Milestones
RAHI is the first incest/CSA organization in the country and has been instrumental in creating a social climate for this issue to be talked about and for adult women survivors to come into recovery. Our accomplishments include building a body of research and literature on the subject in the Indian context, introducing the use of psychodrama and other cutting edge techniques in the treatment of incest/CSA and other violence related trauma in women and children, using innovative means to communicate incest/CSA information to the public, introducing programs to build capacities of college students, health professionals and social workers for dealing effectively with incest/CSA prevention and intervention and initiating and guiding other individuals and groups to work in this field.
To date, our programs and services have reached out to about:
- 213 NGOs: urban, semi-urban and grass root NGOs working with children and women in different parts of the country
- 426 social workers from these NGOs
- 652 healthcare professionals: counselors, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and doctors
- 20840 young people: students from colleges
- 328 survivors: these include women who have accessed our services
- 757 other women: women from the media, school and college teachers and homemakers
Larger Public:
- 5500 people through 1000 copies of our research report Voices from the Silent Zone
- 6500 people through 1600 copies of our book The House I Grew Up In
- 75,545 people through 80 runs of our play 30 Days in September
Details of our main accomplishments are as follows:
Voices from the Silent Zone: Women’s Experiences of Incest and Childhood Sexual Abuse, 1998
this is RAHI’s research report based on statistics of 600 women who shared their experiences of incest/CSA. It is the first research of its kind in India on incest and brings out crucial data on prevalence, abusers, forms of abuse, disclosure of abuse and issues faced by survivors. This data has been disseminated widely through the media, university libraries, and resource centers and forms the basic body of research on incest/CSA in the country.
The House I Grew Up In: Five Indian Women’s Experiences of Incest, 1999
this is a collection of powerful personal testimonies of five Indian women survivors who speak about their childhood incest and how it has impacted their lives. Published for the first time in India, this book provides a disquieting glimpse into the nature of incest and how it takes place in middle class India. It has been sold at mainstream bookstores and has had a second reprint. The book is widely used as a resource for survivors, mental health professionals in their clinical work, students and researchers.
Psychodrama Workshops, 2000
RAHI conducted a series of training workshops for mental health professionals and healing workshops for incest/CSA survivors in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata using psychodrama as a treatment technique for trauma issues. This was done in collaboration with Dr. Rebecca Ridge, a psycho-dramatist certified by the American and Australian Boards of Psychodrama. This course equipped mental health professionals with creative therapeutic tools to deal with not only incest/CSA clients but also those struggling with the trauma of state sponsored violence and riots in different parts of the country. The workshops held with survivors brought incest/CSA survivors together for the first time in a group and had significant healing consequences for them. The workshops also led to other survivor groups being formed.
Circle of Strength, 2001
this is RAHI’s 12-week support group for women survivors and started in 2001 as a consequence of the psychodrama workshops conducted by us the previous year. In this group women explore together the effects of abuse on their lives and honor what they did to survive. By talking, listening and responding to each other, they gain new insights into their problems and find effective ways of coping with the pain and agitation that is linked to earlier life situations of unwanted sexual experiences. Through this process women are able to develop inner strengths, build healthier relationships, feel a greater sense of self and engage with their environment with renewed confidence, mastery and responsibility. ‘Circle of Strength’ provides 36 hours of therapeutic work to its participants and is conducted by two trained facilitators. It uses discussions, individual exercises, craft, music, massage, movement and other creative recovery tools. This group is currently offered once a year.
30 Days in September: A Story about Incest in an Indian Family, 2001
this is the first play on incest in India. Commissioned and researched by RAHI and written by a well-known playwright, Mahesh Dattani, it is born out of our work with survivors and is based on the stories the women shared with the playwright. The play is now recognized as a critically acclaimed commercial production, and continues to have successful runs in different parts of the country and abroad. It has recently completed its 75th show.
International Collaboration for Trauma Work in India, 2002-2003
This project was a collaborative venture of RAHI Foundation, Boston University School of Medicine, Dept of Psychiatry and the Arbor Trauma Center, Boston set up with an aim to advance trauma work in India. It was held over a month and included one-day seminars in Delhi and Mumbai, group discussions and presentations with mental health professionals in collaboration with mental health bodies in Delhi such as VIMHANS and Psychological Foundations, a presentation to pediatricians in Kochi and field visits to grass root organizations in UP. The mainstay of this project was a national workshop ‘Women & Violence: from Trauma to Recovery’ directed at women’s’ groups from different parts of the country working with victims and survivors of incest, childhood sexual abuse, rape, battering, armed conflict, communal riots and other forms of violence and trauma. The resource person, Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a representative of the two Boston Institutes, is one of the world’s leading authorities in the study of human trauma and its treatment.
Childhood and Adolescent Sexual Abuse and Incest: Experiences of Women Survivors in India, 2003
this is a paper based on RAHI’s work with women survivors over the years. It was first presented at an international WHO conference on ‘Non-Consensual Sexual Experiences of Young People’ in New Delhi held in September 2003. The evidence provided in this paper is gathered retrospectively, where the voice of the sexually abused child is that of an adult recalling her experiences of childhood victimization and describing the impact such experience have had on her life. The paper establishes the prevalence of incest in middle-class Indian families. It provides an insight into survivors’ definitions and descriptions of their abuse experiences the relationship they share with their abusers, the ambivalent feelings resulting from such abuse and the impact incest has on their psychological, emotional and sexual development from childhood to adulthood. The paper has been published in a book entitled ‘Sex without Consent: Young People in Developing Countries’, Zed Books, 2005, New York.