Poornima Chikarmane

SNDT Women’s University, Dept. of Continuing & Adult education is Retired Associate Professor/ Assistant Director at the Pune Sub-centre of the Department of Continuing and Adult Education and Extension Work, SNDT Women’s University, Pune, India.
She is a researcher and an experienced facilitator for workshops with waste pickers. Poornima serves as a member on the District Covid Task Force and is a senior advisor to the advocacy team at Kashtakari Panchayat
Shabana Diler

Shabana Diler has over two decades of field experience in the development sector which involves working with workers in the informal sector, urban poor and the youth. She has an expertise in working in a service cooperative, right from setting up of operations to running them efficiently and putting in place systems for the smooth functioning of the same.
Shabana also brings in her experience of the overall handling of the various functions such as administration, citizen outreach, networking with local government institutions, in a multi-dimensional organization.
Lakshmi Narayanan

Lakshmi Narayanan has been working with waste pickers in Pune and PCMC since 1989. She is one of the founders of Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat, a ten thousand strong, member-based Trade Union of Pune, engaged in empowerment, advocacy and mainstreaming of the most marginalised of urban poor.
She has also helped found SWACH, India’s first autonomous cooperative of waste pickers offering front-end waste management services to Pune’s citizens. SWACH is nationally and internationally acclaimed as a robust Pro-Poor Private Public Partnership that serves the State’s dual responsibilities of Solid Waste Management and poverty alleviation