Smita Trivedi

Smita Trivedi joined NetAid as the Program Manager in July, 2006.  In this role, Smita develops youth engagement initiatives and trainings, focusing on issue research and curriculum development for NetAid's online programs and the annual Poverty-Fighting Summit.  Additionally, she supports partnership development with like-minded organizations. 

Smita holds a Masters in Education Policy from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a BA in Public Policy Studies from Duke University.  In 2004, she and a colleague started Indian-Americans for Democratic Education Abroad.  Through IDEA, they wrote a social justice curriculum based on Genocide and Ethnic Conflict all over the world.  They then implemented this curriculum in schools in South India.  Their curriculum culminated in Days of Action, when students were able to develop their own community-based learning projects where they addressed concerns they had within their own communities with pre-established NGOs working to help combat these same concerns.    

A former High School Social Studies teacher, Smita has taught in India, North Carolina, California, and most recently New York City.  Her work across the United States has been in public schools in predominantly immigrant communities.  She continues to concern herself with issues of Immigrant native language loss and advocacy for marginalized ELL students in the US public education system. 

Smita enjoys traveling, acquiring language skills, cooking, rock-climbing, singing, and dancing.  Smita is particularly fond of Latin American travel, as she lived in La Paz, Bolivia while in college.  She is still learning to navigate the New York City subway system, but enjoys talking with pretty much anyone who rides on the subway, whether or not she speaks their language.