Meet Meenakshi. Aged 30 she has completed her Masters in Social Work (Counseling) and first became involved with Snehalaya through a student placement at Snehankur Adoption Center. This was the first time she saw people throwing away babies, and she couldn't help herself from crying when she saw this. It made her decide to work for children. After Snehankur, she did another month’s placement at our Childline and after graduating applied for a job with our award-winning team. With two very young children her interviewer was concerned how she would manage her time given that our Childline team work 24 x 7 and iif there is a case at night, our team has to repsond. Minakshi agreed and started working in 2018.
She says: "While working in Childline, I worked with child laborers, child beggars, child sexual abuse victims, missing children, victims of domestic violence and child marriage and as a counsellor. I also helped with documentation, outreach, case follow-up, CSA programs, awareness programs and also had the opportunity to work with government agencies such as Police Station, DCPU, CWC and DWCD. She got the courage from Childline to oppose people who exploit children in society.
in 2019, she was promoted to Project Coordinator on our Family Based Care (FBC) project and is also a member of the Phoenix Project, started at Snehalaya in partnership with Prerana, a Mumbai-based NGO, to specialise in the case work of victims of child sexual abuse. She was trained for six months and enjoys the fact that she gets to learn new things and increase her knowledge every day.
Another important thing is that there is a woman behind every successful man and a man behind a successful woman. She is grateful that her husband supports her meaning she is able to devote time to her work. She will be associated with this Snehalaya for a long time.