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Vandana Gopikumar & Vaishnavi Jayakumar are the women behind The Banyan, an organization which rescues and rehabilitates homeless women with mental illnesses.
Witnessing the tragic plight of a distraught, semi-clad and mentally-ill woman in Chennai, Vandana and Vaishnavi were moved enough to set up The Banyan, back in 1993. With limited funds and no previous experience of running a home for the mentally challenged, it was a daunting task indeed for the young women, who were just 22 years old at that time.
But today, The Banyan is a registered Trust offering comfort, solace and support for numerous destitute women – and men.
The duo strongly believes that timely treatment for the mentally-ill is essential to reintegrate them with society. With every passing year, The Banyan continues to work towards its vision of changing attitudes and building an inclusive society that accepts the mentally ill and treats them with dignity and compassion.
Why we find them inspiring:
– For their social awareness and empathy at a young age
– For their initiative and determination to help women in strife
– For reaching out to helpless women who are often shunned by society
*Photo source: The Hindu.
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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