Yumin Shivdasani

Age: 22

Home Town: Greensboro, North Carolina

Education: B.A. in English, Columbia University

Specific Field Interests: Public Policy, International Affairs, Tribal Rights, Women's Rights

Placement: VAAGDHARA, Jaipur, Rajasthan

Area of Focus: Livelihoods, Agriculture, Climate Change, Tribal Affairs

Fellowship Project: Conducting research studies, documenting case studies, and conducting field visits to promote food and farming sovereignty for tribal communities.

Highlights: Yumin is a recent graduate of Columbia University, where she majored in English and minored in Psychology. At Columbia, Yumin’s studies explored the overlap between Eastern and Western ideologies with a focus on the works of religious mystics, investigating how we as a global community might overcome the divide between these purportedly dichotomous regions. Yumin also served as the Book Award Chair of Columbia’s Academic Awards Committee, where she led a committee of undergraduate students in evaluating professors’ newly published nonfiction books to select an annual recipient of the Lionel Trilling Book Award. Her English degree evinces her long standing love of writing and literature, which motivated her editorial internships at the literary agency Writers House and the publisher W.W. Norton. For most of her young adult years, Yumin lived in a farm-based residential community for adults with special needs, where her parents worked as caretakers. Sharing a life, household, and community with the special needs residents, as well as with other caretakers and volunteers from around the world, taught Yumin invaluable lessons about building relationships with people from vastly different walks of life. She put these lessons to practice through various mentoring jobs, including as a Teach for America Fellow and as an ESOL tutor to Spanish-speaking immigrants to the United States. Outside of Yumin’s professional experiences, she is tremendously excited by Broadway shows and bodega cats. She is looking forward to connecting with and supporting tribal communities during her time at VAAGDHARA.