about us who we are | who funds us   Thoughtshop Foundation was registered under the Societies Act on March 17, 1993.

The organisation was established by a group of professionals dedicated to creating new and effective ways of dealing with social issues, with the aim to educate, motivate and empower for social change.

what we do

Health Communications : Research, Development and Training On our own initiative, as well as for other organisations, we develop behaviour change communication strategies, participatory, community friendly tools and training software. Field research involving our users and audiences is integral to the development process. Finally, we train field workers on how to best use the tools to ensure that the total communication is clear, convincing, participatory and enjoyable.

Young People's Empowerment Programme We believe in the potential of young people to become agents of social change. Holistic development of young people, both adolescents and youth, has been a sustained theme in most of our work. We have consolidated this as an independent initiative since 1999 to include special workshops for and by young people.

who we are

The Thoughtshop family comprises people from varied backgrounds. The key persons are:

.

Mira Kakkar, Secretary A graduate in Education and Psychology from Calcutta University, she has over 20 years experience in behavioural change communication with special training in the audio-visual medium from the UK and Holland. Her strengths are in strategy planning and conceptualising innovative communication channels. Mira's field of special interest is Health & Environment. Her work with drug abuse and sexual health won her a special grant from the British Council to visit similar organizations in the UK to share experiences with them and learn from their wealth of information and expertise

Himalini Varma, Project Director A graduate from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Himalini has worked at both national and international levels. She is skilled at developing innovative health communication strategies and tools. Her experience covers challenging work with children and women in adverse and difficult circumstances. Her work has given her the opportunity to interact closely with families living in remote rural areas.

Santayan Sengupta, Project Director An Industrial Design graduate from the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad, Santayan has worked on design projects in areas such as rural schools, rural application of solar energy, and the handicapped. Early in his career he got involved with computer applications, which gave him the professional space to explore music, animation and software development. Santayan has been a visiting faculty member at the NID. He has also worked in the Kumaon hills, with the responsibility of overseeing a Carpentry Training and Production Unit that was set up as a part of a development project.

Revati Rajaram, Coordinator Revati brings to the organisation her decade long experience in the corporate sector. At Thoughtshop Foundation, she is in charge of coordinating various partnerships and outreach programmes.

Dilip Chakraborty, Storekeeper Dilip lives in a village called Usti (about 2 hours from Kolkata) and prefers to commute every day to work. He uses his contacts at the village to organise teams of young participants for our programmes. His brother and his friends appeared in one of the episodes in our Radio Series.

who funds us

Mostly, we fund ourselves. We earn from health communication and training consultancy projects. We invest our funds into action research & developments and on our Youth Programme.

Adolescent Health

Reproductive Health

youth

Gender Equity

Children's Issues

HIV/AIDS

Health & Environment

© 2009, Thoughtshop Foundation. Contact us