As part of the Sir Ratan Tata Trust grant to the Early Intervention Centre four years ago, we were asked to form an advisory committee to assist and guide us in our development over the grant period. It was the best thing we ever did.
 The original committee consisted of Dr Vibha Krishnamurthy, a developmental pediatrician from Mumbai, Dr Shoba Srinath, a child psychiatrist from NIMHANS in Bangalore, Alana Officer, formerly Director of Handicap International, India and now with the WHO in Geneva, Dr Neerja Sharma, a lecturer in child development at Lady Irwin College in New Delhi, Annie Koshi, principal of St Mary’s School in New Delhi, Robert Kumar, founder of an Early Intervention Centre in Herbertpur near Dehradun and the parent of a child with CP and Brother Joseph Carroll, principal of St Joseph’s Academy, where our EIC is located.
The present committee consists of all of the above (with Alana advising from afar!) and the addition of Dr Preeti Joshi, also a lecturer at Lady Irwin, and Dunu Roy, director of the Hazards Centre in Delhi and a long time social activist.
Our annual meetings, which are always well-attended and extremely useful in our day-to-day functioning and continued development and growth, are one of the highlights of our year. We plan them out in detail and use them as a testing ground for new ideas and a sounding board for on-going concerns. Over the years, the committee has evolved into a close-knit and valued group of friends – people to whom we have turned time and again for guidance, advice and support. Through their involvement, we have widened our network and become more closely linked with like-minded organizations throughout the country.
We have benefited from their professional skills and contacts, as well as from their dynamic and proactive suggestions and creative problem-solving. In addition, by their account, they have also benefited from the association. Many of them have established relationships which originated in Dehradun and have come to rely on each other professionally in their own work. Most importantly, both Dr Neerja Sharma and Dr Vibha Krishnamurthy have established Early Intervention Centres in their own cities, largely inspired by the Karuna Vihar EIC. |
