Consultant – Associate Lead Partnerships – Telangana (South Hub –
Systems Demonstrations)
About Dream a Dream
Dream a Dream is a non-profit organization working to transform the experience of education for the
130+ million children living in poverty in India. Our aim is to change the purpose of education towards the
idea of Thriving for every child. Since 1999, Dream a Dream has mainstreamed life skills as a critical
approach to help children overcome adversity and learn to thrive. Today, the organization is transforming
the Indian education ecosystem through its own programmes, through curriculum and pedagogical
innovations and through the development of holistic assessment frameworks while also shifting the
narratives around the purpose of education. Dream a Dream’s work is spread across 7 Indian states with
a reach of over 3.6 million children through strategic partnerships with state governments and
collaborations with other non-profits and funders in India.
Role: Consultant – Associate Lead Partnerships – Telangana
Reporting Manager: Program Lead
Type: Full-time Consultant
Location: Telangana
Salary Per Annum: INR 12,48,000/-
Last date of application: 31st Oct 2026
Role Summary:
As the Consultant -Associate Lead in Dream a Dream’s South Hub you will anchor Dream a Dream’s work
within the state by focusing on how life skills and social-emotional learning move from isolated
experiences to embedded system practices.
This role is not centred on expanding programs, but on deepening how the system understands, relates
to, and sustains the idea of thriving within its existing structures. The State Lead works closely with
institutions such as Samagra Shiksha in Telangana,SSA, SCERT,DIETs,WCD,KGBV and school ecosystems to
ensure that practices are contextual, owned by stakeholders, and integrated into everyday routinesrather
than remaining dependent on external facilitation.
A key aspect of this role is the ability to hold relationships across multiple levels of the system,
policymakers, administrators, educators, and ecosystem partners, and support them in moving from
participation to ownership. This includes enabling reflective spaces, strengthening follow-through, and
ensuring that ideas travel across layers of the system with clarity and coherence. At the same time, the
role carries responsibility for holding the internal team with stability and direction, especially in contexts
of ambiguity. This involves creating a culture of trust, reflection, and shared ownership, where team
members feel supported while being able to contribute meaningfully to the system work.
This is a deeply relational and systems-oriented role, requiring patience, clarity of intent, and the
ability to translate insights from the ground into structures, practices, and narratives that can sustain
over time.
Key Responsibilities
1. System integration and continuity
• Enable integration of life skills and SEL practices within existing government
structures (SCERT, Samagra Shiksha in Telangana ,SSA,DIETs, KGBV schools, and The
Women Development and Child Welfare (WDCW) Department of Telangana )
• Strengthen follow-up mechanisms, routines, and processes that allow practices to
sustain beyond individual engagements
• Support stakeholders in understanding and reflecting on their own practices
• Support stakeholders in moving from experiencing facilitation to independently holding
and adapting practices
• Identify leverage points within the system
2.Stakeholder relationship and system alignment
• Build and sustain high-trust relationships with state, district, and institutional
stakeholders
• Engage stakeholders through dialogue, reflection, and co-creation rather than directive
implementation
• Navigate system complexity, leadership transitions, and evolving priorities with
steadiness and clarity
• Support alignment across different levels of the system to ensure coherence in intent and
action
• Create experiential learning opportunities for educators, DIET faculty, administrators, and
policymakers
• Support integration of SEL and life skills through existing platforms and initiatives within
the system
3.Narrative and ecosystem engagement
• Build and strengthen a contextual narrative around thriving within Telangana education
ecosystem with the support of your team
• Use field insights and evidence to build credible narratives and case studies that reflect
on-ground shifts and learning
• Capture and amplify voices from the ground: educators, young people, and system actors
• Create platforms and spaces that enable shared reflection and dialogue across
stakeholders
• Contribute to shaping how the ecosystem understands and engages with life skills and
SEL
4.Insight building and decision-making
• Capture qualitative insights from field engagements, system conversations, and team
reflections through MEL processes
• Synthesize patterns from observations to inform planning and decision-making
• Translate insights into actionable decisions, processes, and improvements
• Develop grounded and adaptable ways to understand whether practices are being
adopted and sustained
• Use MEL processes to build shared understanding within the team, ensuring
alignment on observations, learning, and evolving direction of the work
• Use evidence to guide strategic choices
5.Team leadership and culture
• Provide stability, clarity, and direction to the South Hub Telangana team
• Create regular spaces for reflection, alignment, and learning within the team
• Foster a culture of trust, dignity, and inclusion
• Support team members in building facilitation depth, system understanding, and
ownership
General responsibilities
• Contribute to South Hub strategy and cross-state learning
• Collaborate with other internal teams
• Uphold Dream a Dream’s values of equity, dignity, and inclusion
• Travel across Telangana as required
Skills required for the role
• Strong systems thinking. Able to connect field insights to system structures and
sustained practice.
• Able to hold reflective, inclusive spaces across different stakeholders.
• Ability to build and sustain trust with government stakeholders across levels.
• Strong writing and documentation skills. Able to clearly capture insights through reports,
notes, and case studies.
• Understanding of monitoring, evaluation, and learning (MEL) as a tool for sense-making.
• Able to identify simple indicators of change (mindset, behavior, ownership).
• Able to capture qualitative insights and synthesize patterns.
• Ability to translate observations into clear processes, follow-ups, and routines.
• Strong planning and follow-through. Able to manage multiple workstreams with clarity.
• Ability to hold teams with care while enabling ownership and accountability.
• Comfortable working with ambiguity while staying grounded in purpose.
Qualifications for the role
• Education in Public Policy, Social Sciences, Education or related fields.
• At least 5 years in leadership roles within education or non-profit sectors, focusing on
complex program management and strategic partnerships.
• Proven track record of collaboration with government bodies and education stakeholders.
• Fluent in English, Telugu additional regional language skills are advantageous.
• Experience in educational policy, SEL, or life skills programs is highly desirable.
• Comfort with Canva or Adobe tools will be an added advantage.
• Comfort with MS Office tools and willingness to learn simple data tracking/reporting tools.
You will thrive in this role if you:
• Deeply reflective and believe in transformation over transaction.
• Understand government systems, systems change and can navigate power with empathy and
invitation.
• Balancing structure with fluidity and plans with emergence.
• Passionate about building long-term public systems capability.
• Enjoy holding vision, complexity, nuance, and conflict as part of change work.
How to Apply:
Please email to nanjegowda@dreamadream.org with the job title in the subject line along with resume and cover letter.
Only shortlisted candidates will be contacted.
Dream a Dream is committed to upholding diversity and inclusion in our workplace, and we strongly
encourage people from underrepresented groups, within the organization and outside, to apply to
open positions. We embrace our employees’ differences of religion or belief, caste, race, age, ethnicity,
sexual orientation gender, gender identity or expression, language differences, family or marital status,
physical, mental and development abilities, social or economic class, education, work and behavioral
styles, political affiliation, and other characteristics that make us unique.