• United Way India

Rekha joined United Way of Hyderabad in January 2013. She has 19+ years of pan-India experience in community development. She has worked with various communities which are facing challenges – women, workers in unorganized work sectors, tribal communities, fishing communities, and rural and urban poor. Most of the work has been oriented towards empowering socially and economically disempowered communities.

She started her career as a lecturer of Journalism. Her passion for community development brought her to work with over 200 NGOs and CBOs in Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. She has rich experience of lobbying with the government for policy change. She provided leadership to two large people’s networks to lead right-based campaigns. The networks are Andhra Pradesh women’s network in Andhra Pradesh and Forum for Crèche and Childcare Services (FORCES) in Karnataka.

She has authored over 10 forward-looking documents for large funding organizations like Sri Ratan Tata Trust, Alliance Network, Skillshare International – Value chain of Non-timber forest produces, ISB, and Goldman Sachs. Her documents were on Women Entrepreneurship Development Program, Society for Elimination of Rural Poverty (SERP), Hyderabad, and National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS) for GO of AP.

Her passion to teach, promote volunteerism and enthuse students to work in the social development sector lead her to organize student development programs for students from National Institute for Rural Development – Hyderabad, Osmania University, and social work students from various MSW colleges.

In her current role, she is responsible for operationalizing the vision, mission, and goals of the organization as both its programmatic and administrative head. Rekha has a Master’s degree in Mass Communication with a specialization in print media, advertising, and public relations.