From First Facilitator to National Director: Lalithashree Ganesh Named Head of Brushstrokes of Emotion® India and Nepal

When Lalithashree Ganesh facilitated her first Brushstrokes of Emotion® session in India in 2023, she was working largely alone, in a country where trauma-informed care for vulnerable children was rarely available and almost never free. Three years later, the Darash Ahava Foundation has named her Director of Brushstrokes of Emotion® India and Nepal, a role that reflects both the growth of the program and the extraordinary contribution she has made to building it.

Ganesh is an arts-based therapy practitioner based in Bengaluru whose work has focused on some of the most difficult populations to reach: children living in care homes who have experienced violence, abuse, neglect, and the kind of deep, layered trauma that begins before a child is old enough to name it.

"The children have been exposed to violence, abuse, bullying, and neglect, and have lived in deep poverty since birth," Ganesh says. "The many layers of intergenerational and ongoing trauma are what I focus on addressing and healing in my sessions."

Her promotion to Director comes as the Foundation's India and Nepal programs have grown across both countries, a foundation she helped lay as its very first facilitator on the ground.

The work of leaders like Lalithashree is sustained entirely by donor support.