Sohini Chakraborty of Kolkata heals victims through dance

Sohini Chakraborty, the changemaker has developed a unique, multifaceted rehabilitation process, which involves therapy, empowerment, education, capacity building, vocational training, and community development.  All through DANCE!

If I mention Indian music and dance, your first thought might be of Bollywood, with its glittering lights and intensely energised mass dance scenes. When traveling around India, I realised that the very pores of the vast country breathe music. Tow-trucks roar down highways, but when they toot their horns, often it will be a charming little melody that fills the air.

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Bollywood is certainly not the only forum for dance in India, and as they say, all that glitters is not gold. Sohini Chakraborty noticed the struggles endured by victims of trafficking, violence, disease, poverty and abuse in India, and decided to employ the art of dance to help victims overcome their mental scars and take control of their lives. She has won a number of awards for her work, including the Ashoka Fellow Award in 2003, and recently the DVF Award, which recognises commitment to transforming the lives of women.

Sohini Chakraborty focuses on women and children because she believes they are particularly vulnerable to ill-treatment and exploitation in many aspects of their lives. They often react to violence by blaming themselves, allowing their confidence, self-respect and identity to be stripped away.

How does Sohini do it? She works with Dance Movement Therapy (DMT), teaching victims of violence to express themselves through their movements. Basically, she is teaching them a new language of communication. They can then liberate themselves from their inhibitions, through dance. The movements that Sohini empowers her classes to overcome emotions which hold them back, such as anger and guilt. They can also break through the barriers of stigmatisation, by coming to understand that they are human beings who can advocate for change in the world, and who should be valued by their society.

Many of the victims of violence who undergo DMT later become DMT trainers themselves. So the cycle of growth and empowerment continues, and those who have benefited from the therapy can use their capacity to help others. Talk about a sustainable model of community development! It is certainly better than the cycle of second-generation prostitution which Sohini is working to prevent.

An important aspect of the rehabilitation is also peer bonding. DMT is taught in groups, so that the women and children can support each other and grow together – emotionally, physically and socially.

Sohini teaches her KS DMT session participants to reach for the sky!

Sohini teaches her KS DMT session participants to reach for the sky!

Teamwork is always a winner!

Sohini works through the NGO that she established, Kolkata Sanved. This organisation works in partnership with other NGOs in rural and urban India, Bangladesh and Nepal, so that it doesn’t double up on any work already being done. In the last three years, 5000 people have benefited from over 4500 DMT sessions, and the Department of Social Welfare, Government of West Bengal has been so impressed by the unique model of counseling that it has begun to implement DMT sessions in its mental hospital and shelter homes.

She has had to navigate around challenges along the way. For example, there is little awareness and understanding of mental health in the societies where Kolkata Sanved works, so she is determined to combat this by teaching people in government, schools, and the general public about the issue. The process of rehabilitation through DMT is long and slow. As she says, ‘the change comes from within, is time consuming…and cannot be noticed on a short term basis’.

However, she never gave up.  She persevered with DMT, and thanks to her dedication, many people have positively changed their lives. YL volunteer Romy had the opportunity to interview Sohini Chakraborty, and she also has wise words for young people like you, who want to improve your communities…

I began my curriculum of Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) — ‘Sampurnata’ – for the first time, successfully, with the survivors of trafficking from a care home in Kolkata.  My nine years of intensive work using DMT with trafficking survivors enabled these young women to emerge as self sufficient leaders and dance movement therapists. Having benefited from the success of using DMT as their tool for psychosocial rehabilitation, five of these women and I established Kolkata Sanved, to promote dance movement as a tool in a diverse society for the purpose of recovery, healing, self expression and rehabilitation.

Nowadays there is not a stigma as such but, still, the awareness of mental health is not strong. It has not reached all strata of the society where Kolkata Sanved is reaching out through DMT to the population. Our program creates a holistic alternative by building positive attitudes and a positive body image among participants of its program.

Kolkata Sanved helps women and children to identify their own potentials as human beings rather than as victims. For women and children who are marginalized, little attention is being paid to the quality of their rehabilitation and reintegration into mainstream Indian society.

Throughout South Asia, Government institutions serve primarily as holding tanks for the growing population of ‘exploited’ women, while NGOs focus primarily on vocational training and basic education. However, any successful psycho-social rehabilitation strategy necessarily demands a more multifaceted approach including: therapy, empowerment, education, capacity building, vocational training, and community development. Sanved also strives to innovatively address the concerns of those affected by domestic violence, poverty, disease and stigma. Participants use their past experiences to inspire dance that questions circumstance, demands mobilization and change and allows for healing and reintegration.

Our stakeholders Group: Coming from multiple backgrounds and different ages, target populations of Sanved include but are not limited to trafficking survivors, children and youth in red-light areas, village and rural areas, slums and railway platforms, urban communities, shelter homes, and mainstream schools; domestic workers; women and children affected and people living with HIV/AIDS; mental health patients; and survivors of domestic violence.

Our Staff: The uniqueness of the organization lies in the fact that till today the core employee group of Kolkata Sanved (i.e. the Dance Movement Therapists) come from the marginalized background who are survivors of trafficking, violence and abuse. For example: Mohima Chowdhury(name changed), presently a senior DMT trainer employed in Kolkata Sanved has been a resident of a non-government shelter home. She underwent DMT sessions conducted by Sohini Chakraborty as a part of the rehabilitation program in the shelter home. Years after attending sessions she was able to overcome her trauma as a survivor of violence. She regained her level of confidence and developed her skill to become a DMT trainer after undergoing Sanved’s Training of Trainer program. Our other core trainers come from the same marginalized background and have recovered from their past life trauma through DMT and are now earning their living as DMT trainers. It is worth mentioning that one of our senior trainers, play an active role as an executive member of the Board of Kolkata Sanved.

Sohini Chakraborty encourages you to be innovative in your solutions to social problems, so think outside the box. She also thinks it is important to involve all sectors of society, not just the direct stakeholders, or people affected directly by the issue. This is because many problems require ‘attitudinal change in mainstream society’ (stigma towards AIDS sufferers is a good example), so we must fight for improvements at a broad community level.

She has much faith in today’s youth. She told me in an interview that the more young people can be involved in the process of social change, the better, as the youth often hold the gems of creativity, energy and dynamism. So let’s take on Chakraborty’s words, and emBODY social change, literally!

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You can check out the Kolkata Sanved website at: http://www.kolkatasanved.org/

Photo courtesy: http://www.kolkatasanved.org/

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Original Article Can Be Viewed At: http://www.asia.youth-leader.org/?p=5277

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Romy Faulkner: Youth Camp Leader Romy loves cooking, Hip Hop culture and has a keen interest in international law and refugee affairs. She dreams of a world where respect for other people is the norm, and poverty is only found in history books. Mail-> romy.faulkner.youthleader@gmail.com