Nandita Kapadia Kundu India 1991 Grantee US-Canada Program
1994 PhD in Public Health at Johns Hopkins School
Nandita has worked for 14 years at the NGO: Institute of Health Management, Pachod (IHMP): https://www.mhtf.org/organization/institute-of-health-management-ihmp/ and currently sits on its Board of Trustees.
She was also on the Board of Trustees for Tathapi: https://www.tathapi.org/, a woman-centered NGO for over 15 years.
Nandita earned a 2019 Gates Institute Award for innovations in Reproductive Health and Family Planning.
Academic awards: Best dissertation for the Department of Health Policy and Management; Distinction, Doctoral Defense Exam (a first at the Hopkins School of Public Health), Distinction, doctoral comprehensive exams.
She notes some personal rewards during her career:
A 13-year-old adolescent girl living in a slum managed to prevent rape and file a First Information Report (FIR) against her rapist. She attributed her knowledge, self-confidence, and presence of mind to the Life Skills course IHMP implemented in 30 slums in Pune.
A boy, named Eshwar, from a remote village in the Pachod area served as a "Bal Sevak" child volunteer when he was 12 years old. This experience changed him. With Nandita’s mentoring and encouragement he completed a PhD 2 years ago at one of India’s top social science institutes. Eshwar’s dissertation was related to acute water scarcity in the underdeveloped Marathwada area from which he comes.
Her Current Work
Nandita is involved in gender-related research in Ethiopia, Mali and Bangladesh where she is exploring the role of gender .
