“I always felt there is a greater gap in imparting value-based social and emotional learning among the youngsters. A better society is possible only when they are emotionally resilient. And it can only be achieved through a systematic process.

While I was pursuing my graduation in Pune, I developed an interest in Psychology. It certainly motivated me to pursue a Master’s program in Counselling and Guidance from Singapore. But I knew that I wanted to come back to Hyderabad as this is the only place I’ve ever felt at home!

After my return, I had worked with the educational institutions here in different capacities. During this phase, I realised that Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) should be an integral part of the students’ academic syllabus so I worked with a few international schools and local private institutions in developing their SEL curriculum which focused on building emotional awareness, stress management and coping, to name a few of them.

During the pandemic, I wanted to build something that would combine physical learning and SEL. Parents and teachers needed intentionally designed tools to facilitate SEL classes with ease. With this in mind, I set up my company ‘Journey Matters’ where I build physical learning tools that will act as a medium of imparting the required life SEL skills. I had even designed a unique set of illustrated alphabetical cards which would equip children with social and emotional vocabulary. This certainly helps the children to ponder over these words and they try to connect to examples from the real world. The cards also give question prompts initiating a conversation between the adult and child.

Apart from this, I also conduct training sessions for the teachers and parents explaining them the intricacies of Social Emotional Learning. I am looking forward to taking this concept of Social and Emotional learning to as many young minds as possible shortly as I believe this is the need of the hour!”