About Amba Angels (Centre for Specially Abled)
Amba Angels Parents Association for Special Children is an association of parents and siblings working for children and adults with Intellectual and developmental disabilities (PwIDDs) to find a meaningful place in this world.
They offer a wide range of services such as Early Intervention, Psychological Counselling, Guidance and Assessments, Occupational Therapy, Speech Therapy, Special Education, Pre-Vocational and Vocational training, skill development, Internships and Jobs. Their objective is to provide them with skills to do their daily work independently and to become financially self-reliant.
Problems identified
We started working with Beena Dhakani (Amba Angels) in September 2021, with the aim to strengthen the overall organisational and programmatic practices though capacity building interventions. Beena is a very passionate individual with a strong desire to make a positive impact on the lives of persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities. However, at the time, and especially due to the pandemic, she was struggling with a lot of aspects of the
functioning of her NGO; including staff not being committed, board members not being supportive and most importantly lack of funding.
In order to ensure that the organisation is running in accordance with its vision and mission; and to be better equipped to manage challenges; it is important to know and understand the importance of building capacity of the organisation.
We therefore started with a life-cycle assessment that helped identify the gaps. From the assessment, the areas that we decided to work on were, Leadership and management; organisational structure; programme management and human resource management.
How we helped
We worked extensively on Leadership and management with a special focus on Board- composition, commitment, involvement and support. Following on from that a board meeting was organised to discuss, the strategic planning process and agree on goals and objectives and decide on an operational plan. Our CA supported Beena with legal suggestions for the same.
We worked on the Organisational structure including organisation design, inter functional coordination and individual job design. Following on from that, we delved into the human resource management aspect which Beena was struggling with the most. Finally, we did a few training sessions of the funding model and fund development planning. We worked with her over a period of six months to enable absorption and application of learnings. The focus throughout these interactions were on the importance of building capacities of an organisation, building strategies across organisational development areas with a focus on Fundraising, and the roles all stakeholders
play in the process. We supported Beena to streamline her programmes in line with her vision and mission. A plan to extend Vocational training was identified, and we supported Beena with proposal writing and creating a budget for the project.
Outcomes Achieved
Beena now has a CSR funding for her Vocational training project. She has five full time staff and four volunteers at her centre. She also has about 15 children attending the school and projects regularly. Beena has shared that with the critical aspects of her organisation running smoothly, she is now ready to expand and take the next steps.
