Support Acid Attacked Survivors in their pregnancies & their | Milaap
This is a supporting campaign. Contributions made to this campaign will go towards the main campaign.
Support Acid Attacked Survivors in their pregnancies & their infants
  • Sc

    Created by

    Siddarth chordia
  • M

    This fundraiser will benefit

    Madhu

    from India

Sheroes Cafe offers 9 months maternity leave to their employees, a cafe run by acid attack survivors

Hello Friends,

Greetings from team Stop Acid Attacks.

This is a fundraiser by acid attack survivor Madhu from Agra for Sheroes Maternity Project, which is an initiative by Chhanv Foundation, an organization of acid attack survivors in India. This project focuses on providing financial assistance for the medication, hospital expenses, and the aftercare & the extended maternity leaves to all the acid attack survivors who work at Sheroes Hangout project. Madhu, the campaign organiser herself is a mother, a survivor of acid attack, as well as an activist for women’s right and work at Agra chapter of Sheroes Hangout cafe.

In an organisation working for acid attack survivors that prides itself as a humanitarian organisation, we want to make it possible that we offer mothers paid leave of minimum 9 months when they are vulnerable and need help the most. This is key in progressing our organisation in a way that guarantees a future which favours gender equity inside the organisation too.

The safety of mothers while giving birth, how much time they have to recover, and the well-being of children after they're born largely depend on the support we as a society provide to them. It takes the human body 40 weeks to birth a full-term baby.  And in that time, women are expected to keep working (sometimes at the expense of their bodies and babies), and carry on with life as though the multitude of pregnancy symptoms aren’t distracting and at times, downright debilitating.  And while giving birth is normal and natural, it actually does require time for birthing mothers to recover.  The emotional, psychological and physical burdens of carrying and delivering a baby continue beyond the delivery room. Expecting mothers working with Chhanv Foundation can start their maternity leave 12 weeks before their estimated due date. New parents at Chhanv Foundation are entitled to 9 months leave at 80% of their normal pay and upto 50 thousand rupees monetary help.

What we offer at Chhanv Foundation

1. Paid Leave of 9 months
 
In India, the Maternity Benefit Act offers women professionals a leave of 12 weeks (approx. 3 months ) but Chhanv Foundation has become the only organization among the Government & Private organizations which provides 9 months of paid leave to new mothers, without any prejudice. These leaves are valid from the fourth month of pregnancy to post-delivery. This kind of assistance allows new mothers to take care of themselves in the last days of pregnancy and the care of new-born babies for a few initial weeks. The paid leave provides not only the salaries during the leave but also ensures the mothers a stress-free environment to cradle their infants. Once the infant grows up & the mother finds it appropriate to join back at work, she returns to office, post the completion of leave.  
 
2. Financial Assistance
Along with the long paid leave, Chhanv Foundation assists women employees with the sum of Rs 50,000 for hospital expenses at the time of delivery and the aftercare of mother & new-born baby.

How it all started

As Chhanv Foundation is a network of acid attack survivors, largely women, we started a paid leave policy for the women staff in year 2015 when the founder of our campaign Alok became a father and he realised that leave given to any woman is too less to help a working mother raise her child. Under Chhanv Maternity leave policy we offer 9 months paid leave and minimum 50 thousand rupees as medical assistance to the women who work at Sheroes Hangout cafes. We offer the similar assistance for women who want to adopt, along with paid leave time. We aim to go beyond the present offers and provide life long support to a women members by establishing small cruces at all of our centres.

Work Culture of Sheroes: Kids are not unwanted

We encourage our employees to take their children to work as we believe that the first few years of life are very important in shaping a child’s future personality and also it provides a window to children into their parents’ professional lives and show the value of hard work. Sometimes parenting while working can be tough, especially on those days when school is suddenly canceled, or daycare arrangements unexpectedly fall through. At Sheroes, we, together, have developed a work culture where kids are always welcome. Today, women who don’t have anyone to look after their children bring their kids at Sheroes Centres. We have developed a facility to keep those children engaged, creatively.

Case Studies of Beneficiaries

GUDIYA

She was pregnant & was expected to deliver a baby in the first week of August but due to some unavoidable medical circumstances & unbearable pain, the doctors suggested premature delivery post-surgery. On the 27th July 2019, she gave birth to a baby boy in Arushi Hospital, Lucknow. It was noticed that the embryo had difficulty in breathing so if she did not opt for premature delivery the unborn child would have faced a threat to life. We request your kindness to gather support for her and the new baby.





HER STORY

Gudiya is a 26-year-old woman from Basti, Gorakhpur District, Uttar Pradesh. She was living happily with her parents but a few goons from the village used to bother her family for their land & property. One day she noticed the goons allegedly beating her parents with sticks. To defend her parents she retaliated, which resulted in the threats against her well-being. She didn’t anticipate the tragedy that was to strike her. After a few days, on Sep 30, 2013, the same goons entered her house & poured a liquid substance on her. While everyone attended to her after she fell down, the perpetrators ran away. Later on, the two of them were arrested, and put behind bars.

In these six years Gudiya has faced numerous challenges to survive, taken a stand for herself, pursued a career and led a normal life. In July 2014, she got married to Vinay Shukla from her village. Post her marriage in 2017 she joined Chhanv Foundation in the month of August and started working at Sheroes Hangout, Lucknow. But her struggle to lead a settled life with her husband has not ended. Her husband works petty jobs. Despite being a very caring and kind man, he does not have the resources to work full time and also take care of Gudiya and their vulnerable baby’s needs.

Gudiya is happy to continue at Sheroes café. She has begun to hope for a better life for her child. Let us make that hope stronger than ever. This is an opportunity for us to help brave girls like Gudiya who are fighting to make their families proud.




Rupali Vishwakarma

Rupali Vishwakarma, a 25 years old girl from Rehti Malipur village in Ghazipur District, Uttar Pradesh survived an acid attack four years ago in 2015. On March 31, 2017, she gave birth to a baby girl in Arushi Hospital, Lucknow. She was provided with a paid leave of 9 months from March 17 to December 18 and financial assitance of 70,000 INR. Now she is living happily with his son & husband, and earning her livelihood.  

After Rupali gave birth, she stayed home with her baby daughter for nearly nine months. Rupali, a service manager at cafe Sheroes Hangout in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, was paid for 9 months of maternity leave and free meals, medical facility and fifty thousand rupees. She checked in with colleagues occasionally and visited the office several times with her baby. Today, after a year, her daughter is healthy and Rupali’s postpartum recovery was smooth. By the time she returned to work, she was rested and ready. Rupali is grateful to the contributors of Chhanv Foundation to not have to leave her baby when she was a newborn, and the longer leave allowed Rupali to make a more informed decision about her child-care needs. She also feels confident that her career won't suffer due to her leave.



We learnt in our experiences that,

- Beyond extended recovery time for mothers to heal, paid leave does wonders for the health and well-being of the baby.  

- Women who establish and foster a strong breastfeeding relationship with their baby in the weeks following birth, are on target to meet the World Health Organisation’s minimum standard of 6 months.

Our pledge

Presently we are taking care of Gudiya. All the girls of Sheroes family have offered her their support, love, and care at the present moment. We have helped her through the pregnancy. We will be helping her raise her baby for the coming few months. We need your support so that she can afford much-needed medical treatment and care for her new baby. We will be helping her settle in a home where it becomes easier and comfortable to spend the summer time.  

End pregnancy and maternity discrimination mission

This is also our social campaign to end the unfair redundancies for pregnant women and new mothers. Providing better facilities to new mothers is our small step to campaign for an end to unfair redundancies for pregnant women and new mothers, as part of our work to end pregnancy and maternity discrimination mission. This is our social campaign for maternity care for all women and we wish that Government of India and Corporates too takes similar steps to help bring gender equality within the organisations.

Our Goal

We are estimating a goal amount of Two lakhs rupees (INR) for each beneficiary who are supposed to be benefitted with this project. It shall cover the cost of beneficiary’s  delivery at a private hospital, cost of medicines and aftercare at home, and her nine-months salary.

You are most welcome at Sheroes Hangout cafe to learn more about her. We will keep you updated about the baby and her recovery. For more information or any queries, you may contact us on stopacidattacks@gmail.com.

Thank you

Madhu
Campaigner, Stop Acid Attacks

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