Raman VR

Born and Bought up: Venganellore, Chelakkara, Thrissur district, Kerala, India.Current base: Ranchi, Jharkhand, India. Family base at Raipur, Chhattisgarh, India. Studied at: SMTHS Chelakkara, SNGS College Pattambi, Sree Kerala Varma College Thrissur.Currently doing higher studies in public health from SoPH, UWC, Cape Town. Family info: Married to Shalini, a health/gender activist who works in Chhattisgarh for a women empowerment programme run by MHRD, Govt. of India; A 3 year old son, Eklavya. Brief Profile: Started as volunteer to Peoples Science Movement, I worked in Kerala from my school ages and later shifted to North India to support literacy and science communication initiatives. Worked in U.P, the biggest state of India with about 16 million population for about 7 years, as National Coordinator of BGVS (www.bgvs.org) and AIPSN (www.aipsn.org) Then worked for BBC WSTfor a short while before I shifted to Chhattisgarh, a central province of India, as a founding member for State Health Resource Centre Chhattisgarh (www.shsrc.org). I served this organisation as Programme Coordinator, Chief Coordinator and Director in-charge. Community initiatives like Mitanin Programme (a programme with over 60000 women health volunteers trained/deployed in all rural habitations of the state) and Swasth Panchayat Index (state-dide, habitation based health HDI to form base for the rural health planning), etc forms to the key list of achievements. Later, I worked for setting up of a similar institution in the state of Jharkhand. One more association is with Public Health Resource Network (www.phrnindia.org) - an initiative to build district level capacities for achieving National Rural Health Mission Goals; I am one amongst many founders, member of editorial advisory, resource person for capacity building initiatives and a mentor for a community health fellowship programme initated by PHRN. Currently I work as a Technical Resource Person to High Level Expert Group for Universal Health Coverage in India, in my capacity of Consultant at PHFI, New Delhi, for the specific purpose. Specialties: Media campaigns & advocacy, social mobilisation, training & capacity building, government liaison, organisational building, administration&management;, public health planning, administration & management