Your partner in care while you raise your family.
Meet the Team
Pallavi Poojari Mohindra
Co-Founder
A Chartered Accountant by education, M&A professional by accident, an artist by natural disposition, a storyteller, and fierce humanist, with a compulsive love of travel, Pallavi simultaneously inhabits a parallel universe of books and dreams and believes that the seeds of democracy and those for an equal and kind world are sown best in early childhood.
After having worked for almost two decades with the Big4 consultancy firms, the birth of her twin daughters in 2016 was an epiphanic moment for Pallavi. She realised the years spent with children in various roles- familial as well as her work with street children, coupled with her humanist outlook, were nothing short of a cosmic conspiracy to lead her to her true calling – Human Development in the Early Years.
Pallavi is trained in Early Childhood Care and Development and has since completed the RIE® Foundations: Theory and Observation™ Course in USA, and the Self-Regulation in Early Childhood Development certification course offered by MEHRIT Centre, Canada.
She continues to study in the field of Early Childhood to further deepen her practice and draws inspiration from the teachings of Dr. Emmi Pikler, Magda Gerber- the founder of RIE® and the Educaring® approach, Te Whariki - the early childhood pedagogy of New Zealand, Dr Stuart Shankar’s Self-Regulation method, Anji Play, Reggio Emilia as well as the Waldorf and Montessori approaches in early childhood.
She has been partnering with parents to help them ease into their new roles and specifically helping them understand brain development and the importance of working towards a strong attachment in the early years. In 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic, she founded a bio learning bubble for pre-schoolers in her locality called Tinker Lab, which is deeply inspired by the true play and self-directed learning philosophies.
Tina Reibeling
Co-Founder
Tina trained to be a pre-primary schoolteacher before studying Educational Sciences and Social Pedagogy in Frankfurt, Germany. Her training has led her to work with kindergartens, high schools and colleges in Germany, India, China and South Africa.
Tina has over three decades of experience-as an early childhood educationist to children between the ages of three months to six years, in setting curricula and advising parents and fellow educators on the educational and developmental needs of children, in leading training programmes in crèche and pre-primary pedagogy including psychological, didactic and organizational requirements, and as a Teacher Trainer.
She is a trainer for the Hessian Education and Upbringing Plan for Children from 0-10 years, certified through Staatsinstitut für Frühpädagogik (the leading research institute on Child Development in Germany), the Hessische Sozialministerium (Ministry of Social Affairs) and the Hessische Kultusministerium (Ministry of Education).
Tina is also a stress-management coach, member of the teaching and consulting panel of Bentner Systemische Organisationsberatung & Personalentwicklung covering Preschool Education and Cultural Training and always a champion of children!
She is at present, Deputy Manager of a kindergarten in Frankfurt, Germany.
Suzy Aranha
Co-Founder
Suzy grew up in a relatively large family in Australia, where she was often surrounded by young children. Her interest in children (and all they get up to) combined with the pedagogically questionable educational experiences of her own, a desire to provide better education opportunities for future generations and a serious belief in fun led her to garner an education in Early Childhood Education.
She received her Diploma for Teaching in Early Childhood Education from University of Newcastle, Australia; in one of the earliest programmes in the field, with a dominant focus on the importance of play in physical, emotional, and cognitive brain development.
Suzy has lived in England, the Bahamas and Germany, working in various childcare and teaching positions. Her experience of over thirty years as a live-in nanny for families with newborns and kindergarteners and her work in day-care centres and schools with children from the age of six months to twelve years, helped her gain the experience for when she had her own children as well as an insight into the realities and personal challenges faced by parents and caregivers when balancing work and home. She was made keenly aware of the adjustments and emotional support required to allow children and new parents the space to feel comfortable and thrive.
In addition to her many years of hands-on experience, attending a National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) conference in Miami with the focus on PLAY, renewed her vigour and conviction of the importance of Play in holistic child development.
Suzy’s current position in the nursery of a long day-care centre in Frankfurt continues to keep her involved in current practices and theologies of the pedagogy of young children.
The Story
The way Pallavi, Tina, and Suzy met is quite frankly, serendipitous. No other word could describe it better. At the core of their relationship lies a deep love for children, and India!
Pallavi, then pregnant with her twins, was introduced to Tina- who was living in New Delhi at the time- and the two of them developed an instant friendship. The seeds for The Nurturant were planted in those early days. Tina says, ‘I immediately took to Pallavi’s very down-to-earth way, the tender love of the body language between her and her husband and her way of talking about her children.’
It was chance that brought Tina to India in the first place- when she decided to join her husband in the country, soon after they were wed. While in India, having studied early childhood development and education, Tina was thrilled to have the opportunity to observe, interact and immerse herself in a new place and child-rearing practices of a new culture. ‘How I loved diving into the upbringing here and there, questioning my beliefs and measuring the practices I saw against my own knowledge’, she says.
When Tina returned to Frankfurt, Pallavi and she stayed in touch.
A year or so later, having given birth to her twin girls and hip deep in the black joy that is motherhood, Pallavi was reminded of a question- a moment of truth you could say- from several years ago, while attending Senior Management School in Copenhagen.
‘All of us freshly promoted Senior Managers shining bright and one glaring question kept tearing at me through all the trainings and celebrations – ‘Where are the women?’ Pallavi had wondered. ‘When I started off as a graduate in the Big4s, the ratio of men to women was almost equal. But as we grew senior in the system and just when we thought it was time for us women to shatter those lofty glass ceilings, you look around to find that just about a handful of those women have survived the years.’
Where had the women of Corporate India gone?
Now she knew.
Meanwhile, in Frankfurt Tina had met Suzy at the kindergarten where they were both working.
‘A person full of energy, knowledge, heart, and soul’, is how Tina describes her. Suzy grew up being part of an extended Indian family when her aunt married a man from Jalandhar and she became part of the local Indian community, its traditions and celebrations. Her early experiences and those thereafter introduced her to a wide range of cultural family and learning traditions.
Pallavi reached out to Tina- who then introduced her to Suzy- to help resurrect their old dream of creating a much required infrastructure for childcare in India, which could help parents (especially new mothers) cope with the enormous demands of parenting in a way that respects early childhood development needs and at the same time honour the woman within – her dreams, her desires, her wellbeing.
The Nurturant is their attempt to provide the much-needed village so that women do not have to carry this enormous mental and physical load alone. So that generation after generation, women stop disappearing from senior roles in public life or life in general simply because they had no infrastructure to support them.
What we set out to do?
- To create a much-needed infrastructure for childcare in India which helps parents and especially new mothers cope with the enormous demands of parenting along with managing other aspects of their life without having to compromise on either, owing to lack of quality childcare options.
- It takes a village to raise a child – to be the “village” or supportive community for new parents and help them navigate this new phase of their lives with a feeling of abundant joy and not of unbearable overwhelm and despair.
- To work towards creating a safe haven for the new mother to recover both physically and emotionally post child birth from where she can actively take charge of not just the well being of her child and family but also of herself – after all one cannot pour out of an empty cup!
- Keeping in mind the uniqueness of India, to be able to integrate this cultural diversity with compelling scientific evidence on the importance of sensitive, respectful and responsive nurturing during the early years on learning and academic success and ultimately in order to raise an authentic, confident and kind adult.
- To create a pool of early childhood caregivers who are seeing children with a pair of fresh lens that integrates their educational background in early childhood with the latest scientific evidence about children’s extraordinary brain development and the long lasting effects (more often than not irreversible effects) of early experiences with their caregivers during the crucial years on the brain.
- To provide employment opportunities by providing training to highly educated women who opted out of the workforce to raise their own children and who owing to their own motherhood experiences are passionate and understand the importance of human development in the early years and its lifelong consequences.
