February 1st Conference
Workshops & Presenters
9:00a.m. to 12:15p.m.:180 Min
Cultivating Well-being Through the Practice of Mandala of Systems Awareness
Education today should reflect the way of living that we aspire to have.
This workshop will explore the Mandala for Systems Awareness, a framework to help us reflect and understand the complexity and interconnectedness of life, with its four domains: perceptual, somatic, relational, and aspirational awareness. Participants will experience the four domains through presentation, samples of simple mindfulness practices that can be done in the classroom, reflections, and discussions. We will discuss how experiential learning can facilitate the learning and practice, in the goal to nurture new and more compassionate habits. We will also share our lived experience in cultivating systems awareness in Gemala Ananda Elementary School, as part of the implementation of Compassionate Systems Framework.
Cultivating Well-being Through the Practice of Mandala of Systems Awareness
Jasmin Jasin & Sahala Harap
K-12 : 180 Min
NLP for Experiential Educators
This workshop, “Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Experiential Educators,” invites experiential learning practitioners to discover how Neuro-Linguistic Programming can serve as a multidimensional tool to deepen the impact of the experiences they already curate. Through playful, immersive activities, reflection, and laughter, participants will explore how NLP can enhance awareness, guide meaning-making, and support transformative learning. Glimpses of NLP frameworks — from communication models to levels of change and the art of questioning that challenges assumptions — will be woven into the journey, offering educators practical ways to elevate engagement, insight, and lasting growth in their experiential practice.
NLP for Experiential Educators
Anup Talwar
Experience Based T & D : 180 Min
Mindful Conflict Management: Building Collaborative Culture at the Workplace
In this workshop, participants will explore a chosen topic using Psychodrama and Sociodrama, experiential methods developed by Dr. J. L. Moreno. Through a warm-up, the facilitator helps the group connect and listens for shared themes or issues that emerge. Together, the group selects an action frame—a situation or scene—to explore these themes through spontaneous dramatization. This process allows participants to gain new insights, express emotions, and experience different perspectives. In the sharing and integration phase, members return to a cognitive frame, reflecting on their experiences and identifying new, practical ways to act in future real-life situations.
Mindful Conflict Management: Building Collaborative Culture at the Workplace
Rashmi Datt
Experience Based T & D : 180 Min
Connecting with the Self 2 through Self 1: Tapping into the unconscious through conscious triggers
An IPL Final, more than fifty thousand people in the stadium, all at stake, with 12 runs needed in the final over- imagine the pressure that the batsman and bowler go through. It is quite similar to what a leader would go through before entering a board meeting with 100CRs at stake, or when a facilitator is about to hold space for a critical conversation at a Multi national company.
In high pressure moments like these, how does one cut through the mind's chatter and perform to their best of abilities?
In this session we put into application the theory of Self 1 and Self 2, by Timothy Gallwey in his book "The Inner Game of Tennis."
Join us for an experience of tapping into one's unconscious through conscious triggers.
Connecting with the Self 2 through Self 1: Tapping into the unconscious through conscious triggers
Aaryan Sen
Experience Based T & D : 90 Min
Beyond the Binary: Reimagining Safety & Inclusion for Trans & Gender-Diverse People in Outdoor & Experiential Learning
Trans* and gender-diverse individuals often face barriers to inclusion in movement and outdoor learning spaces shaped by gendered norms and binary ideas of strength. This workshop invites educators, facilitators, and outdoor practitioners to reimagine what safety and belonging can mean for trans, non-binary, and gender-expansive participants. Through storytelling, collective reflection, and experiential dialogue, facilitators with lived experience will guide participants to unpack gendered assumptions in body-based learning, identify inclusive practices for program design, and co-create strategies for equitable access and affirmation in outdoor spaces. No prior knowledge is required, only openness to listen, reflect, and act toward inclusion.
Beyond the Binary: Reimagining Safety & Inclusion for Trans & Gender-Diverse People in Outdoor & Experiential Learning
Riju Banerjee
Inclusive Practices: 90 Min
SHAKTI Warriors - Warriors in Action
This interactive workshop introduces SHAKTI Warriors, a pioneering program that brings Social and Emotional Development (SED) to life through gamification, storytelling, and play. Participants will step into the SHAKTI Warriors world to experience how Nature, Play, and Purpose build resilience, empathy, and wellbeing in children. Through hands-on activities and gameplay, you will see how a powerful story transforms SED into an engaging journey that strengthens emotional regulation and social skills.
Open to educators, facilitators, and anyone passionate about children’s well-being. No prior experience needed, just curiosity and a readiness to play, reflect, and look at your own power.
SHAKTI Warriors- a curriculum building emotional strength through story, play, and connection.
Natasha Nayar & Lane Jabaay
Nature based Practices : 90 Min
9:00a.m. to 10:30a.m.: 60/90 Min
Immersive Sound Meditation Session
The workshop aligns with the conference’s focus on holistic wellness and experiential learning by offering a hands-on, immersive approach to mindfulness and mental well-being.
Through direct practice and sound-based experiences, participants not only experience mindfulness conceptually but feel its impact through Power of Divine Sounds.
Immersive Sound Meditation Session
Gayatri Singh
Nature Based Practices :60 Min
10:45p.m. to 12:15p.m. 90 Min
Forest of Stories: Exploring Identity through Storying and Re-storying
In Narrative Therapy, stories hold a significant value in a person's life. They shape our views about ourselves and the world. Through movement, nature and art-based activities, and purposeful dialogue, this workshop will explore the formation of the stories of our lives, our personal and collective Identities. Participants can experience a combination of experiential education practices, narrative therapy principles, and play activities in a therapeutic workshop. No previous skills or knowledge is required of attendees. The workshop content may bring up memories and feelings from the past, although focus of the activities will be on positive or preferred stories and feelings.
Forest of Stories: Exploring Identity through Storying and Re-storying
Mukta Joshi
Nature Based Practices : 90 Min
From Fibre to Freedom
"From Fibre to Freedom" is a hybrid workshop from the valleys of Ladakh that threads together the act of making and the act of understanding. Through the lens of spinning, an ancient practice rooted in the high valleys of Ladakh, the session invites participants to trace the journey of fibre from raw Pashmina and Yak wool to the clothes we wear every day. Led in person by Anchita Kaul and hybridly by Tsewang Yangzes from her home in Ladakh, the workshop combines storytelling, song, and hands-on learning to uncover how spinning is intertwined with identity, ecology, and collective resilience.
Participants will engage with stories of women’s self-help groups who have revived traditional spinning to rebuild livelihoods and rediscover community. Through demonstrations, fibre testing, and interactive spinning, the session brings alive the rhythms of making while reflecting on questions of time, labour, and care. of craft.
From Fibre to Freedom
Anchita Kaul & Tsewang Yangzes
Experience Based T & D: 90 Min
Stop Facilitating the Crowd. Start Designing the Interaction
The standard "large group" session is broken.We have all witnessed it: The energy drain of the "Sage on the Stage." The painful silence when a facilitator asks 100 people, "Does anyone have any questions?" The illusion of engagement where only the loudest voices are heard. To facilitate true transformation at scale, we must stop trying to "hold the room" and start "building the container."
In this highly active laboratory, we will dismantle the myth that intimacy requires small numbers. We will replace "Open Floor" chaos with Architectural Precision.
You will not just learn about these methods; you will experience them live, moving from chaos to clarity using a specific set of Micro-Structures designed to liberate the collective wisdom of the crowd.
Come ready to move. There will be no lecture.
Stop Facilitating the Crowd. Start Designing the Interaction
Vinay Sirsi
Experience Based T & D: 90 Min
1:15p.m. to 4:15p.m. :180 Min
Experiential Education and Social Justice: Co-Creating Frameworks for Practice
This three-hour interactive workshop explores the intersections of experiential education and social justice, inviting educators, researchers, and practitioners into a space of reflection, dialogue, and co-creation. Drawing on participants’ own experiences, we will examine how experiential practices can both reproduce inequities and act as powerful tools for liberation. Through collaborative inquiry, and simulation exercises, participants will surface lived moments of justice and injustice, analyze the dynamics of power and privilege, and collectively design frameworks for socially just experiential education.By engaging critically and creatively, participants will leave with new insights for their own practice as well as the knowledge that they are contributing to a larger global conversation on justice in experiential learning.
Experiential Education and Social Justice: Co-Creating Frameworks for Practice
Pratyay Malakar
Inclusive Practices : 180 Min
Atlas of Emotions
EMO Lab
Emotions are the language of our inner world — guiding our choices, shaping our relationships, and influencing how we show up as facilitators and leaders. But often, we move through them unconsciously, missing their signals and wisdom.
In this 3-hour experiential session, we’ll explore the Atlas of Emotions — a powerful framework called ‘6 seconds framework’ developed by Danel Goleman— to understand the rich landscape of our emotional experiences. Through play, reflection, and dialogue, we’ll map how emotions arise, what triggers them, and how we can navigate them with greater awareness and choice.
So as facilitators how do we hold spaces for ourselves and the participants when our emotions are at play!
Atlas of Emotions :EMO Lab
Kavitha Talreja & Roopashree Surana
Experienced Based T & D: 60 Min
1:15p.m. to 2:45p.m. : 90 Min
Seeing Experiential Education in Classrooms through a Montessori Lens
This experiential session invites educators and facilitators to step into the Montessori approach as a way at looking at EE.
Montessori said that the best classrooms are those that can function independently and one cant see an adult in the class.
The workshop offers an experiential session to the teachers , parents and educators based on how to use Montessori principles to re-design and scaffold their learning spaces to allow choice, independence, hands on learning, purposefulness.
Seeing Experiential Education in Classrooms through a Montessori Lens
Ashima Sheth
K-12 : 90 Min
The body knows your power:
Embodied learning to nurture learners’ agency
Many learners enter educational spaces with a limited sense of agency, particularly when previous learning experiences have emphasized control, evaluation, and conformity over autonomy and exploration. Yet agency is not only a mindset—it is an embodied capacity to act intentionally, grounded in freedom to choose, confidence in one’s capability, and a sense of connection with others. This 90-minute session invites participants to rediscover agency through their own bodies and relationships, using improvisational theatre, guided movement, and reflection inspired by Self-Determination Theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985). Participants will explore how autonomy, relatedness, and mastery live as sensations, not just concepts, and how these inner resources can be nurtured in others. No prior experience is required—only curiosity and willingness to move, sense, and learn together.
The body knows your power:
Embodied learning to nurture learners’ agency
Niken Rasarati & Tuuli Utriainen
Experience Based T & D: 90 Min
'Embodied Listening': The Art of Receiving
Growing up, we all were taught that 'listening is a virtue'. As coaches, cousellors, consultants, teachers, and service givers at large, this virtue feels more relevant to us than ever and most of us start relearning how to listen intently so that we can serve better.
In the 'Embodied Listening' workshop, we shall experience how the act and presence of deep listening actually feels like. A framework called 'Open Window Listening' will be introduced to practice embodied listening.
"As one listens to others, one learns to better listen to one's own inner world and make sense of personal experiences." Through this practice, let's begin to receive the world, and ourselves with greater clarity.
Embodied Listening: The Art of Receiving
Nidhi Chavan
Experience Based T & D : 60 Min
What can Leaders learn from School Principals
The workshop will explore the critical role Program Leaders play in the success of a program unit. The participants will explore the three board frameworks (People, Program, Operations) within which a program leader operates to meet the objectives. The workshop will let the participants navigate through the skills, knowledge and behaviors that make a successful program leader.
Caroline and Somsuvra, while coaching program leaders and operating initiatives to develop program leaders, have extensively used experiential methodology. Their own experience of operating initiatives for program leadership, and having worked with and coached program leaders, will help the participants draw parallels between program leadership and organizational leadership.
What can Leaders Learn from School Principals
Caroline Nagar & Somsuvra Chatterjee
Experienced Based T & D: 180 Min
3:00p.m. to 4:30p.m.: 90 Min
Panels of Possibility: Learning Comic Writing as an EE Tool
A fabulous tool that engages Head, Heart and Hand beautifully, the possibilities of Comic-Writing can be endless! They can make for great communication pieces, ready reckoners, visual aids in Facilitation, humour devices – you name it! Used judiciously, comics can be like colourful little superheroes - simplifying complex ideas, enabling powerful reflection, and making learning fun, across age-groups and audience profiles.
In this workshop, through guided Activity-Based Learning, participants explore the building blocks of Comic-Writing, and learn to apply these techniques to scripting, visual narration and design. The session blends storytelling, creativity, pedagogy and facilitation, and equips participants with skills to design memorable, engaging learning experiences, one panel at a time!
Panels of Possibility: Learning Comic Writing as an EE Tool
Tanushree Banerji
Experience Based T & D : 90 Min
Contexual Sensitisers > Icebreakers / Deinhibitisers / Energisers
"Icebreakers / Deinhibitisers / Energisers" are the tools used by every facilitator / trainer and thereby are found in abundance in the toolkit.
"Contextual Sensitisers" is a tool which is many times found missing in the toolkit of some facilitator / trainer. This tool not only satisfies all the above ... it also, adds relevance to the overall agenda and helps the flow move towards accomplishment of 'session / workshop' agenda.
This workshop will bring awareness amongst the participants towards understanding the 4Ws + 1H of these tools (What they mean - Why they need to be conducted - Whom to be conducted for - When can they be conducted - How are they conducted).
Contexual Sensitisers > Icebreakers / Deinhibitisers / Energisers
Rutesh Panditrao
Experience Based T & D: 90 Min
Designing the Experience: The Art & Architecture of Transformative Learning
This presentation explores Experience Design as the intentional architecture behind powerful experience-based training. Moving beyond “learning by doing,” Experience Design focuses on crafting immersive journeys that engage participants cognitively, emotionally, and behaviourally, turning moments of participation into moments of transformation.
Drawing from the principles of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle, design thinking, and theatre-based pedagogy, this interactive session unpacks the how of designing learning experiences, that truly matter. Participants will step into the role of “experience architects,” exploring how to shape environments, emotions, and interactions that generate insight and behavioural change. Through live micro-activities, short design challenges, and reflective dialogue, attendees will learn how to build the arc of experience: from initial curiosity and tension, through discovery, to integration and application.
Designing the Experience: The Art & Architecture of Transformative Learning
Usha Krishnan & Pooranasoundari Venkatesan
Experienced Based T & D: 60 Min
Feel, Play, Grow
Step into a space where learning feels alive, where curiosity, play, and reflection meet. Come as you are, with childlike spontaneity or an adult’s wisdom, as we explore how experiential methodology can help us build more connected classrooms and relationships. Through playful, hands-on activities that engage the head, heart, and hands, participants will discover how joyful learning nurtures emotional intelligence and authentic connection. Expect laughter, small moments of insight, and practical takeaways to bring into your classrooms, homes, and communities. No prior experience is required; just an open mind and a willingness to play, feel, and grow together.
Feel, Play, Grow
Hemali Gandhi
K-12 : 90 Min