robert is a research associate with the Participation, Power and Social Change team at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. His main operational and research experience has been in East Africa and South Asia. His work has included aspects of rural development, public administration training, seasonality, irrigation system management, agricultural research and extension, perceptions of poverty, professionalism and participation. His current concerns include professionalism, power, the personal dimension in development, participatory methodologies, teaching and learning with large numbers, agriculture and science, seasonality revisited, and community-led total sanitation.

Sam Joseph
Sam has more than 35 years of experience in development/aid section in Asia and Africa. He has specialised in people's participation from an active citizenship perspective; evolved systems of thinking adaptation for aid work; and developed coaching methods for servant leadership in development/aid work. He pioneered the PRA unit in the India office of ActionAid, which is now Praxis. He has held many senior positions nationally and internationally.

Sowmyaa Bharadwaj
Sowmyaa's areas of interest and expertise include civil society participation, capacity building, and training with a focus on inclusion of vulnerable populations and excluded communities/groups. She has a keen interest in gender issues, water sanitation and hygiene, menstrual hygiene, urban development and rights. An experienced facilitator and a practitioner of participatory approaches, she has been involved in various trainings and capacity building exercises over the last decade.

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Previous facilitators

Anindo Banerjee
Anindo has been involved in areas of policy advocacy, participatory research and capacity building in India, South Asia and Africa. He is in charge of Praxis's internal programme initiatives aimed at furthering equitable development, good governance and community-led collective action.

John Gaventa
John is a political sociologist, educator and civil society practitioner with over 30 year's experience of research, training and organisational leadership in North and South globe. Currently he is a professor and research fellow at IDS, where he is a member of the Participation, Power and Social Change team and Director of the Development Research Centre on Citizenship, Participation and Accountability. He has written widely on issues of power, participatory development and governance, civil society and social change. Before coming to IDS in 1996, John was the co-director of research and Director of the Highlander Centre, an NGO with over seven decades of experience in working on poverty and social justice issues in poor regions of the United States.

Josh Levene
Josh has been applying his background in anthropology and poverty reduction to participatory development since 1995. He joined Praxis UK in 2008 after four years at the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. He has also worked as a social development advisor with Oxfam, DFID, Save the Children, and the World Bank. He has worked extensively throughout Sub-Saharan Africa, the Pacific, South Asia and the Balkans and has authored several leading toolkits on participatory approaches.

M J Joseph
Joseph has over 20 years of experience in the development sector. An experienced facilitator, and a practitioner of participatory approaches, he has also been extensively involved in various capacity building exercises. He has worked on participatory action researches in the area of micro credit, agrarian issues, drinking water, watershed development, democratic decentralisation and local governance. Joseph has also lent his knowledge to several participatory assessments and evaluations.

Robert Chambers
Robert is a research associate with the Participation, Power and Social Change team at the Institute of Development Studies, Sussex. His main operational and research experience has been in East Africa and South Asia. His work has included aspects of rural development, public administration training, seasonality, irrigation system management, agricultural research and extension, perceptions of poverty, professionalism and participation. His current concerns include professionalism, power, the personal dimension in development, participatory methodologies, teaching and learning with large numbers, agriculture and science, seasonality revisited, and community-led total sanitation.

Sam Joseph
Sam has more than 35 years of experience in development/aid section in Asia and Africa. He has specialised in people's participation from an active citizenship perspective; evolved systems of thinking adaptation for aid work; and developed coaching methods for servant leadership in development/aid work. He pioneered the PRA unit in the India office of ActionAid, which is now Praxis. He has held many senior positions nationally and internationally.

Sheelu Francis
Sheelu is a leader of the 60,000-strong women's collective, active in the whole state of Tamil Nadu, Southern India. She is a researcher and trainer on Participatory Rural Appraisal. Sheelu is also the international spokesperson for the collective, speaking about the impacts of international trade, debt and activities of transnational corporations on local development, on food security and sovereignty.

Somesh Kumar
Somesh joined the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) in 1989, after a brief stint as a psychologist in the Ministry of Defence, Government of India. Somesh has worked in various capacities with the most backward communities in Andhra Pradesh and has implemented a number of innovative programs including externally funded participatory development projects. He has also served as Director of the PRA Division of ActionAid India (1996-2000). A leading PRA practitioner, Somesh Kumar has contributed significantly to the repertoire of PRA methods. He has conducted extensive training programmes in participatory development in India and abroad for grassroots activists and senior level NGO professionals as well as for government agencies in varied fields. Somesh has written a number of articles and edited various books and reports.

Tom Thomas
Tom has been in the development sector for the past 20 years. He is the chief executive of Praxis. Prior to joining Praxis, he held senior positions with ActionAid in India, Bangladesh and the UK. He has led several important assignments, both nationally and internationally.

The list of facilitators also includes several development practitioners like Srijan Nandan, Sowmyaa Bharadwaj, Shailesh Kumar, Rajeshwar D., Moulasha Kader, Madhura Pandit, M. Kumaran, Indu Prakash Singh, Gouthami, Cherrian Mathews, Barry Underwood, Amitava Mukherjee and Ajith Mani.

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