Gauri Shringarpure

(ciswoman, pronoun: she) is a mental  health practitioner with practice in Thane. She has been involved in gender and sexuality training in colleges and with NSS students actively for more than five years. She has also been engaged in working in the fields of self care and mental health and is a positive psychology practitioner. She is also an experienced (24 years) researcher in consumer behavior and is also an ethnographer. She is a consultant for Mariwala Health Initiative with two of their partner organizations. Gauri is also a faculty at the Mariwala Health Initiative’s Queer Affirmative Counseling Practice Certificate course. 

Pooja Nair

(ciswoman, pronoun: she) has been part of the non-profit sector for over a decade. She has worked variously as a researcher, documentation consultant, trainer and now as an independent therapist. She has an Mphil from Tata Institute of Social Sciences and has worked in the areas of life skills, gender, sexuality, violence and child sexual abuse. She has also worked with adolescents on life skills development. She is currently working on her PhD in addition to being a mental health practitioner and trainer. She is Faculty at Mariwala Health Initiative’s (MHI) Queer Affirmative Counseling Practice Certificate Course (QACP).

Shruti Chakravarty

(ciswoman, pronoun: she) has experience of 17 years in the non-profit sector, as a mental health practitioner, researcher, trainer and social worker. Areas of engagement have been mental health, gender and sexuality from a rights based perspective. She has an independent therapeutic practice based in Mumbai and has in-depth experience working with LGBTQIA+ clients in a therapeutic set up. She has co-authored a training manual on Gay Affirmative Counselling Practice and conducts several interactive workshops on this topic on a regular basis with students of social work, psychology and counseling, with NGOs working with young people, with MHPs and social workers in a variety of settings. She is currently pursuing her PhD on queer intimacies at Tata Institute of Social Sciences. She is Chief Advisor and Faculty at Mariwala Health Initiative’s (MHI) Queer Affirmative Counseling Practice Certificate Course (QACP).