I am a GIRL . I have a VOICE .

What We Do

VOICE 4 Girls, started in 2011, is an NGO that works with adolescent, marginalised girls and boys in India. VOICE conducts activity-based camps in government and low-cost private schools. Through these camps, adolescents acquire critical knowledge, spoken English, and life skills. VOICE’s curriculum is designed to impart knowledge on critical topics such as health, safety, rights, future planning, and self-awareness. Thus campers acquire problem solving, decision making, negotiation, and communication skills. Camps are conducted by motivated college students who are recruited and trained intensively to impart our curriculum.

Our Mission

To enable marginalized adolescent girls in India to take charge of their futures by imparting critical knowledge, spoken English, and life skills through activity-based camps.

Our Vision

All girls will take charge of their futures, and work towards breaking harmful cycles of economic, social, and gender inequality in their communities.

Our Methodology

VOICE campers are adolescent girls studying in government schools and are between grades 7-9 and are in the age group of 11-16 years. The camps empower them to use their VOICE.
Camp counsellors and field coordinators are undergraduate or graduate students who are hired from various colleges and who go to camps to impart knowledge to the campers.
Trainers can be from the VOICE team or young changemakers who have undergone multiple camps with VOICE and are thorough with the VOICE content and acquainted with the VOICE classroom.

Board

Reshma Lohia

Trustee
 

Reshma Lohia

Position: Trustee

Reshma Lohia is the Principal and Correspondent of Lohia’s Little Angels School, which was founded in 1986. Ms. Lohia has worked at all levels and became the Principal and Correspondent in 1993. During this time Ms. Lohia completed her BA in English and History from Andhra Pradesh Open University and a MA in English from Osmania University. In 2000, Ms. Lohia worked closely with Professor James Tooley who is a preeminent scholar on affordable private education. She joined his Board, The Beautiful Tree Trust, in 2008. Since then, Ms. Lohia has partnered and worked with a number of service providers such as the IDEX Accelerator and researchers in the education field. Ms. Lohia’s decades of experience in and outside the class have allowed her to grow a school from under 20 students to over 1,000. She is an enterprising woman whose passion for education, especially for girls, has lead her to be a valuable mentor, partner, and role-model for VOICE.

 

Ragini Bajaj Chaudhary

Position: Trustee

Ragini Bajaj Chaudhary, Director Business and Strategic Initiatives, Caspian Debt, is a development finance professional with more than 20 years of experience in microfinance, impact investment and mainstreaming gender in financing. Prior to Caspian, Ragini served as a CEO of GMC India, where she led setting up of an 8m early-stage investment fund, an Accelerator for mobile ed-tech companies and initiatives for eco-system development for education.

Ragini is a management graduate from IRMA, a qualified Management Accountant from Chartered Institute of Management Accounting (CIMA),UK and certified coach from International Coaching Federation.

Tapan Das

Trustee
 

Tapan Das

Position: Trustee

Tapan sees himself as an Ecosystem Builder. In his 24 years of experience, he has worked on large-scale programs from scratch to national scale, managing large teams and most importantly working with partner organizations and the Government.

In his recent three (including the current) engagements, the programs/ initiatives started as a pilot and have scaled up Nationally.

Currently, he is leading Elder Line – National Helpline for the Senior Citizens, Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Govt of India reachable on 14567 from 8 am to 8 pm, 7 days a week. Elder Line aspires to connect and respond to more than 100 million elderly in India by providing technology-enabled Response.

In all his work, he has brought three important stakeholders i.e. Communities of the Disadvantaged, Government and Corporate on one platform.

Priya Anant

Trustee
 

Priya Anant

Position: Trustee

Priya Anant is the Co-Founder and Director at Life Circle Health Services Pvt. Ltd., a trusted platform in India that connects healthcare services to seniors. Life Circle provides home nurses and caregivers for elderly patients, with branches in Hyderabad, New Delhi, Bangalore, Guwahati, and Chandigarh. She has over two decades of experience in Health Care and Health Policy. She is an alumnus of the Institution of Rural Management Anand (IRMA) and INSEAD, Singapore. She is also an SLP fellow and has a fellowship in Palliative Medicine.

Team

Anusha Bharadwaj

Executive Director
 

Anusha Bharadwaj

Position: Executive Director

As Executive Director, Anusha is working towards taking VOICE Camps to marginalized adolescent girls across the country. Anusha has been a development sector professional since 2002 and her core expertise is in child education and health, adolescent health, gender, public health and rural development. She holds an MBA in Rural Management from Institute of Rural Management, Anand (IRMA) and an MA in Sociology from Annamalai University. She is an Ashoka Fellow and an Echidna Scholar, working towards unearthing the challenges faced by adolescent girls in India, and developing solutions for the same. Her commitment and leadership are demonstrated by her selection into the Asia Pacific Leadership Fellow (2013-14), East West Center, USA and Harvard-Dasra Social Impact Leadership Program (2014-15). She is also a Board Member of Bodhi Education Society, an NGO that runs an affordable English medium private school in rural Telangana. Anusha has also been recognised as a leading voice in empowerment by Twitter India and Sayfty. In her spare time, Anusha is a documentary photographer and she believes that this lends a unique perspective into the communities she serves.

Vanitha Prabu

Deputy Director
 

Vanitha Prabu

Position: Deputy Director

Vanitha holds a degree in Masters in Public Policy with a career spanning over 12 years in various social sectors. Vanitha’s core expertise lies in girl child programming, public health, research and monitoring. She has set up new processes and systems at place, for smoother implementation of the projects. Vanitha is passionate and dedicated towards empowering adolescent girls and women. She believes that educating them guides them to question stereotypes and helps them to become leaders in their communities – driven with responsibility.

Nayonika Roy

Program Manager
 

Nayonika Roy

Position: Program Manager

Nayonika is a development sector professional with her core in girl child education, social justice, gender equality and women leadership. Through her work, she has made it her life’s mission to uncover stories of marginalized communities and create spaces to listen to the voices of women and girls. She is an alumnus of Tata Institute of Social Sciences and has worked with various respectable institutions of the sector, such as, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Delhi and M.V. Foundation Hyderabad. She is currently leading the Curriculum and Communications Team and Leadership Programs at VOICE 4 Girls. She is simultaneously also pursuing a degree in Management (PGPpro) from Indian School of Business (ISB). She is also a part of the founding cohort of Sehyogi Fellowship, gaining a certification to provide psycho-socio support focused on adolescents’ mental health. She is also a connoisseur of art, a professional dancer, and an avid reader.

Pallavi Devataras

Project Manager
 

Pallavi Devataras

Position: Project Manager

Pallavi joined VOICE as an intern in 2016 while studying at St. Francis College for Women. During the years of her internship, she realised that she wants to work with VOICE. She has worked with many facets of the organisation. She shares the vision of VOICE and believes that girls have enormous potential and their basic right to education has to be met. She currently works as Project Manager with VOICE 4 Girls.

Santosh Kumar Swain

Admin Officer
 

Santosh Kumar Swain

Position: Admin Officer

Santosh joined VOICE when it was a very small team working towards a goal. He has grown with the organisation and believes that the team has seen the best and worst in each other. He strongly believes that VOICE not only aims at bringing change in the lives of the adolescents but also helps in developing and creating a better future for the team members.

Mallika Parasa

Project Manager
 

Mallika Parasa

Position: Project Manager

Mallika is an enthusiastic development professional with a demonstrated history of working with tribals and girl child education and empowerment. She was always passionate about working in the development space and went on to do her Bachelor’s in Social Sciences and later Masters in Rural Development and Governance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She is focus driven to amplify the impact that is being created in a VOICE classroom.

Bhagyasree Thumkunta

Senior Project Officer
 

Bhagyasree Thumkunta

Position: Senior Project Officer

Bhagyasree joined VOICE as an intern in 2015 while pursuing her undergraduate degree and went on to pursue her master’s while working with a corporate. Leaving the corporate world behind, she decided to join VOICE as a Project Officer in May 2019, having been motivated by the change in the campers whom she met in VOICE camps. She believes that a girl can achieve anything she puts her mind to.

Satya Veni Meda

Data Entry Officer and Admin Asst.
 

Satya Veni Meda

Position: Data Entry Officer and Admin Asst.

Satya joined VOICE 4 Girls in 2014. Having faced discrimination from her childhood, she never received good opportunities. VOICE, she believes, has given her respect, motivation, and support. She has seen a personal growth in VOICE which has helped her in achieving things which she never thought would be possible.

 

 

Vidya Rudresh

Project Officer (Karnataka)
 

Vidya Rudresh

Position: Project Officer (Karnataka)

Vidya pursued her graduation from the Ramaiah Institute of Technology. Since her college days, she was very much passionate about working for a cause. She volunteered as a teacher in Government schools during her college days and also visited slums to teach the children. She also worked in Navodaya schools which gave her an opportunity to work for children in rural areas. These experiences made her more passionate to work with the girl child and to help them realize their dreams. VOICE’s vision and pathway align with hers and then she decided to join the team as a Project Officer.

Kanyashree B.R

Project Officer (Karnataka)
 

Kanyashree B.R

Position: Project Officer (Karnataka)

Kanya completed her graduation in civil engineering post where she worked as a CAAD trainer and realized that it was not fulfilling her inner purpose. She always wanted to do something that contributed to society, which led her to prepare for the UPSC. During that time of preparation, she got an opportunity to work as an intern at VOICE 4 Girls. During her internship she understood that education is not limited to a designed and structured curriculum, it has a much larger mission and scope. Working with the adolescent girls from the camp motivated her to contribute more to this field, which made me join VOICE 4 Girls as a Project Officer. She believes that girls’ education strengthens economies and reduces inequality.

Lalasa Mokkapati

Monitoring and Evaluation Officer
 

Lalasa Mokkapati

Position: Monitoring and Evaluation Officer

Lalasa holds a Master’s Degree in Public Health from SRM Institute of Science and Technology with a specialisation in epidemiology and biostatistics. She has experience as a Junior Research Fellow in the Clinical Trials Department of the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation. She is extremely passionate about socio-emotional research on the development of adolescents and believes that it is the voice of adolescents that leads the path to their development and makes a difference in their lives. Along with that Lalasa enjoys learning and re-inventing herself each new day.

Kavya Chandana

Project Officer
 

Kavya Chandana

Position: Project Officer

Kavya holds a Master’s degree in Development from Azim Premji University, Bengaluru. She has experience in working with adolescent girls which made her look into the scenarios at the grass root level. She is passionate about working towards the development of women and girl children. At VOICE, Kavya aims at reaching out to a lot of students and enabling them to be leaders.

Priyanka Toomkunta

Content and Communications Associate
 

Priyanka Toomkunta

Position: Content and Communications Associate

Priyanka holds a Master’s degree in Education from Azim Premji University. Her curiosity in understanding the reason behind lack of education in girls made her extremely passionate about understanding how socio-economic and cultural scenarios affect the education of women. She believes that education is an essential element for every female to lead a happy and independent life. Priyanka’s journey from a camper then counsellor to an associate at VOICE, inspired her to work towards the betterment of adolescents.

Pratik Mishra

Project Officer
 

Pratik Mishra

Position: Project Officer

Pratik hails from Jamshedpur, Jharkhand, and Holds a master’s degree in Education from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad. Pratik has a work experience of 4.8 years in the social sector. Pratik’s core expertise lies in education, curriculum and pedagogy designing, educational research, and training. In his free time, Pratik likes reading non-fiction and doing vipassana meditation.

Anushka Biswas

Project Officer
 

Anushka Biswas

Position: Project Officer

Anushka is from West Bengal Kolkata, completed her graduate from Presidency University in Sociology, and holds a master’s degree in Women’s Studies from TISS. She is a strong advocate of feminism and vehemently aspires to work towards gender inequality and gender biases that our society’s marginalized women face. She passionately wants to involve herself with goals and objectives that aim to bring social changes and uplift and empower women and girl children. Her interest lies in policymaking and exploring new cuisine. She loves to cook and adores dogs.

Pravalika Sabbavarapu

Project Officer
 

Pravalika Sabbavarapu

Position: Project Officer

Pravalika holds a Master’s degree in Development Studies and has spent two years working with tribal women farmers in Odisha, promoting their financial upliftment and nurturing women collectives. This experience highlighted to her the importance of education, especially for adolescent girls. With a deep drive to create positive change, Pravalika joined VOICE, where she finds a fulfilling outlet for her passion. She thoroughly enjoys attending camps and interacting with adolescents.

Muhsin J.

Content and Communications Officer
 

Muhsin J.

Position: Content and Communications Officer

Muhsin J is a dedicated individual with a Master’s degree in Social Work, specializing in social welfare practice from Jamia Millia Islamia. Throughout his professional journey, he has gained valuable grassroots-level experience, working closely with diverse marginalized communities. He is deeply committed to empowering children and nurturing their potential through education. Muhsin believes investing in the development of young minds is crucial for creating positive social change and building a brighter, more equitable future.

Abantika Saha

Project Officer
 

Abantika Saha

Position: Project Officer

Abantika is a sociology major and holds a degree in Masters in Women’s Studies. She is adept at handling large datasets and has a keen interest in livelihoods and development space. Abantika is passionate towards working for empowerment of women and advocating for their socio, economic, political and educational rights. She got into VOICE 4 Girls through institute placements and found a space that makes her happy, fulfilled and proud of the work that she does.

Kiran Totre

Project Officer
 

Kiran Totre

Position: Project Officer

Kiran holds a Master’s degree in Development from Azim Premji University. Her heart lies in working closely with grassroots communities, where her focus centers on delving into women’s issues and exploring the intricate tapestry of food culture. During her leisure hours, she finds joy in engaging in games like badminton and table tennis.

Rakesh Dongri

Project Associate
 

Rakesh Dongri

Position: Project Associate

Rakesh holds a Bachelor’s degree in Information Technology. However, his true passion lies in making a difference in the lives of children, particularly in domains such as education, gender equality, and their safety. Renowned for his warm and friendly demeanor, he approaches work with enthusiasm and dedication, striving to create a positive impact on the lives of the younger generation.

Reecha Chari

Project Officer
 

Reecha Chari

Position: Project Officer

Possessing a Master’s Degree in Development from Azim Premji University, Bengaluru, Reecha’s academic journey led her to discover a deep-seated passion for tackling gender inequality and promoting the progress of women and girls in society. She firmly believes empowering females and granting them opportunities is crucial for breaking free from the dependency cycle on their counterparts. Reecha aims to achieve changes in societal perspectives and envisions personal growth and development.

B. Mounika

Project Associate
 

B. Mounika

Position: Project Associate

B.Mounika joined in VOICE as an intern during the pandemic and worked on several camps online and offline. Her journey from one camp to another inspired to work with VOICE again and again. In 2022 she joined as a Project Associate and she strongly believes that inculcating gender equality in the early age of kids can shape themselves into a gentle person who creates equal space in ignored and unquestioned areas. She loves to capture moments and is delighted that through her work she gets to capture the experiences of adolescent girls.