Rajakumar Baskar A

Rajakumar Baskar holds a master’s in Social Work, with a specialisation in medical and psychiatric social work, from the Madras School of Social Work (MSSW), Egmore, Chennai. He is a professional social worker in the development sector with more than 21 years of experience in the domains of Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC), Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), Communication, Advocacy and Partnership (CAP), and Public Health. His functional areas have been Swachh Bharath Mission-Gramin SBM (G) Phase I & II, WASH in schools, hospitals, anganwadis and during emergencies. His expertise includes sanitation technologies, capacity building, data management analysis, documentation, report writing, monitoring and evaluation. He is recognised by UNICEF and SIRD as a state-level resource person for rural sanitation, CLTS/CAT/CAS, ODF, ODF-S, and Appropriate Twin Leach Pit Toilet Technology training.

In the past two years of the pandemic, he has trained and gained field experience in the implementation of COVID-19 responses such as the development of Information Education and Communication (IEC) materials, video bytes, short films on COVID awareness and the dissemination of COVID-19 related IEC materials through official social media platforms. He also has experience in organising and facilitating webinars on COVID-19 Appropriate Behaviours (CAB), myth busters and COVID-19 Vaccination for stakeholders, line departments, PRI members and media.

In the last six months, Rajakumar Baskar has been based in Tiruchirappalli as a Specialist-Social Development in the CWIS project. He works on behavioural change communication among the urban poor settlements to help them build their sanitation scenario, with a focus on converting settlements into open defecation-free zones and the conversion of insanitary toilets to sanitary infrastructure. He will also work on establishing CBOs that will help sustain CWIS initiatives.