Ravi Ramaswamy

Ravi Ramaswamy (they/them) identifies as queer and has experience working with diverse communities. Using a deep understanding of issues such as urban poverty, education, child and youth rights, gender and sexuality, they have worked with the LGBTQIA+ community, inmates of the Bangalore Central Jail, farmer groups and youth from different strata of society.

Ravi was trained in Theatre of the Oppressed (TO) by Marc Weinblatt of the Mandala Center for Change, Seattle, Washington. Ravi is a trustee at CCDC and has led Theatre of the Oppressed workshops across India since 2011.

Ravi is passionate about working with communities, advocating the use of TO for developing reflection and critical thinking skills. They offer beginner and advanced level trainings in Theatre of the Oppressed. The core areas of Ravi’s work are the use of TO for Community Education, Medical Humanities and Mental Health.

Since 2014, Ravi has led workshops in Medical Humanities for medical faculty and students in various cities across India like Bangalore, Kolar, Mysore, Manipal, Mangalore, Mumbai, Bhopal, Jodhpur, Alappuzha, Sevagram, Wardha, Amritsar and Tezpur. In September 2019, Ravi also co-authored a chapter on the use of TO in Medical Education in the Routledge Handbook of the Medical Humanities.

Ravi has collaborated with the Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi Regional Institute of Mental Health, Tezpur, Assam ( LGBRIMH) in creating workshops especially for youth and mental wellbeing. In 2021, Ravi was inducted as a Trustee at the Hank Nunn Institute in Bengaluru, India, an organization working towards developing and delivering carefully designed, robust, low-cost, long-term, and culturally congruent mental health services.

Ravi is also associated with educational institutions as a guest faculty, taking courses in Sociology, Journalism, Psychology and Theatre of the Oppressed in many colleges in Bangalore, at the National School of Drama (Tripura), Tezpur University, NEF Law College (Assam) and the Applied Theatre India Foundation (Pune).

Ravi has a Master’s degree in Social Work (MSW) and over 10 years of experience working in the development sector. They have trained NGO staff from the Ayang Trust (Assam), Lok Biradri Prakalp (Maharashtra) and Sauramandala Foundation (Meghalaya) in Theatre of the Oppressed and designed visioning and mentorship programmes for working with communities. Finally, Ravi has also mentored several individuals with prior TO training in furthering their TO practice.

Through the practice of TO, Ravi leads CCDC’s work with communities to co-create and design dialogic, democratic and participatory learning experiences and pedagogies.

Ravi can be contacted by email at ravi.r@ccdc.in