Ms Aparna Chaudhari: MA Education, MSW, BSW

Aparna Chaudhari is a highly qualified professional with two master's degrees in Education and Social Work from Azim Premji University, Bangalore and Karve Institute of Social Science, Pune, respectively. She also holds a Bachelor's degree from Matru Seva Sangh Institute of Social Work, Nagpur. With over 15 years of experience in child education and rights, Aparna has worked with NGOs, CSRs, international researchers, and government systems. She is skilled in program planning, execution, and monitoring, team management, and stakeholder management.

Aparna's most recent position was with SpacECE India Foundation as Co-Founder and Director, starting in January 2020. She handles multiple roles and responsibilities, focusing on Early Childhood Care and Education. She is currently conducting a pilot study of "Home as a Learning SPACE" at two locations in Maharashtra state, Pune district. She designs curriculum and conducts baseline studies, quarterly reviews, and end-of-project evaluations. Aparna is also responsible for conducting continuous need-based and capacity training for parents and the team.

From June 2016 to July 2017, Aparna worked with Kaivalya Education Foundation as Program Leader for the District Transformation Program. In this role, she was accountable for strengthening the public education system in one block covering 200 schools, with 20 cluster resource coordinators, 9 block resource coordinators, and 15 Gandhi fellows. Aparna wrote the curriculum, modules, and learning material to cater to the need for leadership development for teachers as appropriate to impact learning outcomes. She conducted detailed research, collaborated with the design and other operations teams to resolve challenges, and conducted fortnightly capacity building sessions for Program Leaders. Aparna monitored 20 schools per week and periodically gathered data related to "Student Learning Outcomes (SLO)" and tracked SLO progress due to DTP interventions.

Aparna was the State Program Coordinator for the Campaign against Child Labour (CACL) in Pune from October 2011 to July 2012. Her duties involved covering 15 districts (both rural and urban) and proactively engaging with 60 partner organizations focused on child-related issues. She was responsible for resource mobilization, strengthening civil society organizations' capacity and resources, coordinating and administrating capacity building activities, and supporting the networks to assure accountability of the government towards child labour, child protection, and child rights in general. Aparna participated in the development of program/project proposals, ensuring that monitoring, evaluation, and reporting were carried out timely and in alignment with Campaign Focus. She steered National level children's consultation where children could express their feelings and status of Child Rights in their respective locations. Aparna also strengthened the Campaign as an advocate of children's rights at all levels and provided support to the design and implementation of Child Rights advocacy strategies at the state and national level. She took care of program administration, team performance enhancement, and effective working relationships.

From June 2008 to September 2011, Aparna served as Nodal City Coordinator for CHILDLINE in Pune, Maharashtra, India. CHILDLINE 1098 is a 24-hour, free, emergency phone service for children in India. Aparna was responsible for networking with allied systems aiming towards a child-friendly city, advocacy to assure a child-friendly city by designing city-level policy with the help of the City Advisory Board comprising of District Collector, Commissioners (Police, Labor and WCW), outreach activities in schools, offices, community, and residential apartments, and conducting training programs for stakeholders involved or accountable for child safety, child rights, and creating child-friendly surroundings. Aparna documented the city-based data, maintained case reports of children, and followed up on their cases.

Mr Sachin Mohite: PhD in Education*, MA Education, MSW, BSc Physics

Sachin Mohite is a senior program manager with 15 years of experience in technology, education, and research. He possesses organizational and program management skills with an outstanding track record in technology solutions. He has published papers in peer-reviewed journals and presented work at international conferences. His skills include organization development, visioning, and leadership, government liaising, educational research, program evaluation/monitoring, strategic management, quality management, risk management, team management, vendor management, technology innovation, solution design, product/service delivery, agile management, and training and mentoring.

Sachin's work experience includes serving as Sr. Manager (Program) at the Shantilal Muttha Foundation, where he designed and initiated programs, planned liaisons with government, trained stakeholders, and implemented programs. He also designed technology solutions and managed stakeholder communication. At LearningYogi, Sachin served as a technical architect, where he directed product design and implementation with the help of a 15-member team. He established teams in four countries and gave inputs as a researcher, professional, and education domain expert. He has also worked as a software engineer in multiple organizations.

Sachin has served as Honorary President (Trustee) at Samidha Bahuddeshiya Sanstha (NGO) in Pune, India, where he assured smooth functioning, consensus, and robust governance within the leadership team, negotiated with sponsors and support organizations, conceptualized, designed, implemented, monitored and evaluated Projects/Programs, and strengthened and motivated volunteers, project teams, and field staff. He is responsible for fund-raising, donor reports, donor compliances, and overall stakeholder management.

Sachin is currently working as a post-graduate researcher at the University of York, UK, sponsored by the State Government of Maharashtra, India. His research project is titled "To understand how Active Citizenship Education interventions prepare children for 'Collective Action.'" He aims to investigate how active citizenship education shapes willingness to participate in collective civic actions among middle school students from Maharashtra state, India.

Sachin has a Microsoft Certified Professional qualification, a Project Management Institute 35 PDU, a PGD in Child and Adolescent Psychology, and a PGD in Corporate Social Responsibility. He is a member of the British Association for International and Comparative Education, the International Association for Research on Service-Learning and Community Engagement, and the International Association for the Study of Cooperation in Education.