Our Team
Internal Resource Persons
Shivakumar
Director, SAFIER
Shivakumar has been engaged in bringing about a deeper change in the field of Education and Youth since 2001. He conducts Workshops and Camps on Integral Education for principals, educationists, teachers, parents and students, and also coordinates several projects related to education and youth, at the Society.
Growing up in Kerala, Shivakumar was always fascinated with technology and its role in making lives better. He started his career with an Engineering degree in the Mechanical field and as a Computer Aided Design Engineer, worked in the industrial world for 5 years, engaging in design, quality assurance and technical liaison with clients.
Along with his interest in technology, another interest started developing right from his college years, that of spirituality. After his 5-year stint in the corporate world, he decided to take a break from work and started engaging himself in full-time study and practice of Indian spirituality, especially the Integral Yoga of Sri Aurobindo and the Mother. It was at this time that he came into contact with Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry, and decided to join it and be part of its objective of working towards a global spiritualised society as envisioned by Sri Aurobindo.
Priti Umamahesvaram
Project Co-Facilitator, SAFIER
Priti is a graduate of Commerce, holds a diploma in ‘Early Childcare and Education’, a certificate in ‘Early Childhood and Care’ and ‘Teaching Yoga to Children’ from Mirambika Research Centre, New Delhi. Having an interest in Fine Arts, she explored the world of Fine Arts in diverse ways – exploring furniture design, animation, printmaking, sculpture, painting and drawing, and is a practicing artist.
Priti embarked on an inner journey which led her to the world of integral education as practiced at Mirambika. She rendered services as a full time volunteer at Mirambika, a free progress school under the aegis of Sri Aurobindo Ashram — Delhi Branch. This period of working has helped her to be a part of an evolving, philosophical and spiritual organisation, in the area of education as envisioned by Sri Aurobindo and the Mother.
She has also worked with other schools in Delhi and NCR as an art educator & a classroom educator at pre-primary and primary levels, and also as a teacher trainer in the implementation of Project method.
She loves writing short stories, storytelling and teaching yogasanas. She is the co-facilitator of all Projects with SAFIER and AuroYouth, at Sri Aurobindo Society, Puducherry, since 2019.
Hema Bandi
Media Designer, SAFIER
Hema did her graduation in Visual Communication and has a Branding and Marketing Communications PG certificate from MICA. After briefly working as an educator and a short time working with an NGO, got into illustration and making comics. She also volunteered as an Illustrator at Sanskrit Research Institute, Auroville, in the year 2021. In 2023, she attended the national Youth Camp in Puducherry facilitated by Sri Aurobindo Society's AuroYouth.
She has illustrated for integral Education children's school textbooks. She has been learning, both spiritually and professionally, further along the way while working with the Integral Education initiative SAFIER,
Sri Aurobindo Society, since Sept. 2023. She also freelances as visual designer using multiple platforms.
She loves to learn Bharat's true history , listening to podcasts on geo-politics, entrepreneurship, space and aliens, and casually collecting (mostly common) flowers.