About Barbara Panvel
I came to Birmingham to teach and have paid regular visits to India, living for a quarter of the year in Mumbai for ten years from 1993. I joined the Centre for Holistic Studies there and set up a UK network [CHSUK] which has assisted work in several fields, including the updating of a database of worker co-operatives and a research study into the implications of the UK adopting a non-offensive defence stance (like Sweden, New Zealand, Switzerland and Japan).
I worked for four years with homeless people at Trinity Centre, Camp Hill and Highgate in my spare time and did a survey on improving job centres at the request of Cllr Theresa Stewart. After assembling a report for six NGOs into the effects of war on development in the Sudan, Ethiopia and Mozambique (1990-1) I took a master's course at Bradford's Department of Peace Studies, and my research into the use of non-lethal weapons to intervene in low-intensity conflict laid the foundation for the department's ongoing research in that field.
As well as admin for CHSUK I co-ordinate NEW ERA, a coalition of people linking twenty-four groups working for stronger local, regional & national economies, a healthier environment and a more peaceful world, set up after the 2004 World Social Forum in Mumbai.
Locally I am a member of our local community centre committee and currently am involved in opposing the Shirley Asda-Walmart development which is funded by the sale of parkland and an ancient oak circle to the developers for the building of flats.
