How motherhood changed a doctor’s idea of privilege

Dr. Shibal Bhartiya, a mother and eye surgeon, founded Vision Unlimited to support underprivileged children with education, nutrition, and healthcare.

Gurugram: When Dr Shibal Bhartiya became a mother in 2006, she did not expect the experience would fundamentally reshape her understanding of childhood, privilege, and responsibility.

Dr Shibal Bhartiya is an eye surgeon at a private hospital in Gurugram. (Parveen Kumar/HT)

A practising eye surgeon from Bihar, 52-year-old Bhartiya says motherhood made her realise how the struggles of underprivileged children often remain invisible to the affluent sections of society.

“People often ask me how Vision Unlimited began. It is simple: I’m a working mother. Every working mother knows it takes a village to raise a child. You cannot work, think, or dream if you are not sure your child is safe.”

In 2010,Bhartiya began interacting with street children near her home in Delhi’s Greater Kailash. She would teach and play with them while also building relationships with their mothers. Around the same time, she informally started a food bank with the help of family and friends, providing ration support to families in need for up to three months.

The work continued after she moved to Gurugram in 2018.

What started as small-scale community support gradually evolved into something much larger. In 2020, Bhartiya formally registered Vision Unlimited as a not-for-profit organisation. During the Covid-19 pandemic, the NGO worked with government and civic agencies to distribute food and medicines across urban slums in Gurugram, Bhartiya says.

“As a doctor, I deeply understand the importance of good nutrition. I wanted children and the people who run our homes to have access to food,” said the 52-year-old.

However, while distributing rations during the pandemic, a small interaction with a child changed the direction of her work.

“One day, after we had finished distributing food in a slum area, a child knocked on my car window and said, ‘Amma ab mummy khana le aati hai, aap mere liye notebook le aana,’” she recalled.

“That request stayed with me and later became the foundation for Vision Unlimited’s after-school learning centres,” she said.

According to her, Vision Unlimited now runs five after-school centres in urban slum clusters of Badshahpur, supporting nearly 800 children between the ages of two and 17. Over the years, the NGO has worked with more than 3,000 children through initiatives focused on education, nutrition, and healthcare, Bhartiya says.

The centres provide academic support alongside extracurricular activities such as dance, arts and crafts, and sports. Special girls’ discussion circles are also organised to address issues related to adolescence, menstrual health, and emotional well-being in the presence of female teachers. As part of its recent push towards digital literacy, the NGO has introduced computer classes across all five centres, benefiting around 300 children.

“We enjoy coming here. I have seen improvement in my grades after joining the classes,” said a Class 9 student enrolled at one of the centres.

The initiative has also transformed the lives of teachers working with the organisation. One teacher said she joined when the centre operated from a small tin shed.

“We started with very little, but today there are so many students and centres,” she said, adding that Dr Bhartiya also supported her in completing a Bachelor of Education degree. “I never thought I would be able to do that.”

Vision Unlimited’s work extends beyond academics. Children attending the centres receive one nutritious meal daily, while monthly health check-ups are organised for both children and their parents.

Initially sustained through contributions from friends and family, the NGO has started receiving Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) funding from corporates over the past one-and-a-half years.

For Bhartiya, however, the goal remains simple. “The idea is to move forward together. Everyone should have access to food, literacy, and healthcare. Change does not have to come through a big revolution. It can happen one child at a time, one jhuggi at a time.”

Today, Bhartiya is the proud “Amma” to over 1,000 families. The children are elated to see her during her weekly visits to the centres.