✞ KINGDOM OUTREACH
Nireekshana
Hope
The story of Daya and Christopher Martin, and the daughter who carries their mantle
Rohini Abigail Martin, as told to Grace David
🌱 A Question That Changed a Life
My mother Daya came to teach at Baldwin Girls’ High School in 1966.
She was a resident staff member, and it was there that Miss Ann Tillou, an American missionary, asked her a question that changed the direction of her life.
“If everyone came to teach at the normal school, who would teach the children with special needs?”
The question took root.
Sometime around 1969–70, my mother knelt at the altar of Richmond Town Methodist Church and prayed, as recorded in her diary:
✞ “Lord, I dedicate my life to the service of these children, and I will marry the man who is also dedicated to children with special needs.”
— The prayer of Daya Martin at the altar of RTMC, c.1969–70
She had laid two things before God at once:
A vocation.
A prayer for a life partner.
God answered both.
💍 A Calling and a Marriage
Trained in special education in Bangalore, Daya became one of the first pioneer teachers alongside Miss Ann Tillou at the Baldwin Opportunity School on Convent Road — a centre for children with special needs.
Christopher Martin was its first warden.
In May 1973, Daya and Christopher were married at Richmond Town Methodist Church by Rev. Theodore Williams.
God had answered the second part of her prayer.
Christopher believed deeply in practical, inclusive education.
He trained adults with special needs for competitive sports, led India’s national teams to the Special Olympics, and, after studying Sweden’s model of group homes, established one of his own in 1980.
He built a community among the young men in the home in which they learned to love and serve the Lord together.
His vision was clear:
People with special needs were not to be separated from society, but woven into it.
✨ Nireekshana — Hope
In 1980, Daya went to the United States on a teacher exchange programme, and returned in 1988 for further training.
She came back knowing what she would do next.
In 1989, Nireekshana Achievement and Activity Centre was established.
And the person who had planted the original question in Daya’s heart was there to mark the beginning.
Miss Ann Tillou — the missionary whose question had set everything in motion two decades earlier — cut the ribbon at the inauguration.
The name Nireekshana means Hope.
True to that name, the centre served children with special needs up to the age of sixteen, irrespective of their background, caste, creed, or religion.
World Vision of India supported the project for twenty years.
The centre ran for three decades in all.
💛 Every Child Has the Right to Learn
Daya’s conviction was simple:
“Every child with special needs has the right to an education.”
She and Christopher lived that belief not loudly, but quietly — as the hands and feet and heart of Jesus.
Together, she often said, they ministered like yeast: unseen, but transforming lives.
“Only one life, it will soon be past. Only what is done for Christ will last.”
— The words Daya Martin lived by
🌿 The Mantle Carried Forward
Daya fought cancer in her final years.
Before she passed away on 25th May 2014, she blessed her daughter Rohini Abigail to carry on the work she had begun.
Christopher passed on in January 2025.
The centre continues today as the Susheel Martin Foundation Project: Nireekshana.
Rohini runs it not as a professional institution, but as a project of the heart — a heart that beats for children with special needs whose parents have neither the knowledge nor the financial means to give their children the dignity and independence that an education can offer.
🚌 A Ministry That Keeps Showing Up
Each morning, Rohini rides the school bus herself.
She goes door to door, encouraging the children to come and making sure none of them fall away.
A team of committed, well-qualified women work alongside her.
Together, they continue the work that Daya began.
Together, they are growing God’s kingdom among those whom most of the world passes by.
✞ Susheel Martin Foundation Project: Nireekshana
Founded 1989 • Serving children with special needs in Bangalore • Continuing today
Nireekshana means Hope.
And across more than three decades, that hope has taken the form of education, dignity, inclusion, independence, and faithful service.
What began with one missionary’s question, one woman’s prayer, and one family’s calling continues through another generation.
Rohini Abigail Martin
Daughter of Daya and Christopher Martin • As told to Grace David
