Laila Garda

Director – KEM Hospital Research Center

Pune, Maharashtra – India

Laila received a medical degree from Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences Sevagram Wardha and a masters degree in Preventive and Social Medicine from the Armed Forces Medical College Pune. She was always interested in community health and social issues from the start of her medical career, with a specific interest in women and adolescent health, women’s empowerment, disability, sex and sexuality, and HIV/AIDS. Laila has been at her organization for 23 years and has served as the director for the last three years.

Laila also works with another NGO called Helplife which assists in the empowerment of differently-abled adolescent girls. She is currently looking at creating model tribal villages addressing holistic development. She gets funding from national and international organizations and CSR.KEMHRC has a rural Women’s Skill Development Centre through which various courses are run for tribal girls. Currently, courses like bedside assistant, tailoring, electric wireman, and animal husbandry are ongoing. She would like to empower rural and tribal adolescent women and girls focusing on economic empowerment and rights. She would like to concentrate on providing women access to government schemes and laws by creating a local resource base through training of community and Panchayat raj members and developing an easily accessible web-based interface for bridging the gap between community and government.

Rise Up Cohort: CIP India – 2018