Team

TRUSTEES / BOARD / ADVISORS

Suparna Gupta
Founder / Director
Suparna was elected an Ashoka Fellow in 2009, (Ashoka is a global association of the world’s leading social entrepreneurs). She was also appointed by the state as Member, Selection Panel, State Child Protection Commission, and Maharashtra 2009. Starting with eight years in advertising (Lowe, Ogilvy), her volunteer work (mainly with children/youth) led her to move full time into the non-profit sector when she started Aangan  (2001). In nine years, Suparna’s effort has been to bring child protection issues into focus with the State Government, through innovative models, advocacy, capacity building. Under her leadership, Aangan’s work has achieved national scale. She has initiated and developed effective working partnerships with the government in ten states across India where Aangan works on raising standards of care in children’s institutions. Suparna graduated from St Xavier’s College (Psychology) and went on to do a Post Graduate Diploma in Social Communication Media from Sophia Polytechnic. Suparna is currently involved in piloting a new model around creating community support for children in conflict with law.

Shailja Mehta
Trustee / Director
Since 2002, Shailja has been the force behind Aangan’s expansion. From working in one children’s institution, to institutionalizing Aangan’s work approach in ten states. She has successfully lobbied for ground level demonstration of models (ensuring that Aangan works intensively in Observation and Children’s Homes in Mumbai, Pune, Thane, Nagpur, Gadcharoli and Chandrapur). She has also lobbied effectively to affect policy based on this.  With a firm belief that ground level staff motivation is crucial to improve children’s institutions; Shailja conceived and demonstrated an innovative Staff Appreciation and Motivation Program (2008,2009) for over 500 ground level staff. This runs in partnership with the state Department of Women and Child Welfare. Although very young, she competently manages Aangan’s team and oversees the running growth and expansion of the organization. Shailja currently leads a project that runs in partnership with four state Departments of Women and Child Welfare (UP, MP, Orissa, and Gujarat).

Atiya Bose
Director
For the last seven years Atiya worked as a private investigator and sentence mitigation consultant in Los Angeles, California, conducting primary research and preparing legal briefs and advocacy reports in criminal cases for submission to the court on behalf of criminal defendants from underprivileged and marginalized communities. During this time she spent considerable time working with youth as well as institutional players including authorities, police, lawyers and judges. She also worked as an educational facilitator with “at-risk” youth in poor neighborhoods (8-14 year olds from difficult and often violent family backgrounds who manifest significant levels of social dysfunction and emotional distress). Since the beginning at Aangan in 2007, Atiya initiated the program "Change is Possible" (in partnership with UNICEF), which takes the Maharashtra model of institutional transformation into two new states. She has been a key part of the "buy in" process from state authorities in West Bengal and Karnataka and the project is well on its way now. Atiya also has lead the expansion of our institutional effectiveness project to 7 other states. Further she has worked on developing a national level research study on probation officers and special homes as correctional institutions.

Pereena Lamba
Director
Pereena began working with Aangan in 2005. She has co-written and edited Aangan's manuals including "Home Away from Home" for staff of Children's Homes across India; "Let's Talk" psychosocial toolkits for staff of children's institutions and more recently developed an innovative best practice graphic novel for adolescent girls in high-risk urban neighborhoods (based on Aangan's program for vulnerable girls, Shakti). During 2002-2004 Pereena worked in the local government family placement unit of London Burrough, Hammersmith and Fulham (UK), that deals with adoptions and fostering. Here, she handled documentation of adoption screening panels and foster screening panels for prospective parents. With a diploma in Social Communication Media, Sophia College, Mumbai - her previous experience includes a ten year stint as Creative Writer in advertising agencies Walter Thompson and FCB Ulka. Pereena has over fifteen years of volunteering with child-based organizations including Pavement Club for street Children, Asha Sadan for rescued girls and Akanksha, education for underprivileged children.

Neeti Daftari
Project Director
Neeti Daftari is a Clinical Psychologist who has worked with Aangan since 2004. In Aangan, Neeti has worked very closely with institutionalized children and youth in Mumbai’s Bal Kalyan Nagri (Mankhurd), Observation Home Bhiwandi (Thane) and with trafficked adolescent girls in a Special Home (Deonar). During her years in Aangan, she has used conventional counseling methods has also trained and used arts-based therapies extensively. She found this combination to be extremely effective for Aangan’s programs. Neeti has developed programs (Shakti and Pragati) for at-risk youth that work towards grooming peer leaders to run community-based youth projects in the next three years. Neeti manages both these programs and leads a team of seven people who implement the programs at four Centers in the community. In 2007, Neeti was awarded a Scholarship by the Summer Institute for Alcohol, Drugs and Addiction in Amsterdam where she attended a Certificate course and in 2009, was selected to for a fellowship by Swedish International Development Agency on Democratic Institutions and Participatory Democracy.

Dr. Gayatri Menon
Advisor
Gayatri is a postdoctoral research fellow at in the Department of Development Sociology, Cornell University where she currently teaches and conducts researches on issues related to state-formation, political economy, post-structuralism and post-colonialist. Previously she has spent over six years working in grassroots empowerment - with Mumbai-based SPARC (for urban slum dwellers) as well as with prominent ecofeminist leader, Vandana Shiva. Gayatri graduated from Mount Holyoke, Massachusetts and has a Masters Degree in Sociology from Cornell University. She has been closely associated with Aangan since 2002, and has worked on articulating and defining Aangan’s objectives, goals, overall approach and strategies.

Ms. Suranjana Gupta
Advisor
Suranjana works with GROOTS International, a New York based women’s network of organizations all over the world. Suranjana is currently Coordinator for the global campaign on community resilience. For the last fifteen years she has worked in the area of field research of grassroots practices; strategizing and fund-raising for women’s networks in Asia and Latin America. She is also an Adjunct Faculty member of the Graduate Program in International Affairs at the New School University, New York City. Her academic qualifications include a Masters degree in Sociology from Mumbai University and a Masters in Development Studies from London School of Economics and Political Sciences.

Mr. Rajneesh Dhall
Advisor
After completing his post graduation in Business Administration from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad in 1991, Rajnish worked with the multinational American Express Bank for over 15 years, in a variety of roles across 3 different locations - Mumbai, London and Singapore. While working with the bank, he advised Aangan informally in matters of finance and fund raising and later relocated to Mumbai and joined Aangan in a full time role looking after finance, administrative, fund raising, legal, accountancy matters. In 2008 he set up Micro Housing Finance Corporation, which combines his social sector and banking experience. He continues to advise Aangan.

Madison Cox
Advisor
Madison Cox is  the vice president of the Pierre Berge – Yves Saint Laurent Foundation based in Paris France as well as an Executive member of other Board of Directors of the American, Schools of Tangiers and Marrakech Morocco. A garden designer by profession, he has worked for the past 25 years in the United States, Europe and Morocco where he is also the director of the Majorelle Foundation, an exotic garden complex in the city of Marrakech and open to the public. Author of three garden books, Madison has recently initiated the Garden Project in Observation Home, Dongri – a vocational program for children in conflict with law.

Dr Priya Narayanan
Advisor
Dr. Narayanan earned her M.D. at McGill University and completed residency training at the New York University Medical Center. She completed fellowship training in Forensic Psychiatry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. In 2007, Dr. Narayanan has been an attending psychiatrist at Riker's Island Correctional Facility and in the Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program and Assisted Outpatient Program at the Bellevue Hospital Center.

Niloufer Moochhala
Advisor
Niloufer Moochhala is the principal/founder of Nymdesign – a graphic design studio committed to creating the highest levels of thoughtfully-conscious design for the past 10 years. Her dedicated work for non-profits ranges from the United Nations Population Fund to Amnesty Internationa, among others. In the eco-conscious spectrum, she has worked with a number of small startups in Mumbai, including Under The Mango Tree and Green Kettle Consulting. (website design donated by nymdesign)