KAVERI - Key Persons
Aditi can be rightly called the ‘Doodle Master of Pune'. Her area of interests and work are art, illustration, graphic design and calligraphy for all! She has founded, ‘The Doodle Factory' which has created a niche for itself in Pune and outside for being the place for illustrations, art and calligraphy. She also runs a studio ‘Doodle Tales' in Baner and offer community programs using varied visual art mediums. Aditi is very reflective in her thinking and practice. She encourages children to reflect on ‘Art and Design' and form their own meaning of the concepts. She helps children to develop a habit to set their own standards and evaluate their work for themselves. She constantly brings in novel mediums, spaces, ideas to the sessions and her facilitation style creates an open, accepting and mindful environment for the children. She is well travelled and shares her experiences with the children inspiring them to go beyond borders and explore new ways of thinking and being. She primarily uses the visual arts medium to develop creative thinking for gifted children.
Job Titles:
- Hon. Trustee / Practicing Advocate
Job Titles:
- Gifted Facilitator and Consultant for Research
Anand holds a doctorate in Suryanamaskar. He was a student of Jnana Prabodhini School for the Gifted from grade 5 to grade 10. He holds a master's degree in Psychology and has been an associate professor at Fergusson College, Pune Department of Psychology for about 7 years. He has published research papers in the area of health in reputed journals. Currently he is the Head of the Research Department at Taal Inc. and is a father to 2 gifted sons. Being gifted himself, Anand is able to instantly connect with the children. During the sessions, he often interacts one-on-one with the children. Through sharing of his own personal journey as a student he helps children become more aware of their needs and challenges and possible ways to cope with them. He also introduces children to Suryanamaskar, chanting and engages them in spiritual discussions. He challenges the children to think differently and keep setting and achieving higher goals.
Job Titles:
- Hon. Trustee / Management Consultant
Job Titles:
- Hon. Trustee / District Governor - Lions Club
Dr. Desai has a PhD in Parent Training and has been working for more than 24 years. She has worked in the area of giftedness for over 15 years. She is also a consultant at Tribal Mensa, Pune. She was awarded the Belin-Blank Fellowship to attend their course in gifted education from Belin Blank Center of Gifted Education at University of Iowa, USA. She is associated with the European Council for higher ability (ECHA) and presents papers in Europe in the area of Giftedness. She designed the teacher training programs at the center which is based from Belin Blank Center, Iowa, USA. Dr. Devasena facilitates the KGEC team in formulating ideas for different programs and services for gifted children. She also offers individual guidance to parents of gifted children and supports teachers to introduce classroom enrichment activities. Recently, she has been appointed as the Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Rehabilitation Counselor and Education, IOWA University, USA.
Job Titles:
- Hon. Vice President / Consultant & NGO
Dr. Sameena Manasawala has been working as a Facilitator for more than 15 years. She has a doctoral degree in gifted education. She is involved in the area of giftedness for more than 10 years. She has worked in schools as a counselor and then proceeded to initiate after school programs and services for gifted children. Her passion to address this issue led to her being awarded a Fellowship to attend a five-day residential course in gifted education from Belin-Blank Center for Gifted Education at University of Iowa, USA. She has also been associated with Mensa India working with tribal gifted students. Her area of interest is nurturing programs for the gifted, twice exceptional children and has presented research papers in both National and International conferences. She works with children who are gifted and talented from age 10 years to adolescence on a myriad of issues like social awkwardness, difficulty in maintaining relationships, underachievement, perfectionism, anxiety related to performance and feeling demotivated due to inappropriate challenge level in school. For younger children, she works with parents helping them understand how to view their child's development through the lens of giftedness and holistic talent development. She facilitates Parent Support Group and trains school counselors to integrate services for gifted children in the regular school set-up. She is also a visiting faculty and teaches undergraduate psychology courses at reputed Institutes in Pune.
Dr. Shamarao Kalmadi practiced dignity of labour. An admirable leader with tremendous energy, he was a go getter and appreciated hard work. He commanded respect wherever he went and believed in doing things without any discrimination to caste, creed, colour and economic status. He was an honest, helpful, caring and outspoken person with a good sense of humour and radiated immense kindness along with his dedicated guidance to the Sangha and its endeavours.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder and President, Kannada Sangha Pune
Shri G.M Shetty was a visionary was actively involved in the conceptualization and creation of Kaveri Group of Institutes. With his passionate gf education, he played a key role in building this institution.
Job Titles:
- Hon. President / Educationist
- President, Kannada Sangha
"Welcome to Kannada Sangha's Kaveri Group of Institutes, an evolving, leading name in education in Pune. Kaveri aims at reaching out to a maximum number of students with quality education. We work to instill original thinking in students and empowering them to meet today's challenges. Our vision is to grow in all directions and to be the best in terms of quality of education, nationally as well as internationally."
Founded in 1963, with modest beginning of only 35 students and one Kannada medium school, today at Kaveri Group of Institutes we run two English medium schools offering education from pre-primary up to Std. X, a Kannada medium high school offering high school education to poor children of Kannadigas, a junior college as well as a senior college for undergraduate and post-graduate studies. We have over 7000 students studying in different institutes and staff strength over 400. Our schools to follow CBSE & ICSE syllabus and our colleges are affiliated to the prestigious University of Pune. (Savitribai Phule University)
We believe in providing learner centric education and have always taken the changing needs of students and technological advancements in our stride, providing the latest and best facilities for our students. All our institutes have well equipped facilities - OHP equipped classrooms, computer labs, science labs, electronic labs and libraries. Students are well trained to use modern facilities and equipment. We also have a state of the art Auditorium- Shakuntala J Shetty auditorium with a seating capacity of over 500.
We believe in all round development. Both, in our schools and in our colleges, we provide plenty of opportunities for all round development of students. We also have full-fledged counselling units to help and guide students and build in them self-confidence.
Job Titles:
- Hon. Trustee / Management Consultant
Mrs. Archana Deshmukh is a Experiential Educator, Facilitator & Personal Coach. She brings with her a unique blend of experiences from variety of fields like IT, Projects & services, experiential education, mentoring adolescent and outbound camps. Her 15 years of professional life, offered her an opportunity to interact with people from industries like manufacturing, service, IT, NGO & education. For last 7 years, she has conducted experiential education based outbound and classroom educational programs with teams in the area of collaboration, leadership, diversity, conflict resolution, customer centricity, communication, self-management and stress management. So far she has also worked as an educator with 2000+ children and youth and as a personal coach at individual levels for many adults and students.
Job Titles:
- Hon. Trustee / Educationist
Job Titles:
- Hon. Vice President / Educationist, Poetess
Job Titles:
- Hon. Secretary
- Founding Director for Kaveri Gifted Education Research Centre
- Founding Director for KGERC
Mrs. Malati Kalmadi is the Founding Director for Kaveri Gifted Education Research Centre, which was initiated in 2014. She is also the Managing trustee for the last 30 years, Secretary Kannada Sangha for the last 15 years. She has been the pillar in creating systems in educational institutes much ahead of our times. Kaveri Institutes has had school counselors for last 25 years and yet again currently she initiated the Kaveri Gifted Centre to set the pioneering work in the field of gifted for the entire Nation bringing all stakeholders together. Her dream is to see that the gifted child in a school should be given the opportunity and gain access to resources and support within the school. Parents of the gifted child and the teachers are also given training and support in Kaveri group of institutes. Her vision is to bring the high learning student's as leaders and changing agents for the nation.
Mrs Prateeksha Khatri is a Counseling Psychologist and RCI Recognized Rehabilitation Psychologist. She has worked with Schools like Billabong High International,Vadodara and Akshara International,Pune and has experience of 4 years. She strives to work with children and families for Mental health wellbeing in the best possible ways. She facilitates workshops at Kaveri Gifted Education and Research center with an objective of Nurturing the socio-emotional skills of gifted children.
Mrs. Sumathi Srinivasan, has served as a Principal and Head in Dr. Shamarao Junior college for the past 15 years. She has three decades of administrative experience in different capacities in Kaveri Group of Institutes. She has initiated several programs for Junior college students and ensured that students feel secure by promoting mental health of adolescent students in her campus by building sensitivity with teachers and counselors. Her fondness for interacting with children of all ages by accepting to be the Centre-in-Charge of the KGERC, brings in her expertise to fast forward the Gifted
Job Titles:
- Counselor at Kaveri Gifted Education
Ms. Darshita Mehta is a Gifted Facilitator and Counselor at Kaveri Gifted Education and Research Center. She holds a Masters in Counselling Psychology. Her areas of interest are utilizing bibliotherapy, cinematherapy, and journal therapy to create a supportive and enriching environment for young minds. She is a voracious reader herself and enjoys baking in her free time.
Ms Kasturi Hapse is an aspiring Psychologist, having keen interest in research, psychometrics, psychometric tool development, statistical data analysis. She holds a masters degree in Industrial Psychology. Her masters level thesis was a correlational study between job crafting and work-related quality of life and organizational commitment. As an Assistant Researcher at the Kaveri Gifted Education and Research Centre, she is contributing to the research projects in the area of Giftedness. Apart from research, she enjoys dabbling in art and craft making several artefacts from handmade paper artefact.
Mrs Prateeksha Khatri is a Counseling Psychologist and RCI Recognized Rehabilitation Psychologist. She has worked with Schools like Billabong High International,Vadodara and Akshara International,Pune and has experience of 4 years. She strives to work with children and families for Mental health wellbeing in the best possible ways. She facilitates workshops at Kaveri Gifted Education and Research center with an objective of Nurturing the socio-emotional skills of gifted children.
Job Titles:
- Counsellor at the Kaveri Gifted Education
Ms. Sanjita Prasad is a Gifted Facilitator and Counsellor at the Kaveri Gifted Education and Research Center. She has completed her Masters in Counselling Psychology. Her areas of interest include designing workshops for the nurturing program, conducting assessments, and creating a safe space for children. She loves to incorporate concepts of Indian Psychology in daily life. She loves to read books, mangas and comics, draws sketches in her free time and is a sports enthusiast.