About Us
Started in 2018, StepUp Parenting & Wellbeing is a premier parenting and wellbeing company, helping individuals holistically excel in their role as parents. This originally started out as an informal pan-IIM community. The IIM moms’ community, the equal parenting group (with dads) and the moms (friends of IIM women) 0-4 community are a great support for the women raising children in nuclear families.
Over a period of time, we found that the wellbeing of parents is playing a much larger role in family dynamics. Some of the issues that have been addressed are stress, fear, anxiety, postpartum depression, worry and effects of pregnancy on health and self-esteem, apprehensions created by return to work, division of roles, rekindling of romance, relationships among others.
This went on to include children and teens, working on their wellbeing and life skills – EQ, Growth Mindset, Addictions, social anxiety, bullying, kindness. Pilots are planned with schools to run these programs as part of the curriculum – for the children as well as the teachers. StepUp Wellbeing believes the earlier the children are trained in Mindfulness and other programs, the better they are equipped to handle higher level academics and workplace.
Our Founder
Sarmila Pande is an MBA from IIM Kolkata (1991), a Cost Accountant and a Developmental Psychologist (University of London, 2016). Post a successful career as a merchant banker & a business transformation professional, she has trained in Mindfulness (Oxford Mindfulness Centre, and Jon Kabat-Zinn, 2017), Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), Matrix Reimprinting, Parenting, Makaton and Pranic Healing.
Apart from running StepUp, she is engaged in various social engineering initiatives. She currently leads Disability for FLO (FICCI Ladies Organisation), Mumbai. She is also part of the national team that focuses on providing employment and working with parents in the crucial 6 years of development. Additionally, she heads a program on Women Empowerment against Domestic Abuse, within the IIM community. The group is working on increasing awareness about types of abuse, as also, creating safe spaces and resources for women facing abuse (physical, mental, emotional, financial, spiritual) to help them evolve from victims to thriving members of society. The group plans to take the awareness program to the workplace, colleges & other institutions to change the social fabric of the nation.
Sarmila promotes her thoughts on various social media and platforms and has been on regional radio as well. She is currently writing a book on Kindness.
