Vandana Gopikumar, Honorary Director

Vandana Gopikumar has a Masters degree in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work from the Madras School of Social Work, Chennai. In 1993, right after she finished her Masters degree, she co-founded The Banyan together with Vaishnavi Jayakumar. Vandana is a well known mental health activist with various acclaims to her name. Together with Vaishnavi Jayakumar, Vandana was nominates as one of the 50 most influential people by India Today and has won the Rotary Paul Harris Award, the Government Sree Shakti Puraskar and the CII NIQR award. In 2008, Vandana has published together with Dr. Nachiket Mor and Prof. Venugopal in Business Standard on Corporate Social Responsibility and Vandana is a regular contributer in The Hindu on mental health. Vandana is writing her first memoir and has enrolled for a PhD programme. Before taking over as BALM’s director, Vandana was engaged in the strategic expansion and direction of The Banyan to improve the mental health sector in India.

Dr. Elizabeth Negi, Director Research, Training and Stakeholder relations

Dr. Elizabeth Negi has extensive consultative experience in working with several NGOs, Government departments and bilateral funding agencies in Tamil Nadu and North Eastern States for the last 30 years.

Dr. Elizabeth Negi has a PhD degree in Social Work from the University of Madras and has extensively worked on research as well as action projects on various topics, including gender, disaster management mental health and HIV/AIDS. Professional competencies include strategy planning, training, capacity building, policy initiatives and gender training and mainstreaming gender.

Dr. Elizabeth Negi has published widely on various topics related to development.

Mirjam Dijkxhoorn, Deputy Director

Mirjam Dijkxhoorn has an M.Sc. degree in Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of non-Western countries from the University of Amsterdam. Her fieldwork was done in Andhra Pradesh, India with people living with HIV and their interactions with a local NGO. In 2008, Mirjam joined BALM as project analyst and became Deputy Director in 2010. Her current research interests include families of people with mental illness in India and innovative models of mental health care for marginalised groups.

Sudhersena Alalasundaram, Senior Research Associate

Sudhersena has a Doctorate in Public Administration from Florida International University, Florida, USA. She has worked in the social development sector for over 15 years. Her interests are gender and women development, mental health, handicrafts and handlooms and project management. She joined BALM in November, 2010 and is currently working on a project on improving follow-up rates for reintegrated clients with mental illness.

Kakul Shelly, Head Stakeholder relations

Kakul Shelly has an MSW degree from the Delhi School of Social Work and has experience in research and documentation of issues of gender and violence against women. She previously worked in the core team of the Resource Centre for Interventions on Violence against Women at TISS and has conducted independent studies at Mahila Samakhya in Uttarkhand.

Chiai Uraguchi, Head Training

Chiai Uraguchi has a Master degree in Public Administration from the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs and a Master degree in Environment, Development and Policy from the University of Sussex. She has worked in the Philippines on several research projects including ‘Role of scavenging in urban livelihoods in the Philippines’ and a ‘Case study of livelihoods in the INAYAWAN dump site in Cebu and a strategy for the poor.’ She was project manager for the project ‘Income Generation for Disadvantaged Women’. In 2010, she joined BALM as Head training.

Salih P.M., Research assistant

Salih P.M. has a Master Degree in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work from Moh’d Sathak College, Chennai (affiliated to Madras University). Since November 2009 he has been working at BALM as Research Assistant and he is currently engaged in a study on the employment of persons with mental health issues, a study on a self help group. Salih is also engaged in training programmes for mental health professionals.

Vivek Varkey, Research Assistant

Vivek Varkey has a Master degree in Social Work (medical and psychiatry specialization) from Mohammad Sathak College Chennai in 2009. He has joined BALM in 2010 as Research Assistant. His research interests include local availability of mental health care and social science research in mental health.

Nirmal Thomas, Research Assistant

Nirmal Thomas has an MSW (medical and psychiatry) and M.Phil degree in Social Work. She joined BALM in October 2010 as Research Assistant. Prior to this Nirmal has worked as a Medical Social Worker at Ramachandra Medical College and Research Institute Chennai. She has worked extensively with children and women living with cancer. She is a Registered Member of the General Social Care Council, U.K.

Mrinalini Ravi, Junior Research Associate

Mrinalini has an M.Sc degree in Mental Health Services from the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London. Primary interests involve stigma and discrimination in Mental Illness, Advocacy, Training Primary Health Care workers in Mental Health, networking and expansion of Mental Health Services throughout India and abroad.

Kamala Easwaran, Junior Research Associate

Kamala Easwaran has a master’s degree in Environment and Development with a focus on Social Development from King’s College London, and a foundation degree in Psychology from Women’s Christian College, Chennai. Her master’s dissertation was, ‘An Evaluation of the Gender and Caste Issues of the Lower Socio-economic Strata in Chennai, India’.  Her primary interests include the inter-linkages between mental health, poverty, and development; increasing awareness on mental health, access to mental health care, and reduction of family burden; mobilisation of the rural poor and empowerment of the Indian youth, and reconstruction of the ‘western’ development paradigm.