Our Listening Post Volunteers
Gandha Sahu
Ms. Gandha Sahu is a trained and accredited member of the Indian Institute of Arbitration and Mediation. She has been a practicing lawyer in the family court and later worked in Coporate Law. Gandha has recently completed her Training and joined Listening Post. She is also our volunteer for "Legal Cell for Women" program.
Hiral Sawant
Hiral is a finance consultant and entrepreneur with varied interests in Fintech and EdTech. She loves running, trekking and traveling. She likes to connect with people of all ages and is an animal lover at heart. Her mantra in life is to stay positive and spread happiness. Hiral has completed her Training in Nov-2019 and joined us as a Listening Post volunteer.
Janaki Visvanath
Janaki is an HR professional from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and has spent the last 30 years of her life working in core Human Resource areas in various sectors. A corporate trainer, a certified Coach, an entrepreneur with primarily an interest in community development, Janaki successfully ran a community bookstore called twistntales in Pune after her stint in Corporate HR. She has now decided to focus her HR skills in the Social Sector. She works closely with schools, colleges and University departments in curriculum development to include gender sensitivity issues as well as life-skills, to prepare the students of the future. She works closely with Corporate HR on diversity and sensitisation training (gender, disability) and to help create the new healthy professional workplace. These include training and communication initiatives and designing e-learning modules. Janaki is a certified Executive Coach affiliated to the International Coaching Federation (ICF).
Jitendra Sheth
Industrialist and entrepreneur running a SME in Pune. Loves travel, and has a jovial disposition. With an interest in human behaviour, he has on his own initiative done a certificate course in counselling. He has joined the Listening Post team recently after completing his training.
Lata Ananth
Lata is a genial, fun loving and patient soul. A teacher by profession, she volunteers thrice a month as a Listening Post champion. She's trained and has been with Listening Post since inception. Being an Army wife, Lata has spent lot of her time travelling to all corners of the country and has interesting stories from schools all over where she has worked. Lata has worked with very young children for a long time and is good with kids and parents.
Monica Mehta
Monica is a soft-skills facilitator and life-coach. She enjoys connecting with people, trekking, dancing, theater & music.
Neena Khaire
Neena is a simple and clear thinking person. A teacher by profession, she's good with adolescents and parents. She's trained and experienced and has been with Listening Post since inception. All volunteers at LP are professionally trained in Compassionate Listening and regularly update their skills through refresher courses. We have a Mentor for all our volunteers who teaches them self-care, and helps resolve difficult issues.
Ranjani Patil
Ranjani volunteers at SHB for Listening Post thrice a month. She is a professional French and German translator. She is also a yoga enthusiast. She finds being able to offer emotional space at Listening Post to be very healing and the most rewarding life experience.
Dr. Sudhakar Yerneni
Dr. Sudhakar Yerneni is passionate about talking to people empathetically. Having worked for corporates for over 20 years, he felt an innate urge to get involved in social work. He finds time for it from his busy schedule. He is a strong believer of gaining while giving which is SHB philosophy. Sudhakar is married, has two teenage kids and currently heads India operations of Cray, the Supercomputing Company.