Leela Rao’s Priyanka Foundation serves chronically ill children in India through child life service programs.

MINNEAPOLIS – The Priyanka Foundation, which is dedicated to serving chronically ill children and their families in India’s hospitals, is opening the first-ever child life center in India this spring.   

The foundation, which was founded by Leela Rao, held an initiation ceremony for the child life center this past October at the Manipal Hospital in Bangalore, India. The ceremony included a lamp lighting that was attended by Mary Pawlenty, the first lady of Minnesota, where Rao lives.

Headquartered in Minneapolis, the nonprofit foundation will serve chronically ill children and their families in India through the Priyanka Child Life Service Programs.

 According to the Priyanka Foundation, child life centers minimize stress during visits to the hospital, and provide activities for sick children and their parents, including board games, arts and crafts, as well as videos and movies.

In addition, child life centers also teach relaxation methods and mental-imagery techniques to children, provide support to the child’s siblings, and also bring in celebrities, entertainers, athletes, clowns and others to  visit children at the hospital.

Rao herself became quite familiar with child life centers when her daughter, Priyanka Bhakta, was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of four in 1999. Priyanka, whom the foundation was named after, died during a bone marrow transplant when she was eight years old in 2003.

According to Rao, opening a child life center in India fulfills Priyanka’s dream of doing so. Rao said this dream started when the mother and daughter traveled to Mumbai, India, in late 2001 and visited one of the largest cancer treatment centers in India. There they witnessed a stark contrast to their experiences at Children’s Hospital and Clinics in Minneapolis, where Priyanka received treatment from 1999 to 2001.

Rao recalled that when her daughter used to walk into the Children’s Hospital and Clinics in Minneapolis, she was enthusiastically greeted by the staff and everyone made a fuss over her. They even knew when she was arriving.

In a statement on Rao’s inspiration for the child life center, she wrote that when she was inside the pediatric oncology center in the Mumbai hospital, she said the children looked terrified and the families were no better – one father told her that the sunset was something he looked forward to every day. 

From that trip, Rao and Priyanka decided to change the bleak environment in hospitals in India and create a warm, welcoming one – similar to what they experienced in Minneapolis.

Although Rao said Indian hospitals are efficient, progressive and are doing a lot of great medical work, empathy is lacking. A child life center would be a livelier place to give Indian children something to do while they wait and would also help make the hospital a welcoming place. 

“These diseases are not easy to be managed, it takes a lot. But what it helps is to have a system that you have enough empathy, care and especially for pediatrics, to make it fun,” she said. 

In addition to the hard work being done in India by Rao, the child life center is also generating accolades back in Rao’s home state.

Pawlenty, the first lady of Minnesota who attended the initiation ceremony in Bangalore, said she will support Rao’s child life centers in the future – wherever they are. Pawlenty traveled to India as part of a Minnesota trade delegation led by her husband, Governor Tim Pawlenty.

“I think that Leela is a woman who has a measure of grace and vision and I am certain that this is only the beginning. I know that when these families and these children experience what she has brought them, specifically in Bangalore, that there will be other hospitals in India who are going to want to model programs after the Priyanka Child Life Center,” she said. 

Pawlenty added that she connected with Rao on a personal basis – as mothers. She said they understand how important it is to care for children because they love their own children and want other children to experience this kind of affection. Pawlenty said the work Rao is doing is one way to share this maternal love with the rest of the world. 

“For her to take a grief experience, specifically relating to her own child, and turn that into something that is going to have a global impact, I think is remarkable,” she said.

With all of the excitement about the initiation ceremony, preparing to open the center and the possibility of more child life centers in the future, Rao has not forgotten this was her daughter’s dream. 

She said Priyanka was very bright, always thought big, had a ‘can do’ attitude, and always believed that opening a child life center in India was possible.

The child life center in Bangalore is more about operational plans and less about constructing an office or a building, Rao said. She added that a child life specialist has already been hired.

Rao said the biggest goal is raising money, but she is very confident that large organizations will donate when they see the impact these centers will have. When asked how much she is looking to raise, Rao said “as much as I can.”

“The sky’s the limit because the more I have, the faster I grow into every location and every hospital,” she said.

Rao hopes more child life centers will follow the one opening in Bangalore. There are 18 Manipal hospitals around the world (with the majority in India and three more being built, she said), and Rao said she is looking into expanding into every Manipal hospital, which gives them a chance to grow globally.

Rao was born and raised in Mumbai, India, and first came to the United States in 1988. In addition to her work with the Priyanka Foundation, Rao is also a financial consultant, and the founder and president of her own East Indian chocolate company, Raga Chocolate. Rao also was formerly on the board of the Cancer Kids Fund of the Children’s Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota.