Vandana Gopikumar, Director

Vandana Gopikumar has a Masters degree in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work from the Madras School of Social Work, Chennai. In 1993, right after she finished her Masters degree, she co-founded The Banyan together with Vaishnavi Jayakumar. Vandana is a well known mental health activist with various acclaims to her name. Together with Vaishnavi Jayakumar, Vandana was nominates as one of the 50 most influential people by India Today and has won the Rotary Paul Harris Award, the Government Sree Shakti Puraskar and the CII NIQR award. In 2008, Vandana has published together with Dr. Nachiket Mor and Prof. Venugopal in Business Standard on Corporate Social Responsibility and Vandana is a regular contributer in The Hindu on mental health. Vandana is writing her first memoir and has enrolled for a PhD programme. Before taking over as BALM’s director, Vandana was engaged in the strategic expansion and direction of The Banyan to improve the mental health sector in India.

Dr. Gayathri Balagopal, Director Research

Dr. Gayathri Balagopal has a PhD in Economics (on geriatric care) at the Madras Institute of Development Studies (affiliated to the University of Madras, Chennai) and has an MPhil in Applied Economics from the Centre for Development Studies, Thiruvanathapuram (affiliated to Jawaharlal Nehru University). She is currently engaged in research on (1) Inter-linkages between psychiatric treatment and employment: A case study of The Banyan’s outpatient clients and (2) Study of reintegrated ex-residents of The Banyan. Her work has been published in Economic and Political Weekly, Review of Development and Change, and Gender and Development.

Mirjam Dijkxhoorn, Deputy Director

Mirjam Dijkxhoorn has an M.Sc. degree in Cultural Anthropology and Sociology of non-Western countries from the University of Amsterdam. Her fieldwork was done in Andhra Pradesh, India with people living with HIV and their interactions with a local NGO. In 2008, Mirjam joined BALM as project analyst. Her current research interests include families of people with mental illness in India and innovative models of mental health care for marginalised groups.

Kakul Shelly, Head Stakeholder relations

Kakul Shelly has an MSW degree from the Delhi School of Social Work and has experience in research and documentation of issues of gender and violence against women. She previously worked in the core team of the Resource Centre for Interventions on Violence against Women at TISS and has conducted independent studies at Mahila Samakhya in Uttarkhand.

Chiai Uraguchi, Head Training

Chiai Uraguchi has a Master degree in Public Administration from the Cornell Institute for Public Affairs and a Master degree in Environment, Development and Policy from the University of Sussex. She has worked in the Philippines on several research projects including ‘Role of scavenging in urban livelihoods in the Philippines’ and a ‘Case study of livelihoods in the INAYAWAN dump site in Cebu and a strategy for the poor.’ She was project manager for the project ‘Income Generation for Disadvantaged Women’. In 2010, she joined BALM as Head training.

Salih P.M., Research assistant

Salih P.M. has a Master Degree in Medical and Psychiatric Social Work from Moh’d Sathak College, Chennai (affiliated to Madras University).
Since November 2009 he has been working at BALM as Research Assistant and he is currently engaged in a study on the employment of persons with mental health issues, a study on a self help group. Salih is also engaged in training programmes for mental health professionals.