Urmi Chanda

Program Manager (Mumbai)

Urmi is an experienced media professional who made her definitive foray into religion-based scholarship and peacebuilding in 2020 when she joined Seeds of Peace.

The organization has been both her school and her playground for her peace practice. She is particularly inclined towards arts-based social interventions.
Parallel to this, her PhD journey helped her understand the interfaith studies niche and work towards the goals of interreligious harmony and pluralism. Faith-based peacebuilding is her north star, but she loves working intersectionally, engaging with issues like climate and gender justice, human rights, education, and democracy.

When she is not occupied with her academic and professional pursuits, she makes art, studies and writes about peace, speaks on various public platforms, volunteers with other non-profit organizations, and helps build communities.

Her journey as an individual peace practitioner has helped her create valuable associations with several national and international organizations like Rotary, the Network for Traditional and Religious Peacebuilders, the South Asia Peace Action Network, and the United Religions Initiative, among others. It’s a path that brings her immense peace and joy and one she hopes to keep walking.

“In an eclectic career path spanning a decade, I've trained to be a clinical psychologist, worked as a full-time journalist, and been a serious academic. However, it was in the domain of peacebuilding that I found my truest self. At Seeds of Peace, I get to build peace in ways that I believe in and can meaningfully contribute to. It is a joy and an honor to be able to shape the mind of young people with love in a world divided by hatred. There is nothing else I'd rather be doing.”