Moy Moy was born on the side of a road in the Indian Himalayas. Twelve weeks premature, she weighed just under a kilo. Underweight preemies are at high risk for having a disability, and the couple who adopted Moy Moy two weeks later weren’t surprised when she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy.
What did surprise them was how much fun she was and how much she wanted to do. Like their two homemade children, Moy Moy was mischievous, curious and always eager to be a part of whatever was going on. But there was no school for Moy Moy. No school was ready to admit this lively, spirited little girl who had her own unique way of learning.
In 1994, when Moy Moy was five, her mother Jo started Latika in Dehradun. “I wanted Moy Moy to have the same opportunities as our two homemade children had,” she says. “And when I realized how many kids like Moy Moy were being left out of the system, I knew we had to do something.”
Over the years, thousands of children have been part of this magical place where learning, laughter and love go hand in hand and where every child is helped to develop in their own best way.
Now, after 28 years in rented buildings, Latika is creating a purpose-built campus for disabled children in Dehradun. Our state-of-the-art center will be built on universal design principles and demonstrate to India the true meaning of inclusion.
This is an emotional and important moment for us. Fifteen per cent of our population is disabled. That’s 220 million people! 65 million of them are children.
Yet India has only a handful of disability organisations with a global vision and the passion to achieve it. Latika is one of them. Our home-grown staff of 120 professionals know each child – and their family – personally. Our prize-winning work is evidence-based and we do what we do with energy, love and pride. We live and breathe inclusion and we love and accept every child just the way they are.
Children like Vishal, who was bullied and taunted so much in his neighborhood that he thought his actual name was “Pagal” (maniac). After a few months at Latika, he proudly enters school each morning shouting happily: “I’m here! I’m VISHAL!”
Children like Kartik who, at the age of three, still wasn’t talking. After joining our inclusive after-school program and meeting other children for the first time, Kartik slowly began to master the art of communication with help from our gifted teachers and therapists. His single Mom joined our parent support group and learned from other moms how to take care of her little boy without beating him and how important it is for kids to meet other kids. 
Children like Kritika, whose behavior was so unmanageable even her parents were afraid of her. After a few months of consistent structure and a set of adults who knew that her difficult behaviour was due to frustration and communication problems, Kritika was a model student; after a year, she was able to join a mainstream school where she even won an award for good conduct.
Moy Moy left us in 2018. Before she died, we promised her that we would build a school for her friends that would be so beautiful people would come from all over India just to see it – a building designed for everyone, a magic carpet ride of a building with lifts, ramps, Braille signage, calm-down spaces, wide doorways, adaptive furniture and playground equipment you can use even in a wheelchair, a building that recognises that every child is unique and irreplaceable and hard wired to learn.
Our building partner is Cushman & Wakefield, the world-renowned real estate giant. They’re providing pro-bono project management services and a large upfront donation to kickstart the fun. Their support for our building project for disabled kids in India has given our donors the confidence that our dreams will actually come true. Because dreams are one thing; professional skill, technical expertise and years of global experience are something else.
We’ve already raised Rs 10 crore for Moy Moy’s school. Our goal for this phase of our campaign is Rs 50 lakh. We’re running an exciting fundraising campaign on the Give India platform, and today, we moved from #33 on the leaderboard to #6. Why? Because our own staff and former staff began to donate in DROVES. In two hours, we’ve raised over Rs 4 lakh! If we move to #5, we win a sweet bonus amount from Give India!
We’re counting on those who share our vision of a better world for disabled children to help us get there. Because every child is somebody’s Moy Moy.
