Mini S Mathew

Mini is a special educator with 30+ years of experience in education. She is the founder and former Head of Therapies at Cord Edu a center (CORD ) for children and adults with special needs. She has worked as a resource person and conducted multiple workshops on Inclusive education practices, special needs identification, and techniques, classroom management, understanding disabilities, behavior modification therapies, and counseling parents and children with special needs.
She has experience working as a consultant and Teacher with schools in Bangalore, MP, and Delhi. She is a resource person for NGOs, Orphanages in Bangalore for addressing parents and educators on special education needs, emotional needs, and managing children at home with special needs. She has worked as a mentor at Creative Arts Teaching Institute as a part of practical engagement.

She has a master's degree in special education needs and is a trained behavior modification therapist. She has counseled in Sneha Counselling Centre, Bangalore.
She is enthusiastic about creating a safe, stimulating, and supportive learning environment for students that provides a scope to express their needs. She believes to work with pupils in creative practice with special needs you must engage with multiple materials and techniques to meet the individual needs of the student. She plans intervention with learning support techniques that support skills for teaching and learning creative practices like ideation, communication, problem-solving, and time management.

Sahiti Gavarikar

Sahiti has a Masters in Counselling Psychology, and also has a background in Journalism and Literature. She has worked with adolescents and adults in academic and other settings. She has worked with clients on issues such as: depression, anxiety, trauma, and interpersonal difficulties/relationship concerns. She has conducted support groups, worked on research projects, and has provided psychological first aid to people as part of a COVID-19 task force. As a member of the WICCI Karnataka Mental Health Council, she has worked on projects linking counsellors to children and minority groups in need.

She is passionate about helping women and LGBTQIA+ clients in finding a safe space and creating supportive networks. Her orientation is primarily cognitive behaviour therapy, but she is also heavily influenced by existential, humanistic, and narrative therapy. She is interested in exploring the use of poetry in therapy.

Sonu Khosla
Sonu Khosla is a special educator. She has been an academic leader, accreditor, writer and researcher with extensive experience in the education sector. She has a Master’s degree in Human Development and Child Psychology from Delhi University along with Inclusive Education from the British Open University.

Prior experience includes working as Head -Special Education needs at Pathways School Noida, British School, and De Walvis School, in The Netherlands,. She has conducted workshops on Intercultural Management and Communication at Royal Tropical Institute, Amsterdam, and Maastricht. She has worked on a research project with Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, USA. She continues to be an accreditor for Council of International Schools (CIS), having evaluated IB schools in Singapore, Malaysia, and India. She has done a paper presentation at British Dyslexia Association at Telford UK.

At Srishti Manipal she has collaborated as a co-facilitator for Semester 8 students on a project thesis " Play for All ". The project was to understand the interplay between special education needs and design using Ludic Design for Accessibility (LDA) . This is a new design methodology created at Microsoft Research India. . The students were guided on designing play materials keeping the specifics of special needs, age group and developmental milestones in mind. Support was provided during user testing phase, developing and refining prototypes, branding, seminar, LDA visit, doc-books , masterclasses, exhibition at Microsoft , documentation and collaborating with external agencies for accessibility. The outcome of the artefacts had two aspects. They would be enjoyable and playful experience and the design should enable various skill acquisition and long-term learning as an extension of play by the users.

Primary interests and passion includes differentiation, student learning and well-being, student choice , voice and empowerment, self-reflection, resilience, empathetic listening and working towards holistic development. She has been active in facilitating workshops and masterclasses. She enjoys writing and has her articles and papers published in leading international magazines like Autism Parenting Magazine, SENUK, UKED , IB magazines , blogs, Srishti newsletter and American Journal of Paediatrics.