Pavitar’s path to Peer Mediation training, like many of Calm Mediation’s volunteers tells us a fascinating story about the route into dispute resolution. Her career began in the fast-paced world of broadcasting in Singapore, producing and researching current affairs programmes for the national broadcaster. “It was storytelling on a big scale,” she recalls. But life had other plans. Raising four children and facing health challenges, including a diagnosis of Crohn’s disease, and surviving divorce, led her to a new calling: supporting people through counselling.
That shift planted the first seeds of mediation. In her counselling practice, Patient Voices, Pavitar often found herself helping clients with chronic illnesses navigate not just personal struggles but also the conflicts that came with them. “Sometimes it was counselling, sometimes it was more like mediating disputes,” she explains. “You have to know which hat you’re wearing.”
Discovering Mediation at Goldsmiths’
But the real turning point came years later at Goldsmiths, University of London, where Pavitar was studying for an MA in Anthropology and Museum Practice. Walking down a corridor one day, she noticed a poster inviting students to train as peer mediators.
“I thought it might dovetail nicely with my counselling,” she says, smiling. “I’m a great believer in adding to my skills toolbox. And honestly, it just sounded like fun.”
So she signed up!
The training was small-scale – just five students in her first cohort – but transformative. She learned the foundations of mediation: deep listening, empathy, and neutrality. She enjoyed it so much that she returned the following year to help train new peer mediators. “It was interesting looking at mediation from a different perspective,” she says. “I was fleshing out my own ideas about what mediation is and isn’t.”
Wanting to deepen her skills even further, Pavitar later trained with Calm for a second time, this time by taking part in the Community Mediation Skills course. The combination of Peer Mediation training at Goldsmiths and the professional training in the Community course with Calm gave her a unique perspective on how conflict resolution works across different settings.
Bringing Mediation to Ripple Primary
Pavitar says this combination really came together for her and was most rewarding at Ripple Primary School in Barking and Dagenham, where she became part of a team delivering Peer Mediation training to pupils aged 9–10.
At first, she braced herself for chaos. “I was anticipating riot control,” she admits. “But it wasn’t like that at all. The children were eager, thoughtful, and really open to what we were teaching.”
Over several training days, she says she noticed how the pupils really did absorb and practise new ways of listening to one another and resolving disagreements. Whether the issue was being left out of a game or a falling out between friends, they approached the sessions with maturity. “They were like sponges, soaking it all in,” she says. “Watching the penny drop for them was amazing.”
The programme’s structure – requiring pupils to sign contracts, complete training days, and receive certificates – gave the young mediators pride in their new roles. “It gave them confidence and dignity,” Pavitar explains. “They weren’t just playing at something. They were being trusted with real responsibility.”
A Ripple Effect Beyond the Classroom
For Pavitar, the most powerful part of the Ripple project is its potential to spread beyond the classroom. “That’s why the name Ripple is so perfect,” she says. “You start with a small group, but the effect spreads – through the school, into the community, and eventually out into the wider world.”
She believes the skills children learn through mediation are lifelong ones and Calm Mediation’s ethos of ‘train and sustain” is key to making this a reality – particularly as the trainers will continue to mentor and supervise the children to help build a solid, functioning mediation service in school and beyond.
“They’re not just for school,” she says. “They’re skills you use at home, with friends, later in the workplace. They help you resolve disputes – and sometimes avoid them altogether.”
Still Learning, Still Growing
At 58, Pavitar still relishes the challenges that come with training. Teaching children, she found, required precision and adaptability. “You had to be ready with the right answer, nothing more, nothing less. It kept me on my toes,” she says.
But she also found joy in the process. “I thought I’d be thrown in the deep end – and I was. But I swam. And it was fun.”
Her journey – from broadcasting to counselling, from Goldsmiths to Calm, and finally to Ripple Primary – has convinced her that mediation is more than a profession. It’s a gift. “These children might not realise it now, but being trained as mediators at such a young age is extraordinary,” she says. “It puts them in good stead for life. And that’s something I’m proud to be part of.”
Meanwhile, Pavitar will be back at Ripple Primary in September when Calm Mediation’s trainers will be delivering a refresher day at the start of the new school year.
