Yash Charitable Trust (YCT) was founded in 2014 by Dr. Sushama Nagarkar with the aim of enhancing the quality of lives for persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities (PwIDD) such as autism, Down syndrome, and other intellectual disabilities by providing options for skilling and livelihood and supporting their mental health. YCT aims to create pathways in the community to accept, include and empower adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

Yash Charitable Trust's vision is to provide opportunities for adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities to live and work in the community of their choice with dignity and self-respect. The mission of YCT is two-fold:

1. To provide skill development, training, and livelihood opportunities through the Skilling & Supported Employment Project (SSEP)
2. To provide mental health support through counselling, consultation, and other therapeutic interventions, to provide awareness and advocacy for PwIDD through seminars, workshops and to provide job placements through the Adult Support Kendra (ASK)

Under SSEP we run three programs - Arpan Food Services which is our daily lunch and dinner service which caters to families and office goers in the neighbourhood; Café Arpan is Mumbai's first café whose staff primarily comprises of PwIDD giving every customer a very unique dining experience; and the Skill Development Centre where adults who join the YCT team are given hard and soft skills training to gear them for earning a livelihood both within the organisation and elsewhere.

ASK provides support services not only to our team members and their families, but also conducts workshops and seminars for other professionals and organisations and offers counselling and consulting services to families outside of YCT.

YCT is a statutorily compliant organisation with all its registrations in order. We look forward to building a solid infrastructure and some robust systems leading to long term sustainability for all the verticals of skilling and training, counselling and therapeutic services and supported employment.