Diya Foundation

Diya Foundation is a Vocational Training Center for adults with intellectual challenges. The focus is on Life skills training and Employability skills Read more training centered on developing their self dependence towards the future. Life skill training covers Activities of Daily Living (ADL), commuting and transportation, personal safety and personal advocacy, self-awareness, understanding strengths, self-motivation. Therapies such as Art therapy, Rehabilitation Counseling and Physiotherapy are provided to enhance all round development. Employability training is provided to enhance their chances of getting employment. It is in the areas like cooking/baking, hospitality sector: F&B kitchen, F&B service, housekeeping, retail, IT - graphic designing, photo editing, video creation, digitization of old photos, digitization of books for the visually impaired and scanning. Internship and placement opportunities are provided through partnerships with other NGOs and Corporates in the Community.

Vision - 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.

Mission - 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.

Diya Foundation is an organization that was set up in the year 1999 to train Adults with Intellectual challenges in vocational skills. They started as a sheltered workshop with 3-5 Adults with Intellectual challenges, and sold products made by the adults through their families and friends. They made profits and hence were able to find a footing in the community. After some years, the founder observed that if Diya remains a sheltered workshop the adults with intellectual challenges will not get access to the community and its resources while at the same time remaining in seclusion.

Diya’s big milestone was when they changed to a vocational training center and started building daily living skills, personal development, personal social skills and employability skills of the candidates. As a sustainability plan, Diya Foundation started its sister concern called Diya Innovations Pvt Ltd as a Social Enterprise and set it up as a corporate gifting company which hires Persons with Intellectual Disabilities.

Currently, Diya has tied up with Dusters Total Solutions Pvt Ltd, Lemon Tree Hotels, Specialisterne Enable India Solutions, and many other companies as their employment partner. The Adults after training in the Foundation will then be given either internship or employment at the partner companies.

In the last 23 years, Diya Foundation has built the capacity of more than 300 adults with intellectual challenges and more than 1500 individuals that includes the families, corporate employees, interns and volunteers over the years. We have also built capacity and brought awareness to innumerable stakeholders through parent capacity building projects, offering college internships and sensitization of corporate employee engagement.