When Dr. Dipti Gandhi first began working with children with disabilities, she noticed a problem that went beyond the lack of therapy. Parents of children with multiple disabilities were travelling from one therapist to another, spending time, money and energy trying to find the support their children needed. For Dipti, a low vision specialist who had spent years working in the disability sector, this was a gap that needed a practical solution. In 2007, she started Muskan Foundation from a veranda and one room in her father’s bungalow in Kalanagar, Mumbai, with the idea of bringing multiple services under one roof at affordable rates.
Today, Muskan Foundation runs six centres across Mumbai and has provided services to about 15,000 children in the last 20 years, according to Dipti. Its work combines special education, multiple therapies, parent empowerment and awareness programmes, with a focus on children with multiple disabilities. For Dipti, however, the journey began much earlier.
A Childhood Shaped By Service
Dipti traces her inclination towards social work to her childhood.
Her father was the dean of Sir J.J. School of Art. Although he was a government officer and the family was not financially well off, Dipti remembers watching him care for his students and help people in need.
One incident stayed with her. A student whom her father had helped during an illness later became successful in Dubai. When he returned, he told the family that Dipti’s father had paid his hospital bills and brought him lunch every day when he was a poor student.
For Dipti, these experiences became an early lesson in service.
“Serving society was in my blood from childhood.”
After marriage, her husband also encouraged her to find a way to contribute to society. Around 40 years ago, Dipti began exploring work in the disability sector.
She initially went to the Ali Yavar Jung National Institute of Speech and Hearing Disabilities, but had to put her plans on hold after learning that she was pregnant with her first daughter.
A later meeting changed the direction of her career.
Her husband met director of the National Association for the Blind (NAB), who invited Dipti to join the organisation’s education department, With a B.Sc. in Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics, Dipti was told that her understanding of optics could help her understand low vision. She began training in low vision in 1996.
From Teaching To Low Vision Assessment
Dipti joined NAB as a teacher during the early stages of integration. In 1996-97, she also had an opportunity to receive training from the World Health Organization on low vision assessments.
To strengthen her professional qualifications, she later completed a B.Ed. in Visual Impairment, allowing her to obtain professional registration with the Rehabilitation Council of India.
After several years, Dipti resigned from NAB to focus on her daughters. But stepping away from the sector did not mean stepping away from the work.
She found herself frustrated that she had acquired knowledge and expertise but had nowhere to use it. She began approaching ophthalmologists and offering low vision assessments.
Doctors welcomed the support. Dipti observed that in other countries, ophthalmologists commonly work alongside specialists trained in low vision.
Her assessment reports eventually reached occupational and physical therapists. Through this work, she began seeing another unmet need: children living with multiple disabilities, including combinations involving cerebral palsy and visual or hearing impairments.
That experience brought her face to face with the challenges their families were experiencing.
The Idea Behind Muskan
Parents of children with multiple disabilities, Dipti recalls, were exhausted by constantly travelling between different therapists.
They needed education, therapy and other forms of support, but these services were often spread across different places and were too expensive too.
Dipti began thinking about a model where families could access different services in one place.
That became Muskan foundation.
The idea was simple: provide multiple services “under one roof at cost-effective rates”.
Muskan began in 2007 in Dipti’s father’s bungalow in Kalanagar. The organisation started with a veranda and one room, offering therapies for as little as Rs 50 or Rs 100.
In 2009, it was registered as a public trust.
The organisation has since grown to six centres across Mumbai, in Bandra, Goregaon, Parel, Wadala, Panvel and Kalyan, according to Dipti. Around 250 children are currently part of its programme.
Education And Therapy Under One Roof
While speaking to The Logical Indian, Dipti explained that Muskan’s work is built around two main pillars: Special Education and Therapy.
Its special education programmes include mother-toddler programmes, early intervention for children aged 3 to 7, functional academics and prevocational training. The organisation has also recently started a small vocational programme.
The therapy vertical includes occupational, physical, vision, speech and communication enhancement, behavioural and music therapy.
The idea remains rooted in the same principle that shaped Muskan’s beginning: families should not have to navigate multiple systems separately when their children require different forms of support.
But Dipti realised that supporting children alone was not enough.
Supporting The Parents Too
One of Muskan’s important verticals is parent empowerment, known as CAME.
The acronym stands for Counseling, Activities for recreation, Music therapy and Empowerment training.
The programme emerged from a deeply distressing experience. Dipti recalls meeting a mother who later died by suicide after killing her children with disabilities.
The incident made Dipti think about the emotional burden carried by many parents of children with disabilities. She says that some parents can experience suicidal tendencies because they feel neglected and frustrated.
For Dipti, parent support therefore became an essential part of disability intervention.
Muskan also conducts awareness programmes in schools, colleges and corporates. These sessions are designed to teach people practical ways of supporting persons with disabilities. Activities can include simulations as well as introductory learning in Braille and sign language.
Learning To Run an Organisation
Building Muskan was not straightforward.
Dipti had experience in education and disability services, but no background in running an organisation. In the early years, she did not know which licences were required or even that she needed an accountant.
She describes herself during that period as a “one-man army”, handling everything from education to accounting.
Support eventually came through Atma, a consultancy firm that helped her understand areas including HR, finance and marketing.
Her husband also supported the organisation financially, providing Rs 11 lakh during the early years to help Dipti hire staff.
As Muskan grew, the challenges changed. Dipti had to meet parent expectations while competing with older trusts that had access to greater funds.
Today, the organisation has a donor management team that handles CSR applications and reporting.
In conversation with The Logical Indian, Dipti also emphasised that building a social organisation requires more than a commitment to the cause. Understanding organisational requirements and maintaining financial discipline are equally important.
Why Dipti Wants to Stay in Mumbai
Despite Muskan’s growth, Dipti does not plan to expand beyond Mumbai to cities such as Pune or Nashik.
Her concern is maintaining quality.
She believes that running centres from a distance can make it difficult to maintain high standards and control the quality of services. Instead of expanding geographically, Muskan has built a network of NGOs to which families can be referred when they need support outside its reach.
For Dipti, expansion is therefore not simply about increasing the number of centres. It is about ensuring that the quality of care remains consistent.
Affordability Without Giving It Away for Free
Muskan’s mission is to provide all services under one roof at cost-effective rates and with the best quality.
Dipti has deliberately maintained a model where services are not completely free.
“We never give anything for free even if it’s only 25 rupees but we ensure it is affordable for the poorest families.”
The approach reflects her belief that accessibility and affordability do not necessarily require services to have no cost at all. It brings in commitment and involvement by the parents
For Muskan, the focus is on making specialised support affordable for families who may otherwise struggle to access it.
What It Takes to Build a Social Organisation
For students and aspiring social entrepreneurs, Dipti’s advice comes from the difficulties she encountered herself.
She believes that social work cannot be approached only as charity. People entering the sector need to be properly equipped, understand the licences and regulations involved and develop a long-term vision.
She recommends planning for at least five years and stresses the importance of transparency and remaining non-corrupt, particularly as government requirements around CSR and FCRA become stricter.
Dipti also cautions that social organisations may take years to become financially sustainable.
“Be patient; it can take 10 to 12 years to break even.”
Financial backing, she adds, is important. So are a strong website and social media presence, which can help organisations communicate their work and engage donors. The founders are usually experts in their own fields , but they must take training about other areas like marketing , HR ,social media etc
A Model Built Around the Family
What began with a veranda, one room and low-cost therapies has developed into an organisation focused on addressing several needs faced by children with multiple disabilities and their families.
For Dipti, the core idea has remained consistent: bring services together, keep them affordable and ensure that families have access to quality support.
Her journey from teaching and low vision assessment to building Muskan was shaped by what she witnessed first-hand: the difficulties faced by children with multiple disabilities and the exhaustion of parents trying to find the right support.
Rather than building an organisation around expansion for its own sake, Dipti has chosen to concentrate on Mumbai and on maintaining the quality of services available to the families Muskan serves.
The Logical Indian Perspectives
Dipti’s journey with Muskan Foundation shows that social impact can begin with recognising a problem that families repeatedly face and building a practical response around it. Her experience also highlights that sustaining social work requires more than intent. It demands professional knowledge, financial planning, transparency, patience and a willingness to keep learning.
For Dipti, the purpose has remained rooted in a simple principle: services for children with multiple disabilities should be accessible, affordable and brought together in a way that makes life easier for their families.
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