Touching Lives makes education, mental health and art accessible to children, youth and women from humble backgrounds, helping them become independent learners, and independent earners for life.
At the heart of our work is our Learning & Activity Center, a place where every child can say: “I am safe here. I am important. I can dream.”
A daily afterschool program for children from slum communities in Mumbai, activity-based English, life-skills, values and joyful, curious learning in small batches.
Therapeutic group sessions, one-on-one counselling, mindfulness and tools of Self-Work*, so children heal, build resilience, and grow with sound emotional foundations.
Online learning for youth across India, career development, financial literacy, life-skills, and monthly healing circles for mothers from our communities.
The Touching Lives Learning Ecosystem is a regenerative, integrative and healing-centered education model rooted in interconnectedness. Its Meta-Quantum Learning Framework recognizes that small shifts in curiosity, confidence, language, relationships and self-awareness can create wider transformation in a child's life.
At Touching Lives, education is not only about subjects, marks, or classroom learning. We see learning as a journey of becoming.
Explore Our Learning Model →
“I lived in a slum community along the railway tracks, with thefts, drugs and poverty all around me. Touching Lives brought a different world to me, the world of education. After years of their support and my own hard work, I got into college, and the money my mother had saved for my wedding, she used to buy me a laptop for my studies. Today I have completed not only my graduation but a Master’s degree in Psychology.”A Touching Lives student
The children we work with grow up in structurally vulnerable environments, tiny homes, unstable livelihoods, exposure to violence, and schools that often can't give them individual attention. A child may reach seventh grade unable to read three-letter words.
It takes individual focus and long-term commitment to change that story. That is why we stay with each child for years, not months, combining education, counselling, family engagement and community connection.
When Raj first walked into the Touching Lives Learning Center, he was ten years old, living in a slum community in Mumbai and studying at a nearby municipal school. On that first day he sat down with a mentor to read a storybook, and the session quietly turned into something more fundamental: learning to read the alphabet itself.
For the next five years, Raj came to the afterschool program without fail. Along the way he strengthened his academics, found positive role models, and learned the tools of emotional well-being and healing. He earned a scholarship to train at a local cricket club, visited international schools, and, most of all, found a safe space where he could learn, heal and grow.
In his college years, Touching Lives stood beside him with scholarships for entrance coaching and fees, along with academic guidance and steady support. When he completed his BSc in IT, Raj secured a stable job as a software engineer, the financial anchor his family needed most. As an alumnus, he received a further scholarship to upskill in Data Science and move into a better role. Today, alongside his job, Raj has started a venture of his own.
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Read our latest update →Self-Work Saturdays is a monthly online gathering created for people working in the social sector, NGO teams, volunteers, leaders and CSR professionals. Every month, we come together with a facilitator to explore a different self-work practice through experiential learning, reflection, and conversation. Each session offers a gentle invitation to pause, reconnect, and carry meaningful practice into everyday life.
Join Upcoming Gathering →Our founder, Sonia Mackwani, received the 100 Women Achievers of India Award (2015), presented by the President of India.