Mrinalini Ray Mehta Email & Phone Number

Throw her a curve ball and see her ideas thrive in action. Mrinalini is unrelenting in breaking down complex issues to their last thread. She brings an interdisciplinary approach, using various art-forms to engage with communities, applying an anthropological lens to examine gender issues and her theatrical background when exploring social norms. Her observations on unboxing identities helps her design custom suited strategies to address intersectional marginalities.Mrinalini has worked closely on various thematic areas such as Social Exclusion, Gender, Child Rights, Adolescent Empowerment, Health and Nutrition, Urban Poverty, Labour Rights, Migration, as well as Life skills development. She has been engaged in preparing Behaviour Change and Communication strategies and conducting Exploratory Research around Gender and Sexuality among other social issues.Her master’s thesis delved into the identities and lived realities of the Hijra Community, through ethnography. During her stint at University of Chicago, as part of a scholarship programme, she delved into the rehabilitation and resettlement of AIDS affected refugees and refugees persecuted based on sexual orientation.She has also worked on issues of women and adolescent girls’ empowerment through life skills development and has conducted various mixed methods research involving both qualitative and quantitative data. She has applied various frameworks and approaches to understand and analyse the underlying factors and implications of gender discrimination, namely lack of opportunities and access to rights, social exclusion as well as violence. Prior to joining Purpose, she has advised UN and philanthropic agencies on their programme strategy and conducted M&E for many of their programmes in India and Bangladesh.She has also co-organized a gender workshop in collaboration with the Multilogue Collective and participated as a speaker focusing on LGBTQI issues and used it as a platform to facilitate public interaction with members of the Hijra Community.Mrinalini is a visiting faculty member at the National Institute of Fashion Technology (NIFT, New Delhi), teaching Cultural Anthropology and Visual Culture. She is an executive member of ‘Legends of India’, a registered society to promote Indian Cultural Art Forms. Mrinalini is also one of the co-founders of Nil, a social impact lab that uses design thinking principles, empathetic approaches and behavioural insights.