‘Samvaad … a dialogue’ was established in 2004 to enhance dialogue and exchange of ideas to further the cause of emotional well-being.

Mithila Dalvi, a founder member of Samvaad, is a post graduate Engineer in Electronics Engineering from Mumbai University. She brings her Engineering outlook, her teaching and R & D experience to Samvaad. She is a counsellor , sex educator and also a ‘Fellow’ with ‘Six Seconds’, (www.6seconds.org) largest global network dedicated to putting Emotional Intelligence into practise. The organization is well known its research in EI.

Mithila had taken a break in her engineering career to be with her little son when the family was in USA. There, she had designed a number of games and activities for her son at home. Her son’s American pre-school came across these, and it resulted in the school hiring her services. It was here that she was introduced to American pre-schooling system and a different enjoyable way of communicating with children.

On returning back to India, Mithila got attached to her own school- Mahatma Gandhi Vidya Mandir- and a few other schools in Mumbai. She helped these schools implement the play-way method of learning, through changes in the curriculum, classroom logistics and training of teachers. It was here that she felt the need to focus on parents to help bring about change in children.

Samvaad initially conceived and conducted workshops for parents, which struck an instant chord. These workshops revolved around all the issues and topics so dear to the parents’ hearts. Mithila also started writing in newspapers on issues of parenting and adolescence. Eventually the work took various other forms – workshops for adults, projects for schools, labs for children and counselling for adults.

Mithila is accompanied by a team of trained professionals having extensive experience in the fields of parenting, teaching, psychology and counselling.