SNEHA Mumbai

Our first stop in Dharavi, one of Mumbai’s largest slums, at the Lokmanya Tilak Municipal General Hospital to meet with SNEHA founder Dr. Armida Fernandez and her program directors. SNEHA, which means “mother’s love” in sanskrit, is a non-profit NGO that addresses the needs of women and children living in slums of the Mumbai. It all started in the 1990s when Dr. Fernandez, a neonatologist of 30 years who eventually became dean of the medical college, became frustrated that the babies she was saving in the hospital were returning to dire conditions back at home in the slums. It was then that she began to build a bridge between the hospital and the community.

SNEHA provides services in four major areas: maternal and neonatal health, prevention of violence against women and children, sexual and reproductive health, and child health and nutrition. [Side note: The NGO also has an enterprising arm where they train women to make and sell quilts from donated fabric scraps. In some cases, a household’s income increased 4-fold! Our group came through like a monsoon and raided their warehouse. I went a little overboard and bought four quilts and three pillow covers.] There’s a strong emphasis on using replicable/sustainable models that focus on family and community units, engaging partners whenever possible, and embedding rigorous (hello, randomized-cluster sampling) research and evaluation. We saw and heard a lot more on the other programs but one of the most passionate, and memorable presentations for me was on PVWC. Here are some startling statistics:

• 52% adolescent girls/57% boys think beating is justified
• Every year, the national crime rate against women increases by 7%.
• In 2011, there were 24,000 rapes and 8,618 dowry deaths (typically burnings of women perpetrated by husbands and in-laws unhappy with the amount of dowry brought into marriage. Why burning? Because it’s difficult to prove homicide. This occurs in the world we live in.)
• 12 million girls were aborted in India in the last 30 years.
• All of the numbers above are likely to be under-reported

SNEHA not only provides legal and counseling services to victimized women and children, it also advocates for the status of women and challenges the community to accept domestic violence as a public issue. Since this is a systems-level problem SNEHA is active in community organization and prevention campaigns and works in partnership with government and social service providers (police, legal, health, education). This work only scratches the surface of the problem, but I believe the approach is right. I hope the women of Dharavi feel just a bit safer, rest just a little easier.