Underlying Shanti’s contributions to the Learning for Well-being Foundation’s support to children and young people is her double experience of childhood — both her own childhood growing up in India and her daughter’s childhood located within the Netherlands where Shanti lives now. This exposure to the diversities and commonalities of childhood in a globalised world has been further enriched by her training as a social anthropologist, which has encouraged her to listen to people’s stories and conversations as a vital part of knowledge generation.

Shanti’s varied career includes positions at universities on three continents and working with Foundations on a similar scale. She has published five books and her many articles have been translated into various languages. Involvement with the Learning for Well-being Foundation enables her to span networks around knowledge, practice, activism and philanthropy– in the exciting context of promoting recognition for children and young people as competent partners with adults in building a just and sustainable world.