Vanita Nayak Mukherjee has engaged with gender issues traversing several paths as an activist, researcher, advisor, social advocate and trainer for the last four decades. She started out as an activist in 1982 working with women fish workers of Trivandrum coast on their livelihoods (SEWA) and was a part of three social movements – the fish-workers, the feminist and People’s Science movement (KSSP) – in Kerala. Her main interest and engagement recently has been on the right and access to health, including Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights. She was a Program Officer and a Senior Advisor on Gender at the Ford Foundation’s Delhi office working on Civil Society and Social Justice and the Gender, Sexuality and Reproductive Justice portfolios.

Currently, Vanita is a part of a feminist network, DAWN – Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era – as a part of its Executive Committee, and serves as a Board member with feminist and other organizations. Over the last 42 years, Vanita’s experience spans from the grass-roots level to the regional and international level engaging with women’s rights activists in capacity building through workshops and the UN agencies through their advocacy spaces

She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Biology from Kerala University, and a Masters in Gender Studies from the Institute of Social Studies (now affiliated to Erasmus University), The Hague, Netherlands