About PVD World Music 

Chance Kinyange Boas

Founder, Executive Director

 

Chance was born in Katumba Refugee Camp and grew up in Mtabila Refugee Camp in western Tanzania, East Africa. He moved to Providence, RI with his mother and three brothers in 2008. Chance graduated from Mt. Pleasant High School and attended the Community College of Rhode Island. He then transferred to Bryant University where he received a Bachelor Degree in Business Administration, majoring in Accounting in 2014. After college, Chance worked for prominent organizations such as Xerox, Yale University and Brown University. Chance founded PVD World Music Institute to promote and celebrate the joy of traditional music of African refugees and immigrants like him in New England. Chance hopes to pursue studies in Applied Ethnomusicology and is currently building a Public Library in Tanzania and Burundi. Chance invests his free time in the community and hanging out with his nephew. 

 

Padini Nirmal

Director of Strategy, Community and Research

 

Padini Nirmal is an artist and systems-designer with a focus on anticolonialism and sustainability. She was raised in a rich Tamil musical tradition and loves to sing with her musician-father. She holds a doctorate in Geography, specializing in decolonial feminist political ecology and anticolonial community engagement, and a masters in International Development and Social Change focused on participatory development, both from Clark University, as well as a masters in Communication and a bachelors in Economics from India. She has worked with social justice movements and grassroots peace activists from around the world for two decades and currently supports peace efforts by building sustainable systems and shaping anticolonial agendas for small and large organizations. She brings her evolving, embodied peace practice to PVD World Music, with a keen focus on decolonization and creating loving futures for all. She is also a practicing artist who makes slow and sustainable jewelry with mixed reclaimed materials, drawings with pen and paper and fiber art using the Saori weaving method. 

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