About Us
- About Us
- Vision
- Mission
- History
Diya Foundation (DIYA) is a Vocational Training Center in Bangalore providing education in life skills and employability skills to adults with intellectual challenges. Founded in 1999, DIYA is a registered charitable Trust. The need was for vocational training once basic schooling was completed thus preparing a potential workforce that has so far been greatly ignored.
Adults with intellectual challenges have a huge potential to be self-dependent and productive provided their training is structured and systematic. In the last 20 years Diya has impacted over 200 adults with intellectual challenges and made life altering changes in over 800 lives. These adults have had life altering changes in their self esteem, self dependence and productivity through systematic and consistent training in the Diya training program. They have learnt skills like personal grooming and hygiene, household and financial management, personal social skills, occupational guidance and employability skills.
DIYA provides adults and young adults facing intellectual challenges and disabilities with vocational and life skills, making them employment-ready. We equip them to become valuable contributors to society. DIYA is part of the transformational stories of over 200 such unique individuals over the past 20 years.
To see individuals with a disability and their families alive with dignity and pride in the present and operating with love, respect and confidence in the future.
To enrich the quality of life and bring dignity to differently abled adults by educating them in life skills and employability skills towards self-dependence, building support systems and enhancing awareness in the Community.
1999-2004
Diya Foundation began it’s journey in 1999 by focussing on vocational training. With ProVision India as a training partner products like candles, paper-mache, terra cotta and other new avenues were discovered and expanded to improve and enhance skills of our adults with intellectual challenges. Gradually, the Diya staff team increased and work began to blossom and become more structured.
2005-2009
Were the game changer years - Student and Staff strength increased; Our Chocolate Unit was established under the ‘Chocolyn’ brand. Establishing our social media presence through the launch of our website and facebook page; Registering as a Tier I partner with Give India; partnership with Whiteboard to strengthen Board Governance; Employee engagement with Goldman Sachs and CSR funds from 3M Limited; Diwali gifting orders from Himalaya Drug Co;, Hassan Gems, KPMG, Sobha Developers and others; Fundraising drive ‘The Rajyotsava Chinese Food Fest’ in partnership with Chung Wah and our participation in the Sunfeast World 10K for the first time.
2010-2014
Accreditation for desirable norms by Credibility Alliance; setting up Diya Innovations Pvt Ltd., our social enterprise as a sustainability plan with a vision to build opportunities for adults with intellectual challenges to work in an inclusive environment and grow towards economic independence; marketing partnerships with Social Heart and A Hundred Hands; EKTA, an SHG was started as a parent initiative in partnership with Industree Craft Foundation - a trial venture that brought in a lot of learning and was discontinued after 2 years. Our first successful student placements through Hindustan Unilever Limited’s strategic alliance with Sodexo India Onsite Services on Diversity and Inclusion Initiatives. Partnership with AIMS Multimedia opened up the world of digitization to our adults with special needs.
Fundraising partnership with the Cecilian Choir - created a lot of awareness of our work.
2015-2018
Fine-tuning of the person centered curriculum; Internship Partnerships with Colleges and Universities for internship opportunities that helped us create an impact and awareness about our work as a possible future career opportunity for their students.
Assisted Living Training was initiated to teach our adults with intellectual challenges that they can manage to be self dependent adults and change the mindset of their parents towards them.
Events like Raining Colors
an Art Exhibition 2015; Raining Chuckles - a Comedy Night 2016; Raining Goals - a 5-a side football tournament 2017; TCS World 10K supported by Radio One 94.3 FM, are few of our past fundraising events that helped us create awareness of our work and raise funds. Other events like Reboot by Ventures and Sahyog by Christ University and Quizzabled by Seva in Action helped build up our beneficiary social skills and self esteem.
2019-20
Diya began the year with our 20th Anniversary Celebrations. A very special highlight of the year was the show ‘Big Bang 2019’ by The Bangalore Chorus in aid of Diya Foundation.
Networking and Collaborative efforts with members of Disability NGOs Alliance, Mission 1000 and Enable India helped to create employment opportunities with Corporate Partners and standardize curriculum for employability.
- Our Board
- Our Staff
- Advisory board
A special educator by profession, Maria Santamaria (known as Sarah), started by teaching at a school for children with special needs in Mumbai. A Masters in Special Education in the Cardinal Stritch College, Milwaukee, and work experience in job coaching uniquely equipped her to start a Vocational Training Centre for differently-abled adults and led to her founding the Diya Foundation in 1999.
A trained special educator, Marguerita has a long history of teaching the differently-abled and underprivileged children. She has also conducted many awareness programmes in schools and teachers’ training institutes.
Now on the board of trustees at Diya Foundation, she also helps with the structure and execution of our training programs.
A graduate in Philosophy and a post - graduate in Human Resources Management and Industrial Relations, he has handled all aspects of the human resources during a career spanning over three decades and brings this expertise to the Diya Board.
Commissioned into the Parachute Regiment in 1971, retired from active service in 2005, joined Reliance Retail as their Admin Head for Karnataka for a period of three years, now brings his experience and expertise in Administration to the Board of Diya Foundation as a Trustee.
An Engineer from REC, Bhopal with a BE degree in Electronics and Telecommunications, he has, along with his corporate work experience, about seven years of experience in the NGO space as Co-opted Trustee and Director - Strategy and Relationship Management, which he now brings to the Diya Board.
Elizabeth has a B.A in Psychology and a PGDip in Special Education. She trained at Dilkhush Special School, Juhu, Mumbai. Elizabeth coordinates the Life skills training program. She works with our life-skill trainers to ensure that our beneficiaries learn to build up on skills in daily living and become productive and contributing members at home.
Dr. Babita has a Masters in Social Sciences (Psychology) and a Phd in Psychology. She works with our beneficiaries and their families on building self determination and interpersonal skills like being appreciative, building up self confidence and achieving job readiness skills for the future. Beneficiaries have really benefited from the individual and group sessions.
Shirley has been with Diya since 2000. Shirley looks after Employment and Employability skills development. Her passion to make a difference in the students she works with and her love for Diya are two qualities that make her indispensable. Her commitment, love and passion make her one of the most loved and needed staff at Diya. She has seen our students transform from dependent and needy adults to self dependent and mature adults.
Deepika has been with Diya since August 2017 and has a degree in Master of Social Work. Her skills in planning, reporting and organizing in great detail make her a good asset to the Diya team and a great support to her team members and the Diya Board.
Shaista has an MBA in Finance. Her meticulousness, commitment and ability to study the challenges in our fundraising scenario and skill in tracking, updating and building up donor relationships makes her position as Resource Mobilization and Communication Manager, a wonderful asset to the Diya Team.
Arun, an electrician by profession, now wheelchair bound since an accident on the job joined Diya in 2007. His commitment and desire to make a difference makes him a wonderful team member and a very important part of the Diya family.
Raju, a spinal cord injured young man has been with Diya since 2004. His determination and commitment to be a part of every activity and sense of enjoyment makes him a valuable part of the Diya family. His fun loving nature makes it fun for the students to work with him.
Raghu has been an inspiration with his fine sense of quality and perfection in every product he works on. Getting over his accident and reaching a stage where he is able to think of others instead of his accident has been a journey of discovery and learning and our trainees benefit from his sense of perfection and quality.
Padma is a new addition to the Diya Staff force. She is a life skill trainer working on building the beneficiaries on self dependence and teaching them new skills to cope with activities of daily living. A quick learner she is a good addition to the staff team.
Reena has just joined the Diya Staff. She has a diploma in Care taking and is a committed and hard worker. As a life skill trainer she too is working on building the capacity of each beneficiary under her in life skills and employability skills.
Jerusha has a Masters in Psychology from Montfort, Bengaluru and works as a Life skills trainer at Diya. She plans goals, prepares lessons and monitors the progress of her students, building their skills and preparing them to face challenges ahead. She trains select students on the Avaz AAC App. Jerusha also contributes to Diya’s ‘ Parent as a Trainer’ training initiative.
Preethi Meena has a Masters in Social Work from Kristu Jayanti College, Bengaluru. She joined the Staff Team in August 2020 and works alongside Diya’s Rehabilitation Psychologist on Training in Personal Social Skills. She also supervises job works that come to Studio C Cubed, our Digitization Unit.
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