Who We Are...

Tamahar – Centre For Children With Developmental Disabilities

Tamahar is a non-profit, started in 2009 by Mrs Vaishali Pai, to work with children suffering from developmental delays due to brain damage (like Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Downs Syndrome, Rare disease, Genetic disorders etc), from age 0 onwards, through the medium of holistic developmental intervention which combines a wide variety of service like Core intervention, Functional Education, Pre-vocational training, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, Physiotherapy, Music Therapy, Yoga, Arts, Dance and Sports. Apart from this, we also have services for the family like mental health services to help them cope with stress and skill development for mothers to help them gain profitable skills.

Vision

Prevention & Alleviation of developmental disability in children with brain damage

Mission

To enable children with brain damage and their families to live a happy, healthy and dignified life in an inclusive society through rehabilitation services, capacity building , community engagement and advocacy

Values

Opportunity : Opportunity to a person to grow as an individual and develop own personality
Unique : Acknowledging the uniqueness of each person
Inclusion: Including individuals from all walks of life.
Empowerment : Empowering individuals to make the best of their situation and achieve their goals despite challenges
Empathy : Understanding and supporting individuals through their life situations

Objectives

To help each child with brain damage reach developmental potential and learn/ acquire  academic and social skills …

  1. By using standardized tools to determine the developmental age of children with brain damage and assess the intervention outcomes
  2. By using standardized tools to determine the intervention needs of the child 
  3. By Early Intervention services  
  4. By functional academic program for children
  5. By Recreational activity programs
  6. By Auxiliary therapy services
  7. By pre-vocational training program for adolescents and young adults (OUT OF SCOPE)
  8. By sheltered workshop program for adults with severe impairment (OUT OF SCOPE)

To engage in capacity development

  1. By skilling the parents on holistic development of their children
  2. By offering professional development programs (OUT OF SCOPE)

To create a conducive environment for the families of the children with special needs

  1. By facilitating support group programs
  2. By setting up respite care facility
  3. By providing disability support services
  4. By assessing non-vocalized needs and pre-empting issues by conducting home visits to study/observe the home environment, family dynamics and support structure (OUT OF SCOPE)

To advocate and raise awareness about children with special needs and their families in the community

  1. By networking and collaborating with like-minded organizations 
  2. By organizing awareness events for parents and community and using publications and social media
  3. By Advocating for policy interventions

Our History

Our Way Of Success

To enable children with brain damage and their families to live a happy, healthy and dignified life in an inclusive society through rehabilitation services, capacity building, community engagement and advocacy.

tamahar2021

We started a new center in Chikkabidarakallu after identifying a need for special needs centers in suburban Bangalore. We started offering services only to a few children at a time maintaining social distancing while conducting online intervention for the rest.

tamahar2020

2020 was a tough year for everyone around the world. Even during uncertain times we did not cease our operations as intervention for children cannot stop. Instead we reached out to children using all the tools at our disposal – video/audio calls, apps. We started with simple art and music classes and slowly transitioned our 5 major programs online.

tamahar2019

WE TURN 10 THIS YEAR! We now have 12 programs and are looking to expand our budget to 1 crore! This milestone year is one of reflection and strengthening ourselves before we go to the next level, through extensive retrospective and active research & organizational as well as employee capacity building.

tamahar2018

Big year! Our budget increases to 70 Lacs and our team to 38! Extensive work on services for parents/families and on research and development. Started skill development classes for mothers and hobby classes for children! We became partners with Global Giving and got our very own website donation portal as well! Father Support Group starts again with 20 fathers signing up – bigger and stronger than before!.

tamahar2017

Royal Challengers Virat Kohli, ABD and Shane come to Tamahar! Nursery program starts! 29 employees, a budget of 45 Lacs! Tamahar starts training other NGOs across Karnataka in Early Intervention. Tamahar gets certified by Social Audit Network India as well as Credibility Alliance. Won the N S Hema award for outstanding NGO in Karnataka disability sector. We got our FCRA certification.

tamahar2016

A mixed bag of a year – 9 programs, 30 employees, Budget of nearly 38 Lacs! Park visits for children started at Gayatri Devi Park for children with special needs. Prevocational program and Sheltered workshop program started. Fathers support group went into a hiatus for the lack of participation. Both rural branches of Tamahar close down due to funding issues.

tamahar2015

Pali operations scale up! The second branch started in rural Karnataka and 2 more new programs, Recreation for children and fathers support group,were started at Malleshwaram centre. 63 volunteers and interns joined Tamahar this year for various projects. Our team grew to have 26 employees and and annual budget of 29 Lacs!

tamahar2014

Tamahar opens a new branch in rural Rajasthan! The Malleshwaram centre grew too big for one place! We split the operations into two and moved to two new premises!.

tamahar2013

Canara Union starts regular badminton coaching for the kids! Our relationship with CSR starts with the TCS 27th 10k run and the India Inclusion Summit.

Auxiliary Therapy program starts with Yoga, Music and Art.

tamahar2011

Second program, Functional Academics starts with 5 children. We successfully experimented with sports for children and started summer camps for them. The mothers support group came into being and we went from 2 rooms to 4!

tamahar2010

The one-one-one program grew to include 15 children

tamahar2009

Tamahar is born in a 2 room house, starting Early Intervention services for just 4 children, Vaishali Pai and Tripti B G as sole employees and an annual budget of less than 3 lakhs.

Founder

Vaishali Pai Occupational Therapist (OT)

An Occupational Therapist (OT) by profession and a Gold medallist in Bachelor’s and Master’s degree, with three decades experience working with big names like Spastics Society of India, Mallya Hospital, Vydehi Institute of Rehabilitation and Align Centre.

Vaishali has worked in child and adult rehabilitation in varied situations and facilities throughout her career. As a certified Early Interventionist, she is adept at handling infants and newborns, even as young as 1 week old. Her area of specialties are Paediatric Rehabilitation and Sports Rehabilitation which require different techniques ranging from OT techniques, Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Pranic Healing to name a few. Being a certified NLP practitioner has helped her to master methodologies that are adjutant for remedial teaching, for children who have learning issues, as well as children who may be on the Autism spectrum, hyperactive or have attention deficit issues. Soon, she plans to use not-so-known technique of EMG Biofeedback – that can help children and adults with physical dysfunction due to brain damage.

Our Management Team

Tripti.B.G (COO)
Sree.R.Rao (H R Manager (Honorary))

Our Trustees

Dr.K.Bhaskar.Pai
Senior Consultant
Dr.A.S.Arvind
MD
Ramakrishna.Y.B
Senior Consultant
Dr.Nilima.Rao
MD & DCH
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