Safe care and adoption for Indian Babies

It's been a busy few months and we want to share our latest news from the field and to unveil one big dream that with your help looks likely to become a reality.

Snehankur Adoption Centre established 2007 to make a stand against the often dire and outdated social stigmas that allow infants to become abandoned in rural India and make outcastes of their mothers.

Recent Outreach and Events:
We made contact with our local police stations and distributed posters during our outreach and awareness talks. With the police often being called to intervene where women and children are in distress and in need of protection, maintaining awareness of our services is key and saved Priya who we will talk about in a little bit.

We also contacted over 200 hospital and medical centres to raise awareness of our services with them too. Speaking out over unplanned pregnancies and crimes against women is so shunned it remains off the radar so there is a need to constantly remind those with authority to support these women and children and channel them to us. Often found in urgent situations that need immediate action and an informed sensitive approach.

Our rehabilitative process is tried and tested and vital to reintegrate unwed mothers and provide a safe path to a happy family for mother and child even when they cannot live together.

Priya's Story:
In a small town in 2013 two cousins aged 17 and 48 repeatedly raped their 14 year old niece for a six month period from January to June. Nothing was said by any one involved and a hidden pregnancy ensued.

Towards the end of September the local police station issued a FIR (First Information Report) a valuable document to support any action Priya chooses to take against the crimes committed against her. The FIR outlining the crimes had been made after concerns were registered anonymously on Priya's behalf. The same police officers who had attended our outreach programmes visited Snehankur was admitted Priya to our charge for urgent counselling and medical attention.

Priya, in her last trimester, was 8months pregnant. After 20weeks it against the law to conduct a termination of a pregnancy. With support provided in both counselling and medical care and with free shelter Priya delivered a health girl in November and with Snehankur's ongoing services mother and child are working to find their way in life.

A stable and loving family has been found for the baby girl and after all screenings, home visits and interviews she has found a place to call home where she will be loved and cared for well.

Priya's finding her way back to her studies and while she has completed a full medical discharge and is welcome to return for ongoing counselling as she feels is necessary. Snehalaya's services are all available to Priya who is enjoying our educational programmes and like any 15year old should be, thinking of her own education and career options. Her life has of course irrevocably changed but she is rehabilitating well and is reunited with her family.

What happened to the perpetrators? As of now a case is being made and the local police are ready. A trial is yet to be held. Priya arrived in a very distraught condition and opted to focus on rebuilding her life. We were delighted to support her in our rehabilitation programme and she made many new and good friends who were understanding of her plight in Snehalaya's larger family of beneficiaries.

As and when she feels ready she knows Snehalaya's legal services and the sanctuary of our shelter with full food and board will be readily available for her if she needs them. She chose not to publicly reveal her ordeals or her disclose the pregnancy for fear of social stigma. She did opt to bravely take a full medical and was found to be clear of any STD's.

This is part of Priya's history and it is her story but one that we respect may need to go untold to those that know her to enable Priya to lead a happy life.

The Big Plan unveiled:
Building about to start on NEW Adoption Centre

The Challenge:
Unwed mothers and rape victims often have to carry an unplanned pregnancy to full term conducting heavy labour with no medical attention, in secrecy and fear of being discovered and disowned. Childbirth at the end of a secret pregnancy is often also concealed with deliveries taking place in secrecy without admission to a hospital.

The social stigma can result in awful with difficult life threatening situations for mother and child and life changing and harrowing decisions being made by girls often only minors themselves with no family support let alone medical or financial support.

Consequently many abandoned newborns are left roadside exposed at their most vulnerable moment to the elements and the savage reality of being unprotected in the wild in the desperate hope they will be discovered and taken in.

Our journey:
To date our journey has been breathtaking. We believe social change is not just possible but happening. The change we have seen in just 8 short years has been astounding.
We place on average 72 infants into screened families (according to government standards) each year.

The reality is harsh and the challenges are many but the support to make real change possible in our society is growing and motivates us forward. When we began we could not find placements for our infants. Now through our awareness camps and links with over 200 hospitals in our district, and in conjunction with our other rehabilitate projects we have a waiting list of 100's of excellent prospective families spanning over a year at our current placement rate and while we feel we are well known in our communities abandonment rates are on the decrease and survival rates on the increase.

Our success:
Is most measurable and rewarding when one of our infant finds her way safely and in good health and into a loving adoptive family. With our own organisations ethos being all about family being the people you choose to live with and place around you in unity and strength, our adoption centre is one that is very close to our hearts.

Our dilemma:
We have been increasingly overstretched and operating at capacity for some time. In lay terms the lack of space we have had to work in has meant facing many obstacles such as no age specific wards, no play based learning areas, no on-call rooms, and only one counselling room for both unwed mothers and protective adoptive parents.  We are growing and have a vast wait list for prospective adoptive parents so we need to expand

Our current facility operates with a minuscule ICU department in a 25sqft section of a 200sqft room, with 2 incubators (no space for respirators) for our premature babies and those of low birth weight. The rest of the room holds ALL our infants, we are sanctioned for 20 places and our caretakers simply sit on the floor and our cribs are triple stacked to make space.

The Solution:
We are therefore delighted to unveil, that after 3 hard years planning a real solution to our growing needs is almost in our sights. Thanks to an amazing team with ongoing support from our past adoptive parents and other donors along with our dedicated and hard working staff we are overwhelmed with the generosity of Mr. Dinesh & Jaykumar Jeevanlalji Munot donating a 3000sqft piece of land and Mrs. Kavita Gathani of Kriti Architects for donating her skills and time to provide an informed and fantastic new 3 storey facility design.

The Proposed New Adoption Centre:
Collectively we now have all our expansion needs in a cohesive plan to accommodate up-to 50 infants in age specific wards in a new Adoption Centre. Not only will be have with a separate long stay wards for harder to place infants and an isolation wards for those with infectious diseases, we will also have a section for expectant mothers both in long stay care and a delivery room. Our staff can enjoy bigger offices, on call rooms, separate staff quarters, improved medical and records stores and allocated counselling rooms. Essential bonuses of a conference room and play zone have also been provisioned for, as well as all the essentials in a kitchen, dining area and laundry room.

All our infants and unwed mothers can expect a secure, medically advanced, nurturing and stimulating environment. All our staff can expect much improved working facilities with designated task based work spaces.

The Details:
We have secured enough funds to begin construction (a 2 phased 18month build due to commence this July for a Dec 2016 completion).

Thanks for walking this road with us. If ever you wanted to consider a monthly regular donation of just £5 a month now is the time to do so to part of this bright new future making survival, family and acceptance possible for women and children.  

Please email Mianda@snehalaya.org for the full design plans and financial proposal. The start up (one off) costs are £103,500 (of which with the help of donors like Lucy & Simon Tobin and Abi Jeffries £41,500 have been raised and construction is commencing next month) with the annual operational running costs increasing from £50,000 - £57,000 per year.

We anticipate our operational costs to only increase by 15% despite a capacity increase of 66% and an adoption rate increase of 30% with an anticipated 50% reduction in medical costs through bringing more ability in house and a 25% increase in regular local donations from adoptive parents

Thanks to all of you for staying with us through the tough time and believing that through practical and u judgemental support and gentle nurturing change is possible across all society.