Meet Our Team

Kavita Pandey

Executive Director

Kavita is the Executive Director of Action Village India. She has over 16 years of rich experience working with Civil Societies and Research and Academic Institutions in India and the global south.

Kavita is a seasoned development practitioner with substantial experience in empowering communities especially underprivileged women, to lead the transformation. She has a strong background in conceptualising development-based interventions, managing various social development programs, efficient resource mobilisation, stitching collaboration, and developing partnerships mostly towards women’s economic empowerment and issues impacting women’s access to basic human rights. Her work is the amalgamation of implementation at the grassroots level and strategic planning at the leadership positions specially focused on designing and implementing livelihood generation and poverty reduction approaches.

Her decade long association with the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) India, her work on social development programs with multi-lateral, bilateral, Government Institutions, and Corporates, and her research work with Academic institutions of prestige from the global north have added to her vast experience. She demonstrates the capacity to develop evidence-based strategies on various issues that deal with development challenges in some of the most challenging contexts. She is a social impact enthusiast and wants to bring lasting changes in the lives of the less privileged.

Aneeta Patel

Communications, Fundraising and Operations Manager

Aneeta started working with Action Village India in 2018. Aneeta is a great believer in making a difference on a personal level and that’s one of the things that most attracted her to AVI’s work. Originally trained as a painter she has over 20 years’ experience in reception/office administration/secretarial roles and has run her own business for over 20 years as a knitting teacher and author. Her enthusiasm, organisational skills and random life experiences have become invaluable for the AVI extended family.

Ashley Wild

Fundraising and Development Manager

Ashley is the Fundraising and Development Manager for Action Village India. He specialises in fundraising in for migration and development charities, and loves supporting grassroots organisations which make a big impact. He has worked as a fundraising consultant, and previously held the position of Head of Partnerships at an employability charity. In his spare time, he enjoys reading and trips out to museums.

Andy Rutherford

Chair

Andy Rutherford has worked with community-based and people’s organisations internationally over the last 40 years. First, researching the social, economic and environmental effects of the Green Revolution in rural Tamil Nadu and then from 1985 to 2011 working with grassroots and women’s organisations across Asia, Africa and Latin America as Head on International Partnerships with two UK based organisations, War on Want and then One World Action. He is a founder and member of the Asia Europe People’s Forum, co-organising bi-annual People’s Forums since 1996. Currently, Andy is Director of a not-for-profit tour company, Fresh Eyes – People to People Travel.  This is encouraging thoughtful, socially responsible travel.

Tracy Adams

Treasurer

Tracy is a Chartered Accountant with significant experience in the not-for-profit and housing sectors. Recently she has worked for London Borough of Hackney, London Cyrenians and Barnardos.  She initially trained and specialised as an external auditor in the not-for-profit sector, before spending three years as a VSO volunteer in Zambia building financial capacity at a rural hospital. Tracy has always been very interested in India.  After university, she spent some months travelling and teaching English in Tamil Nadu and has been a regular visitor to AVI’s Madras cafe at Womad festival.

Aditya Dilipkumar

Company Secretary

Born and brought up in Mumbai, Adi moved to the UK in 2010. He is a Chartered Accountant and currently works in an oversight function within the financial services industry. Although Adi has been away from India in recent years, he has always had a keen interest in the happenings on the ground. Adi is passionate about a wide-range of social topics including the issues of opportunity gaps in society, minority rights, sustainability and climate action, animal rights. Adi will look to add to AVI’s governance and oversight framework as a member of the Board of trustees.

Dr. Mukul Agarwal

Trustee

Dr Mukul joined AVI as a trustee in January 2020, and he has extensive experience in Internal Medicine, Primary Care, Rehab and Sports Medicine. He has been working for the last 15 years at some of the most notable institutions in the field. In 2010, Dr Mukul joined the XIX Commonwealth Games in Delhi – the largest Commonwealth Games to date – as the sports physician for the England team of Rugby 7’s, tennis and weightlifting. His most significant interests are medical education, disability sport and remote expeditions.

Beatrice Crestini

Trustee

Originally from Italy, Beatrice lives in the UK. She studied Foreign Languages and Literature at university and fell in love with India and its culture during her first trip there in 2011.  She has been working in the charity sector in fundraising and marketing, for both large and small organisations, in the UK and India. In her spare time, she loves to travel, scuba diving, take a good walk, gardening, listening to music and cooking. She regularly practices yoga and enjoys teaching it too. Beatrice is passionate about topics such as women empowerment, education access for all and supporting people living in underprivileged communities.

Pallavi Modha

Trustee

Pallavi Modha is an IT professional volunteering and supporting various activities at AVI since 2005. Born and brought up in India, and having lived in Britain through her adult life, Pallavi is passionate about the synergistic role of AVI between both cultures. Cooking delicious food at Madras Cafe and organising the annual event, ‘Walk For Women’ at the Virginia Water, Surrey are some of her proud AVI moments.

Elaine Morrison

Trustee

Elaine has worked on environment and development issues for more than 30 years, at the International Institute for Environment and Development. Whilst at IIED, she was involved in forest policy and governance research in India, working alongside researchers from Indian NGOs and Forest Departments. Latterly, with aid budgets focused elsewhere, she concentrated on the financial management of large, multi-country forest research projects. She now devotes much of her time to practising and teaching Iyengar yoga. Elaine joined AVI during its former incarnation as Friends of ASSEFA, and was involved in AVI in various capacities. She first visited Lakshmi Ashram in 1984, when she also volunteered on an organic farm run on Gandhian principles, in central India.

Theroshene Naidoo

Trustee

Theroshene is a Deputy Head(Academic) at a boys Prep School in the UK.  She was born in South Africa and lived there till 2002 when she moved to the UK. Theroshene is very passionate about education for all because she believes that every child has the right to a good education and good education should not be a privilege. She is also a strong advocate of female empowerment and gender equality.

Meera Patel

Trustee

Meera is a kathak dance artist based in London. Meera first discovered Action Village India through Madras Cafe at the WOMAD Festival in 2010 and has been volunteering at the café in subsequent years. In October 2018, she became involved in supporting AVI with their bookkeeping and management accounts alongside becoming a full-time dance artist.

Meera currently trains and teaches dance across London and performs regularly with Pagrav Dance Company and as an independent artist. Much of her current artistic practice is driven by an urgent need to redefine her own and wider practices across making, facilitation and performance to counter normative ideologies around marginalised perspectives of movement and choreography.

Ayesha Usmani

Trustee

Ayesha Usmani has been involved in several international solidarity campaigns and the feminist movement since the late 1970s.

She has been involved in Madras Café for over 20 years and taken on the roles of cook, cooks coordinator, and equipment maintenance team. She also had the opportunity to visit some of the projects supported by Action Village India in India in 2008.

Niru Naidu

Trustee

Niru Naidu works as an IT quality assurance analyst in finance services.

Born and brought up in Bangalore in India, she moved to London in 2008. Niru has been involved with campaigning for early years’ education and Special Education Needs in her local London borough.

She has volunteered with AVI in the past, is a member and has attended our AGMs. Niru shares our ethos, admires the work Action Village India does in India and very much wants to support it in whatever way she can.

Diede de Kok

Trustee

Diede de Kok has been an active volunteer with Action Village India for several years, supporting events such as WOMAD and Darbar.

She has worked in the Safety and Security sector for the last 10 years, with experience as both a Lecturer as well as a Senior Analyst, and currently works as a Global Emergency Operations Analyst for an international professional services business.

Diede is passionate about both social and environmental sustainability and loves how Action Village India’s partners help create more sustainable futures for rural communities in India.

Arvind Sareen

Trustee

Arvind Sareen works as an operations director with hotel and retail property at strategic and management levels. He deals with company finance, supplier and maintenance contracts, liaising with legal professionals for property, planning and company administration. His skills span business franchising, food and beverage, teaching and education, I.T. projects and outsourcing, NHS management and manufacturing.

Amongst his qualifications is an MBA in finance.   Arvind will be ‘shadowing’ our current treasurer over the next few months, becoming our new Treasurer at our July trustees’ meeting.