Chat with Rajeev Kumar

Transcribed by: Sunayana Kachroo

Gauri : Welcome to the foundations Tv. Our guest is Rajeev Kumar who is the founding member of an organization Snehalaya , which has been working for few decades for women and children  in distress

My interaction with Rajeev was at Meena Sundarama’s house when we met for the first time during a meeting for Sahab Bibi aur Guru Dutt. Before I even Welcome Rajiv, I have to say that one of the things that he did really well there was the way he presented Snehlaya to us. He captivated the audience and it almost felt like a conversation with each one of us. He walked us though the growth of the organization, how it was founded, and how well it has evolved. I think it is such an interesting story.

While I welcome you to foundations TV, that’s what I would like to start with. I would love to hear from you about Snehalaya. I would like to know why was it started , when was it started and where is it today.

Rajeev:  Thank You Gauri ,first of all I thank you for giving me an opportunity to be here at Foundations studio. You guys are doing an amazing job.  As far as Snehalaya goes , it goes back to 1989, when a school going kid Girish Kulkarni had the desire to do something for the children of commercial sex workers. He had his own inspiration, he had his own vision about it . We were a group of friends who met with him and Snehalaya was born in his house and his heart. We started working with a few children at Chitragali…which is a red light area in Ahmednagar. The purpose was to break nexus and the cycle in which these children are caught.  These children have been conceived to be either commercial sex workers or to be pimps. That’s why their mothers conceive them. We wanted to break that cycle. It was very hard to penetrate in those red light areas. It took us many months, I would say years  to win the trust and confidence of the mothers of the pimps and goons and of the gurus and underworlds who operate from red light areas. We were young, I was completing my engineering and Girish was finishing his graduation from college, so I think it was very challenging for us. We never thought that we will be doing so many things. When I look back I don’t think we had a grand vision but I think over period of time, the need made us grow and do different things. So today, when we look back we see Snehalaya as a very powerful force in the society. We have been working for various groups and maybe I can walk you thought some of the key projects if you want. So we started Snehalaya for Children of commercial sex workers. We realized that we were not being able to make a significant difference in their lives by just giving them some interaction and exposure because they ultimately went back home to their mother’s house. So, we thought we will build a home for them. We had no money , we had no land , all we had was a desire. There was one gentle man Mr. Mutha, he was very kind and he said that you guys are young and if you guys do a good job, I will give you more land here is an acre of land. That’s where we started and we got our first bunch  of 6-7 kids in 1997,  in this home. It was constructed in 45,000 Rupees which is like $1000 today  or less than that probably. Then, very soon we started getting children that were HIV positive and we decided that we should create a separate section for HIV infected children and women. So, one of the first hospital or care centre for HIV affected patients was created. Quickly, we saw that a lot of people were calling us that this child is being abused , trafficked,  exploited  and can you do something. So we set up 24/7 help line which is like 911 here in America. Unfortunately, we don’t have something like that in India. So, we started helpline and started rescuing children. It has been an  amazing journey. Today we get almost 200-250 calls , and our people go and rescue them. It is full of action. A lot of our young volunteers want to be part of such projects. Later on It was I think late 2000, when we started getting calls that “we have found a baby in a dumpster, we have found baby at a police station, we have found baby wrapped in a news  paper, 2-4 days old babies. Would you guys come and help?” We didn’t know what to do with them. Then  we decided to set up an adoption centre. You will be glad to know that over 300 children  have been given new set of parents and a family and a home across the world and I have some of those children here in  America. Some are in India and some in other parts of the world. Somewhere in 2004, if I am not wrong, we thought that urbanization is really changing the demographics of the country and too many slums were coming up. In 2020-25 almost 20- 25% of India’s population will be living in slums. So we decided that we should do something in the slums because slums make the real recruitment ground for women who were going in for commercial sex, for pimps, for underworld, for terrorism and for many vices of the society. So, we have now started something called as Balbhavan which operates in 5 different  slums in Ahmednagar and also one in Pune where we groom and take care of the entire family on aspects of education , health ,literacy, then de-addiction, and saving patterns.  We have built some self help groups and vocational training for women. That was Bal-Bhavan.

After Bal Bhavan we have seen that more and more cases of the demand and need for women training,  is coming up. Lot of women want to come out of that trade. So we are focusing on skills and are providing them new skills. I think we have a long way to go. We are trying to create a Himmatgram which is another 20 acres of campus which will be one of its kind. This will be an integrated campus for HIV infected people. Lastly, which was done this year, we have created a platform to help women who have been raped which is called Spraha . We did that launch just few months back where we try to provide counseling, legal help and medical help to women who unfortunately have gone through this trauma.

So that’s the story of Snehalaya . It can go on forever, but I will like to stop here.

Gauri: This is indeed very-very touching. You know, it is very easy listening to success stories but anytime I have heard you before and I am hearing you today, I feel like this is something that is so close to the ground. I have seen some videos of women who gone through so much. It requires a lot of courage and a lot of persistence , dedication and lot of sincerity to believe in a cause like this and to continue to work towards the betterment of women and children. These are areas that most of us would shy away from because we are happy in our lives. We are doing things that keep us happy and getting what we want from our lives and to come out of that mode, to be able to feel how those people might  be feeling and do something about that, I think it is such a touching journey.  So, kudos to you and your team,  definitely for coming where you are today.

Gauri: Rajeev, from what I understand, you have also written a book about Snehalya and its work . Could you tell us a little bit about it .

Rajeev : Yes , we just launched a book titled “Defying Destinies”. It is actually a compilation of all the case studies, of  the rescues that we have done in last 7-8 years, best practices, learnings that we have had, what we did right , and what we didn’t do right. May be, it will be a great guide for other NGO’s who are working in this field. One very interesting judgment is there in that book which was given by high court –to life imprisonment for almost 20 people in trafficking case of two minor girls. Please read it and I would love to give it to you.

Gauri: I would certainly love to read it myself and I would highly recommend it to anyone who is looking to work in an NGO or has any desire to learn from this process. So, how would they get hold of this  book?

Rajeev:  We did not have any publisher. Snehalaya is the publisher. It is on our website and we would love to ship it to you. If you want it, you can send an email to info@snehalaya.org , we will send it you.

Gauri : I have watched the first episode of Satyamay Vijayate which was the TV serial by Aamir khan and the first episode itself was on female feticide and Aamir Khan had endorsed your organization Snehalaya, which is pretty commendable. I want to understand from you, what that endorsement means to you. Of course,  it means a whole lot for someone who is looking into organization but being inside the organization what does it mean to you?

Rajeev: Very good question. I will say that it was really a turning point for Snehalaya, being endorsed by Satyamay ViJayate. For almost two decades we have been working in this area and Aamir khan production team  - Swati Bhatkar  Satyajit Bhatkar, the directors of that program , they identified Snehalaya. Not only that, Aamir and his team visited Snehalaya twice. Our children have been so happy seeing them in the campus. He came with his entire team. They performed for our children and he launched Satyamay Vijayate DVD. On May 1^st we had an event, a workshop on Trafficking and Natural Calamity because of the drought condition in Maharashtra. Both Aamir khan and Anna Hazare were there for that workshop. You will be surprised to know every 22 minutes there is woman or a girl child being raped in the world, every 10 minutes there is girl who is being trafficked. Trafficking is the third largest organized crime after drug and weapons and it’s a very serious problem. It is around 800 billion dollar industry and we really want to work and motivate people against human trafficking. So, Satyamay Vijayate and Aamir khan’s endorsement meant a lot to us both financially as well as being known in the society. We are thankful to them.

Gauri: Wonderful and you have also shared some of the pictures with us which are part of this presentation,. We would also put together a powerpoint presentation or a slide show to share with  our audiences all the phenomenal work that has been endorsed by Aamir Khan that you do at Snehalaya.

Gauri: Now that we have heard so much about the organization and everybody who has heard this interview feels connected and wants to contribute, somehow towards this organization and towards this cause. I would like to share with everybody that one way to do that is by coming to the Sahib Bibi Aur Guru Dutt show , a musical evening which is being  organized on Sep 7^th , which is actually a fund raiser for this wonderful organization run by extremely sincere people. We can all be very assured that this cause is a genuine cause. We can be assured that the efforts that the team of Sahib Bibi Aur Guru Dutt are putting , all those efforts are going to go towards this cause. We are all very excited actually and it adds to the excitement of the organizing committee as well. My question to you though is, how does this benefit the organization?

Rajeev: Well, the obvious answer is that it financially benefits the organization but more than that you may look towards these events as an embracement of our team ,our work and we feel that more and more people are part of Snehalaya family. I would welcome all the people who are coming for that event to Snehalaya. If you are coming to India, please visit Snehalaya at Ahmednagar. It is around 180 kms from Mumbai. We would love to have you there. Our children would love to have you there. We run a radio that is Snehalaya radio. It is an FM channel. We would love to play that event for our children and for people there at Ahmednagar to show how much love and affection we are getting in Boston. Thank you to Meena Sundaram , to you and to the entire team. It is a very big team that’s trying to put together this show. Thank you very much.

Gauri: Thank you so much . That really makes us feel very special. All the effort becomes really really authentic by listening to everything that you have shared with us today . So, thank you so much for coming and I would personally like to wish you good luck. I know after spending 10 years in this country, you are moving back to India only for this cause and your dedication towards this cause. We are very proud of you as a community and we wish you all the very best from The Foundations TV.