Jyoti Pandey

Jyoti Pande is an educationist and a practicing psychologist with an experience of over 30 years in the fields of teaching and counseling.

She holds Masters and M.Phil. in Psychology from Bhopal University, with distinction of being first in the order of Merit in both. She also holds a Post Graduate Diploma in Psychological Counselling from Institute of Psychotherapy and Management Studies, Mumbai and a Diploma in Guidance & Counseling from NCERT Delhi with distinction.

She is a certified teachers trainer on Happiness from ICEP Europe (Institute of Child Education and Psychology). She is also a certified Happiness & Mindfulness Coach (Berkley School of Well Being and Happitude). Jyoti has also been trained in mindfulness from Mindful School (U.K.) and is a certified educator. To deepen her practice of mindfulness, she regularly attends retreats by AHIMSA trust, conducted by monks from plum Village (Thich Nhat Hanh) and is presently undergoing training to teach mindfulness to children.

In a career spanning 30 years years, she has made stupendous scholastic contribution in reputed schools, headed the Shaurya primary school in Dehradun Cantonment and worked as a counsellor in Army Public School Delhi and Kendriya Vidyalaya, Bhopal.

She is part of elite resource pool for NCERT, Regional Institute of Education (RIE), at Bhopal and Ajmer and undertakes training sessions on counselling skills for the teachers of Kendriya Vidyalaya and Navodaya Vidyalaya on a regular basis. She is also a resource person for TISS (Tata School of Social Sciences) at the School of Vocational Education.

Married to an Army Officer, she has been extensively involved in welfare activities for the families of defense personnel. She was heading the Counseling Cell in the Bhopal Military Station, and was instrumental in setting up a Wellness and Happiness Centre for wellbeing of army families at Bhopal. She has conducted Mental Health Awareness programme for more than 2000 families of Army personnel's in Bhopal, Bhatinda and Hisar. As part of welfare initiatives, she has trained the wives of army personnel (Bhatinda Cantt.) in basic counselling skills and took sessions on Career Counselling for 800 children of all the Army Schools of Jammu Division.

Given her interest for exploring new avenues that would help her to connect with others, Jyoti is now an established Story-Teller. She has been trained in storytelling by Geeta Ramanujan of "Kathalaya" the International Academy of Storytelling, Banglore (Affiliated to Tennessee USA, Edinburgh and Sweden). She has had the privilege of being trained by Margret Read Mc Donald (the renowned storyteller), Roger Jenkins and Sheila Wee (Singapore), Sue Hollingsworth and Laura Simms, who are legends in the storytelling arena.

Her passion lies in healing and transformational stories and has undergone training for the same by renowned storytellers, Jim Brule, Susan Perrow, and Lani Peterson. She is the founding member of Indian Storytellers healing Network (ISHN), that has conducted two successful story-telling charity events on the theme of "Watering the Roots" with well- known storytellers from around the world.

She was part of the FEAST (Federation of Asian storytellers) conference held in Singapore in November 2018 and Bengaluru (2019). She has successfully conducted training workshop on Storytelling, Mindfulness and Happiness for teachers and counselors in Bhopal and Hisar. She has also conducted workshops on Mindfulness and Storytelling for the teachers and Principals of Army Public School (APS) Pan-India.

As a storyteller she has graced various Literary Fests on special invitation, KCLF (Kanpur Children Literary Fest), BOOKAROO (Bhopal) KITABOO (Jodhpur), and ABHIVYAKTI, first ever ARMY WIVES LIT FEST ,where she was invited for panel discussion on Retelling Indian Mythology and Storytelling. She is also associated with 'Aarushi', an NGO for special children and 'Parvarish' the museum school for under privileged children, where she conducts regular story telling sessions for their growth and empowerment.

Having been trained in positive Psychology, Mindfulness, Emotional intelligence and happiness, she aspires to equip all with these wonderful tools of Well Being to bring about a positive change especially amongst the children and adolescent, through storytelling as a medium.

At present, Jyoti is a Freelance Trainer and develops need based programme for various organizations under her space SOUL KATHA, ranging from Storytelling to Mindfulness and Science of Happiness.