Andhra Pradesh - Ms. Sunita Burra
Sunita Burra is the State Head for Andhra Pradesh, India. She has done Masters of Philosophy in Human Development. Since 1991 she has been associated with projects related to children. She worked with different NGOs in various states before becoming a member of Pratham in 2004. Since then she moved to Hyderabad to start the Andhra Pradesh chapter of Pratham.     



Assam: Abhijit Chakraborty

Abhijit joined Pratham, in 2006 and was a part of implementing the first program in the state. He now heads the state chapter in Assam and is responsible for the overall planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of all programs conducted in the state. Abhijit has over 9 years experience in community mobilization. He comes to Pratham after having worked as a HIV/AIDS education officer in several NGOs.

Bihar:  Mr. Sanjay Singh 
After completing his Masters degree from the Department of Labour and Social Welfare of Patna University in 1999, he joined Pratham. While with Pratham, he had the opportunity to study Education Technology at the University of Twente in Holland. Sanjay has been part of the core team that has taken Pratham from being a small urban program to a large scale statewide partnership with the government in elementary education. He has headed Pratham's work in Bihar since 2005. He has extensive field experience both in program implementation as well as content development, curriculum design and training.


Chattisgarh : Mr. Gaurav Sharma
Gaurav has been working with Pratham since 2005 and heads the program in Chattisgarh. He is a Masters in Commerce.




Delhi :  Mr. Shailendra Sharma
A Masters in Social Work from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Shailendra joined Pratham in 2002 and served in programme support unit during the initial years. Currently, he heads Pratham Delhi and is responsible for planning and execution of Pratham’s community based education programme for children in 3-14 years age group in about 300 underprivileged communities and 850 municipal schools of Delhi. He also coordinated Pratham’s Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) activities in the state of Jammu and Kashmir between 2005-07.

Gujarat : Renu Sheth

Himachal Pradesh:  Mr. Ranjeet Kumar
Ranjeet completed his Masters in Social Work from the Jamia Millia University in Delhi in 2007. He joined Pratham in June 2007 and is now heading the program in Himachal Pradesh. He is responsible for program planning and implementation of the  Learning Enhancement Program with  the SSA HP in all the 12 district of Himachal Pradesh. He also liaisons with Govt. departments mainly with officials of SSA at State and district level and is also responsible for the monitoring and evaluation of the program in the state.

Jammu and Kashmir : Syed Faisal
Syed is a Masters in Sociology. He has been with Pratham since 2006, when he was co-ordinating the program activities in Lucknow. Currently he heads the program in Jammu Kashmir where he is responsible for the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the activities. Prior to joining Pratham, Syed worked with Hindustan Lever. His intense desire to work for the education of children led him to join the development sector.

Jharkhand : Kumar Katyani
Kumar has been associated with Pratham since 2003. At present he is responsible for Pratham’s  programme  activities in Jharkhand.  He  started work in Pratham, Patna as a Coordinator of Capacity building and Pratham Education Center (PEC).  He has also conducted the ASER Campaign of Bihar and Jharkhand for 3 years.

He is a Post Graduate in Labour and Social Welfare from Magadh University and also a Post Graduate in Rural Management and Development from Patna University. At present he is  pursuing his Ph.D. in Rural Management and Development from Patna University.

Karnataka : Ms. Kanchan Banerjee
Kanchan is the Managing Trustee of Akshara Foundation the Karantaka arm of Pratham.  She is a sociologist and is trained in communications and teaching children with learning disabilities. She has been associated with the planning and execution of several of Akhsara Foundation’s programmes since 2000.



Madhya Pradesh : Sajjan Singh Shekhawat 
Sajjan has been working with Pratham since 2002 and heads the organization’s operations in Madhya Pradesh. A Masters in Social Work, Sajjan’s positive attitude enables him to handle his responsibilities in the highest pressure work situation.



Maharashtra: Vishwajit Lad

Nagaland : Kevi Z. Savino
Kavi joined Pratham in 2006 to help implement a pilot, and then stayed on to set up the program in the state. In her last three years, she has been involved in implementing some very important programmes in the state, such as setting up and running 913 community based libraries and an English Basics Reading Programme in 1306 government schools across the state. “The great thing about working with Pratham”, Kevi says, “ is the diversity of roles I have been given the opportunity to function in - from content development to logistics and budget planning; from training to monitoring programmes and interacting with people - in the Government, in the community”. Prior to joining Pratham, Kevi worked as a features writer with India Today’s Travel Plus.

Orissa : Puspanjali Parida

Punjab : Ronald Abraham
Ronald Abraham is a graduate in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi University. After his studies, he did a one-year stint as a Public Policy Fellow at the Centre for Policy Alternatives. Since August 2006, Ronald has been working in Pratham in different capacities. He started as a member of the national ASER team and currently he is one of the State Managers for Pratham Punjab.

 

Punjab : Bharat Deep Mali

Rajasthan : Rishi Rajvanshi

Tamil Nadu : Mr. Balaji Samapth
Balaji Sampath completed his B.Tech in Electronics from IIT Madras in 1994 and then obtained a Ph.D in Electrical Engineering from the University of Maryland, College Park. After completing his doctorate, in 1997 Balaji returned to India to work full-time on education and health issues in villages. He and a team of likeminded people started AID INDIA, a well known non-profit that works on education and health issues. From 1997 to 2000, Balaji worked on community health programs and from 2001 he has been actively involved in addressing issues in school education. From 2003, AID INDIA has been working closely as a network partner of Pratham and Balaji has been playing an active role in coordinating Pratham programs in Tamilnadu. For his education activities, Balaji and his team was awarded the Ashoka Fellowship, Lemelson Inventor Certificate, MIT Indus Technovator's Award 2005.

Uttarakhand, Prabhas Upadahya:
Prabhash did his MBA in rural management from the Xavier Institute of Management Bhubaneshwar. Prior to joining Pratham, he worked as program officer in the Christian Children Fund where he handled programs related ECD (EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT )Education livelihood and RPH (REPRODUCTIVE AND CHILD HEALTH). He has been working in Pratham since last June and is the state co-ordinator for Uttarakhand

Uttar Pradesh : Urban: Ajit Solanki
A Masters in Public Administration, Smitin has been working for the universalization of Primary Education since 1996. He began working for disadvantaged children of the Mumbai slums and has a long experience in community mobilization for primary schools. During the last twelve years, he has been working with government school teachers for improving the minimum learning level among children in schools. Currently, he is handling Pratham’s Uttar Pradesh unit and leading projects on primary education in six cities of UP. He is also working for agenda building on education in urban areas. Recently, Pratham created an “Urban Cell” to co-ordinate its activities in urban areas across country. Smitin is the convener and co-ordinator for the Urban Cell. 

Uttar Pradesh : Urban: Ajit Solanki
A Masters in Public Administration, Smitin has been working for the universalization of Primary Education since 1996. He began working for disadvantaged children of the Mumbai slums and has a long experience in community mobilization for primary schools. During the last twelve years, he has been working with government school teachers for improving the minimum learning level among children in schools. Currently, he is handling Pratham’s Uttar Pradesh unit and leading projects on primary education in six cities of UP. He is also working for agenda building on education in urban areas. Recently, Pratham created an “Urban Cell” to co-ordinate its activities in urban areas across country. Smitin is the convener and co-ordinator for the Urban Cell.  West Bengal: Animesh Chatterjee