Jiva Core Team
Gideon conducted his first career guidance workshop nearly 30 years ago when he was still a college student! He subsequently established The Promise Foundation with the vision of conducting research that would inform the development of culturally grounded interventions for the promotion of mental health and emotional wellbeing. He holds an MPhil in clinical psychology from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences and obtained his doctorate from the University of Portsmouth, UK. His research led to the creation of the Jiva method of career development.
His Cultural Preparation Process Model has informed career intervention designing in many developing countries and emerging economies. Gideon has been involved in understanding migration, both of labour forces as well as the migration of jobs. He has attempted to articulate the impact of international trade, the emergence of a global workforce and the new international division of labour, from the perspective of cultural preparedness.
Gideon has published widely and his book, Career Counselling: A Handbook published in 2004 by McGraw Hill is today prescribed as a text book for career counselling courses in India. He was the lead editor of the Handbook of Career Development: International Perspectives published in 2014 by Springer, New York. He has published more than 100 journal articles and book chapters and has presented close to 50 keynote addresses at international conferences.
He is Director, The Promise Foundation, Founder-Trustee, Indian Association for Career and Livelihood Planning, Board Member, IAEVG, an International Fellow of Consortium for Multicultural Psychology Research USA, International Fellow, NICEC., Professor of Practice Martin Luther University, India, Affiliate Professor, University of Malta and visiting academic to a number of other universities around the world. He is an international development consultant to various UN and multilateral agencies and has executed assignments in over 30 countries.
He is also interested in craft. Mowyla (Move On With Your Life), is a company he has informally started that produces natural, handcrafted jewellery and artefacts from found objects. Gideon’s strongest passion is making wine! He has a small vine yard, where he grows an Indian version of Shiraz!
Rayan holds a master’s degree in medical and Psychiatric Social Work social work and a post graduate certificate in Career Guidance and Counselling. He is currently a doctoral scholar focusing his research on the home career learning environment and its impact on career development.
Rayan is Assistant Director at The Promise Foundation and leads the Jiva programme. Since 2012, when he completed his training, he has met more than 20,000 students from private, aided and government schools for career counselling through individual and group workshops Karnataka, Tamilnadu, Assam and Punjab.
He manages the Jiva Network of Career Counsellors which is spread across India and is a trainer in the Jiva certificate course.
Rayan, holds the post of Treasurer of the Indian Association for Career and Livelihood Planning. He represents India as a national correspondent at the International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance.
Swethashree is a psychologist and holds a master’s degree in school counselling from the University of Akron, Ohio and a post graduate diploma in guidance and counselling from the Annamalai University. She completed her training in career counselling in 2020 and with her experience as a school counsellor, has been highly successfully as a career guidance specialist. She has subsequently met a number of children for career guidance in Bangalore and Uttarakhand.
Khairunissa holds a master’s degree in business administration and completed her training in career counselling in 2020. She is a highly skilled and popular career counsellor and meets children both in individual and group workshops. Khairunissa brings many years of rich community based experience to the counselling interaction. She is based at the Jiva Center in Bangalore and has also conducted Jiva school workshops in other Indian cities in Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Punjab.
Kala holds a master’s degree in mathematics and completed her training in career counselling in 2015. She has been a part of Jiva from its inception and has been the anchor of all Jiva data management for the last 15 years! Kala has managed large research surveys and takes care of the analysis of students’ psychometric data for career report generation.
In addition, Kala is a skilled career counsellor. She has specialised in working in Kannada, with students from the government school sector.