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Child rights a big win at Pune’s Anita Awachat Sangharsh Awards
The award ceremony took place on Sunday at the SM Joshi Foundation auditorium, Sadashiv peth
Suresh Rajhans and his wife Mayuri Rajhans, the founders of Sevashram, an organisation that works with abandoned children of Tamasha (folk dance) artistes and Rani Chore, the founder of Akanksha, a day-care centre for mentally challenged children in Shirur taluka, are this year’s recipients of the Anita Awachat Smruti Sangharsh Award given by the Muktangan Rehabilitation Centre.
The award ceremony took place on Sunday at the SM Joshi Foundation auditorium, Sadashiv peth. The chief guest for the event was Renu Gawaskar, a senior social activist and writer.
While talking about their journey, Suresh Rajhans, said, “There were a lot of hurdles right from the beginning when I learnt of the issues faced by children abandoned by Tamasha folk artistes. Mayuri and I started working with 11 students initially and today, we are rehabilitating and teaching 42 children in our organisation. We plan on starting a hostel for girls who are trapped illegally in Tamasha and are exploited.”
Rani Chore, who herself has two ‘special’ girls, one an 18-year-old and another a 16-year-old, said, “My life is full of hurdles and challenges since I became a mother and when I came to know that my first daughter was diagnosed with a mental health issue, I was devastated. However, I decided to work on it as I didn’t want other parents to go through what I suffered.Today, we are looking after 25 children with various mental disabilities and plan on extending our work.”
Congratulating the awardees, Renu Gawaskar, said, “Their story of struggle is an inspiration. We should not categorise any child according to their physical, mental, social or economical background. Every child has right to play and we should give them that and both these organisations are doing extremely good work in their respective fields.”
