By Joyce Connolly | Honorary Director
Thank you for your support of our projects in India which are rescuing vulnerable women and children from dangerous and life-threatening situations. By providing them a safe home and the opportunities to change their destinies we are seeing remarkable results and we have you to thank for that.
With the glamour and glitter of the Oscars only just starting to fade, we thought we would introduce you to some of our recent video hits made in Snehalaya that share these stories of success and showcase our own home-grown talent. Please take your seat and enjoy the show.
Prisha
We were honoured to have award-winning documentary film-maker Lotje Sodderland visit our projects last year and she interviewed and made this beautiful film of one of our former beneficiaries Prisha. Sold to a brothel when she was 12, Prisha managed to get to phone to contact our Childline who rescued and brought her to our Rehabilitation Center where she found a loving home and was given the education to help her fulfil her ambition of becoming a nurse. You can watch Prisha's story here.
On track
Vishal is another former beneficiary who has recently returned to Snehalaya to lead our youth project which aims to introduce social work to the next generation of change-makers. Growing up in one of our red-light areas surrounded by pimps and gangsters he had fallen into petty crime and his future didn't look good. A traumatic life-changing moment followed by the death of his HIV-positive mother and subsequent move to Snehalaya helped him get his life back on track and today he is proving to be an excellent role model for our younger beneficiaries. You can watch Vishal's story, filmed by our long-term volunteer Nick, here.
Kidnapped
While we are lucky enough to have talented film makers visit to help us tell our stories we have also recently been handing the cameras over to our children. Living in an insitution is hard on some children as they crave the freedom to explore the world themselves. When their curiosity led to a spate of attempted runaways we asked the children to think of the dangers that they would face beyond our safety net. They came up with a range of scenarios and settled on a final storyline based on kidnapping and child labour. They then wrote, performed, directed and filmed their story within two days. We think they did an amazing job getting the message across with no further attemps to run away since, you can watch the final cut here.
I am your pride
We are currently mid-way through a year long campaign with Malala Fund to promote girls' education to reduce the commercial sexual exploitation of children. As part of the program we are delivering to girls in our home we asked the children to make their own film based on the campaign theme. Again they wrote, performed, directed and filmed the insightful story of one girl who makes the mistake of complaining about school to her father who decides to relieve himself of the finanical burden of providing his ungrateful daughter an education. Sold as a maid she takes the responsibility of getting an education into her own hands and finally returns to her father to show the success she has acheived on her own. You can see how she does it here.
We hope these videos have given you an insight into who your donation is helping. Some of these stories are hard to watch but they do represent the realities of growing up in our semi-rural area of India and while the situation may sometimes look bleak, with your support we are here to find and help those who are unable to help themselves and give them a brighter future.
It's a wrap for now but if you do want more we have plenty of videos on our YouTube channel that you can watch to learn more about life at our Home of Love and the work you are supporting.
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