Poorvaja Kumar is a social development professional with over ten years of work experience in the thematic areas ranging from livelihoods to education to health, and mental health.
She has been a student of Psychology and has Masters Degrees from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences and the London School of Economics and Political Science.

While her 10 years of work experience went in supporting both, national and international organisations in qualitative research and project evaluations, she simultaneously pursued her creative dreams of dancing and singing and continued petting and rescuing dogs of all kind. Realising soon that music, movement and animals, all have the potential for enhancing human lives, Poorvaja went on to certify herself as a Canine trainer, Dance Movement Therapist, and an Animal Assisted Therapist; gaining technical knowledge in each of her passions.

This led to the creation of  her ‘pet’ (also literally) project, ‘Humans of Canines’.

Trained under Shirin Merchant, John Rogerson and Tripura Kashyap, pioneers in Canine Behaviour and Creative Movement Therapy respectively , Poorvaja manages to bring both her love for the pawed pals and her passion for movement together.

As a trained dancer, singer and theatre artist, Poorvaja has immense experience of using all these art forms to help persons with emotional and psychological needs. With experience of training dogs of different kinds and all age-groups, Poorvaja is able to design and customise animal-assisted interventions as per the needs of the individuals or groups.

“ Music, movement and dogs have given me a sense of fulfillment and have also aroused in others a sense of joy, giving me a reason to go on – a reason greater than just my ambitions. I aspire to create movement, music and dance and enable a strong bond between humans and the canine ”

– Poorvaja