Dear Friend,
We are thrilled to announce that GlobalGiving has awarded Seva Mandir with 5 achievements (Effective Organization, Staff Favorite Organization, Top Ranked Organization, Vetted Organization, Site Visit Verified Organization) making us a top-ranked organization for 2019!
All thanks goes to our dedicated supporters that we are able to keep accomplishing more every year and changing people's lives for the better. We can't thank you enough for your support and we look forward to another successful year!
Each woman that arrives to our shelter home comes from an unsafe environment - one that is psychologically and often physically damaging - with some even unable to share their experiences. Seva Mandir’s shelter home provides psychological counseling so that they can overcome their trauma. Since 2004, the shelter home has been an anchor for women seeking refuge from abuse and violence, giving them access to safety and justice.
Here is the story of a local woman who escaped an abusive situation. All names have been changed.
Pragya, has been empowered by our programme and has now successfully reintegrated into society. Pragya and her husband Rohan were living together in a loving marriage for three years in Udaipur. However, things fell apart fast when Rohan’s father Sanjay moved in with them. Sanjay was verbally and physically abusive from the start, and he would always direct his anger towards Pragya and her young children. Prayga would turn to her husband for help, but Rohan also began to become violent towards Prayga and her children. Pragya had nowhere to turn to, no way to get out. She often thought about suicide – seemingly the only way she could escape.
That was until she contacted Seva Mandir’s shelter home.
Seva Mandir’s shelter home employees were able to help remove Pragya from that abusive environment and give her sanctuary. She received intensive counseling, both legal and personal, along with her husband. Pragya decided to return to her home, and Seva Mandir regularly monitor her situation to ensure she is still safe.
For more than fifteen years, many women like Prayga have come to the shelter home and received professional counseling along with their family members.
Thank you for your support and for the confidence that you have placed in us. None of this would have been possible without you. With your precious support we have been and we will able to translate Seva Mandir's commitment into a meaningful change.
Regards
Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team
Follow us on www.facebook.com/sevamandir
Links:
Dear Friend,
Love, Joy and Peace are the ingredients for a wonderful Christmas. We hope you find them all festive season. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
With your precious support we are able to translate Seva Mandir's commitment into a meaningful change, thus helping women to get out from the spiral of gender and domestic violence. Thank you so much for all your help and support.
Niharika (name changed) is from a rural area close to Udaipur city in southern Rajasthan. In 2003 she got married and after some time two beautiful children enriched and completed her family. Around eight years after marriage, problems started, as her husband started drinking and beating her regularly. Niharika endured domestic assault for several months.
In 2013 Niharika arrived for the first time at Seva Mandir's Short Stay Home. Since then, she has resided in there three times, during which she was given full assistance, she was counselled and joint meetings with her husband were held to help the couple to get over the difficulties. The husband tried to take her back for several times, but his promises of not beating her and not drinking anymore failed as the violence took place again.
She came back for the fourth time in 2015, and she has been living there for almost a year. During her last staying she had also found a job in a nearby Mall. Niharika has been supported and counselled, legally adviced and guided, in order to help her making the best decision and start a new life. Many efforts have been taken to deal with the plight and Seva Mandir helped her during her staying to find a job and to become financially and emotionally independent.
This is just one of the stories of cruelty and abuse affecting women living at the Short Stay Home. Many of them have happily gone back home, re-establishing old bonds with their husbands. However, as Niharika's case shows, the reality is more often difficult to face, especially when violence becomes endemic and it's fuelled by social diseases such as alcoholism.
Seva Mandir's Short Stay Home was established in 2004 and since then it has represented an anchorage for women seeking refugee from abuse and violence, giving them access to safety and justice. Your contribution has already been an essential factor in helping us making a difference, as many women such as Niharika has been supported legally, economically and emotionally.
We are proud to share that Seva Mandir has been featured in a The New York Times article! One of our GlobalGiving campaigns has been selected as an alternative way to give a gift this Christmas. The link to the article is https://goo.gl/sCxFGC
Also, GlobalGiving's “Year End Campaign” has begun! Until the end of December, all recurring donations up to $200 will be 100% matched throughout the campaign, and whichever organisation achieves the most funds during the campaign will receive $2,000 from GlobalGiving!
Help Seva Mandir achieve these goals this December by donating on our GlobalGiving page!
Thank you so much.
Regards
Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team
Follow us on www.facebook.com/sevamandir
Links:
Dear Friend,
The Short-Stay Home (SSH) is a shelter which seeks to enable women to move out of oppressive and violent situations. It helps rehabilitate women and girls facing different forms of violence through the provision of shelter, medical aid, legal aid, counseling services and educational support to children staying with their mothers. It is an integral component of Seva Mandir's strategy to deal with violence against women and is, therefore, a very important intervention.
Sarmila (name changed) got married when she was around the age of 16. Her husband was an alcoholic and used to beat her often. Sarmila refused to tolerate this violence and returned to her parents' house after a year. She then sat the 12-grade exam and passed. Her husband found her and convinced her to return home. But things didn't improve much. He continued to behave violently so she came once more to her parents' house. She then had the opportunity to attend a five-day training course on gender and life skills conducted by Seva Mandir. As her husband continued to harass her she decided to not to return to his house. Sarmila was then persuaded by the youth leaders and Seva Mandir staff started looking for a job for her. She has now found a job and is currently working in Udaipur. She is one among the many women who are supported by Seva Mandir.
In the past year, 90 women were provided shelter with 42 children in our Short Stay Home. Additionally, 16 women and 1 man approached Short Stay Home only for counselling support. So, in total the Short Stay Home provided support to 106 women, 42 children and 1 man. Out of 90 women who were provided with shelter, 81 were rehabilitated.
Your contribution has already been an essential factor in helping us make a difference, as many women such as Sarmila has been supported legally, economically and emotionally. With your precious support, we have been and we will be able to translate Seva Mandir's commitment into a meaningful change, thus helping women to get out from the spiral of gender and domestic violence.
We do hope for your continued support for our Shelter Home. If your travel brings you to this part of the world, please do consider visiting Seva Mandir.
With Best Regards
Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team
Follow us on www.facebook.com/sevamandir
Links:
Dear Friend,
Thank you so much for supporting our Shelter home – fighting against injustice and violence against women.
In the area of Seva Mandir’s work (Tribal areas) there are no institutional centers that can directly provide help to the abused women. In an effort to rectify this Seva Mandir's Short Stay Home was established in 2004 and since then it has represented an anchorage for women seeking refugee from abuse and violence, giving them access to safety and justice.
Each women that comes to the Shelter home comes from an extremely toxic environment that is psychologically damaging and some are even unable to share their experiences. Seva Mandir’s Shelter home provides psychological counseling to overcome their trauma. Legal counseling and financial counseling are also provided to the distressed women to overcome the situation.
Karishma (name changed) a woman living in our shelter says : “The shelter home has helped me when my own parents could not take a stand against the injustice towards me. Being here has given a new direction to my life.”
Like Karishma, in the past fourteen years, many women were given shelter along with their children. Due to prolonged harassment and violence, most women coming to the Short Stay Home are depressed, hence various activities are undertaken to help them come out of this. Also they are connected to economic activities so that they can lead a respectable life later.
We thank you for your support in helping women like Karishma to restart their lives in a dignified way.
Regards
Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team
Follow us on: www.facebook.com/sevamandir
Links:
Dear Friend
I hope that you and your loved ones are keeping well.
Whilst much of Europe and North America are still shivering through one of the longest cold Winters on record, Spring has most definitely arrived in Rajasthan.
2018 sees the 50th anniversary of Seva Mandir and while we have many achievements to reflect upon there are constant and changing challenges. With stories of sexual abuse still abounding in the media in the western world, it seems hardly surprising to discover that there has actually been an increase in the rate of violence and abuse towards women and girls in India, as well as an even more worrying increase in human trafficking. Here, unlike in other parts of the world, male violence against women continues to be routinely excused and downplayed.
Girls are still married off at a younger age than the law allows and once they have left their family home they become the ‘responsibility’ of their husband and his family. Often illiterate and used to working on the land, this new married life is accompanied by drudgery as well as bearing children – having girl babies is still highly undesirable.
Alcoholism amongst the men causes further problems and leads to violence and abuse. These young women rarely have anyone to speak to, no one to listen or give them advice. Once they have left their own family unit, they are expected to remain with their husband and his family, who treat her as little more than a slave and sometimes are also abusive. With nowhere to turn, and because of stigma and humiliation, they continue to put up with this terrible life. Until, one day, it just all becomes too much to bear …
The following is a view from an English volunteer- Gabrielle who has spent the past four months with us and who has visited our refuge on several occasions.
“It’s extremely difficult not to get emotional when visiting Seva Mandir’s short-stay home, when you hear some of the sad tales that have resulted in these young women fleeing their home. I have wiped away many tears from my eyes whilst listening to their stories.
“One young girl had run away in the middle of the night and was found by a rickshaw driver who knew of the refuge. He had risked retribution from the girl’s husband and family by taking her to safety. She later told staff that if the rickshaw driver had not found her that she would have ended her life that night.
“But rather than dwell on these sad tales, I wanted to tell you about the happy times I spent there. During their stay, there is a joyous atmosphere as the girls and women are freed momentarily from their cares.
“Much laughter and leg-pulling at how strong one tribal woman was in comparison to her urban ‘sister’ whilst stirring a vast bowl, mixing up washing detergent to sell. This is part of the piece-work they have – on one visit the grassy play area was covered in plastic waste bins ready for wrapping. They are able to earn modest amounts of money which they save.
“There is a small kitchen garden where they grow some of their own food and they take it in turn to cook in the communal kitchen. The children have swings and slides and a jolly frieze was painted along the walls by past volunteers.
“I came away feeling blessed that I live in a society that is now finally naming and shaming sexual abusers and dealing with them severely. Seva Mandir has an enormous uphill struggle, but with everything they have been doing in the last 50 years, with your help, I sense that they will continue the battle, one step at a time.
Thank you for your support!”
Regards
Atul Lekhra and the Seva Mandir Team
Follow us on www.facebook.com/sevamandir
Links:
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