Social-Emotional Learning for peace and development
Who We Are
The SEL Lab is a social enterprise that is focussed on making Social-Emotional Learning available as a growth and change tool.
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We believe that SEL is the foundational path to bringing about change in the world we live in today. For the world to truly see change, resolve conflicts, and build a better world- each individual in all systems needs to play their part hence, we work with educators, change makers, corporates, political institutions, peace builders, all of whom need social emotional growth to lead their systems.
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At The SEL Lab, we envision a world where social-emotional learning is integrated across all kinds of systems as it is essential in creating global citizens in the complex, challenging, and transforming world we live in today
Meet Our Team
Anokhi Parikh, PhD
Founder & Director
Anokhi Parikh is the Founder & Director of The SEL Lab that focuses on using Social-Emotional Learning as a growth and change tool for educators, changemakers and peacebuilders. For the last decade, Anokhi’s work has been focused on promoting non-violence and finding peaceful solutions to socio-political realities of the world through social emotional learning. She is India’s first certified teacher for the Community Resiliency Model® by the Trauma Resource Institute, California, US. She is also a facilitator for the Compassionate Integrity Training trained by the Center of Compassion, Integrity and Secular Ethics, Life University, Atlanta, Georgia, US; a Certified Peace Educator from the Global Peace Institute, UK and a trainer on Prevention of violent extremism through education under the youth waging peace program by UNESCO MGIEP. Her work is currently focused in South Asia including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. To date she has worked across 34 different countries across the world. She represented India as a global changemaker at the Peace One Day and taught the world’s largest global lesson in SEL on World Peace Day in 2020.
She served as an independent consultant for UNESCO MGIEP Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Education for Peace and Sustainable Development and is actively working in the conflict zones of Manipur and Jammu and Kashmir in India. She is also the founding member of the Global Youth Alliance for Kindness and was in the drafting committee of the world’s first declaration on kindness that was adopted at the UNESCO MGIEP World Youth Conference on kindness in 2019. She has been the Director of The Foundation for six years that worked with children from the conflict zones of Kashmir and Manipur and has lived in these regions working on the ground. With a Msc in Finance from Manchester Business School, United Kingdom and she has completed her Ph.D in Economics from the University of Mumbai, she was an anchor at CNBC TV before she switched her career full-time to development and peacebuilding in 2013. She has a keen interest in academics and has published a number of academic papers through her doctoral research. She loves reading, writing poetry, swimming and yoga. Email: anokhi@thesellab.org
Ashyia Akhtar
SEL Educator, CIT South Asia Co-Lead
Ashyia is based just outside of London, England (UK). She studiedÂ
Biomedical Science and then went on to completing a Masters inÂ
Bioethics and Medical Law. A mum of 2 boys and a Primary SchoolÂ
teacher who teaches children from ages 7-11 years old, Ashyia is aÂ
passionate advocate of SEL and is a Compassionate Integrity Faciliator. She is also a SEE Learning facilitator and finds it to be an incredible resource to use with children. Ashyia is currently leading the implementation of SEE Learning across her school. She also co-leads the CIT South Asia program.
Anum Mulla
SEL Educator, Co-Lead CITÂ South Asia
Anum is a writer, editor and an empathy & compassion cultivation facilitator. With roots in India, Pakistan, the Middle East and Canada, she is passionate about the fluid interrelation of cultures and perspectives, and is a strong advocate of social justice and reform. Anum studied political science and history at the University of Toronto. She is a facilitator of the Compassionate Integrity Training Program as well as the Social Emotional & Ethical Learning Program (Emory University) and is an active member of the International Charter for Compassion. She was a part of the facilitator team for CIT for Educators in San Antonio, Texas, CIT for Young Changemakers, CIT for Educators in Africa and CIT for Educators in South Asia.