THE India Abroad
2010
FOR
award LIFETIME TO SERVICE THE COMMUNITY
THE MAGAZINE M45 JUNE 2011
MAITRI
The Empowerers ARTHUR J PAIS on MAITRI, winner of the INDIA ABROAD AWARD FOR LIFETIME SERVICE TO THE COMMUNITY 2010
SPONSORED BY
ASHIMA YADAVA
The Maitri staff takes pride in encouraging clients to think for themselves HOSPITALITY SPONSOR
We don’t like to use the word victims here, we like to call them our clients,” says Sarah Khan, program director, Maitri, who has spent over seven years with the San Jose, Californiabased women’s organization. “That I think is the right word to use. For what we have been trying to do since the beginning is to get the women and the children on their feet, boost their self esteem, and get them once again to be part of the mainstream world, where they work with dignity and live a life without abuse.” Outsiders do not understand how much Maitri encourages its clients to think for themselves, she says, adding, “We discuss at length the options the women have. Some may still want to go back to their spouses, hoping to improve their situation. Or some may decide to come to our shelter. Unless we give them the options and help them make their own decisions, we may be controlling them, and that is not right.” Amid the many success stories in the Silicon Valley, the persistent fight of a dozen women to create a new life for women of color who are putting behind them abusive relationships just cannot be ignored. Though the local media and the mainstream press in the Bay Area have covered Maitri’s work, its success story needs to be hailed further.
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Roma Mazumdar, one of Maitri’s founders, remembers the first months of starting the organization at the home of novelist and literature professor Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni in 1991 in Sunnyvale. Known for her bestselling novels like The Mistress of Spices, Divakaruni had just begun to realize that
there were ‘invisible’ women who were physically and emotionally abused by their spouses and needed urgent protection, counseling and support to be on their own.
‘She promised me that no one would hurt us in this place’ A six-year-old transitional Maitri client tells her story
O
ne day mommy told me we were going to a special place. It was a special place for special people, like me and her. She promised me that no one would hurt us in this place, and everything would get better. She also told me I was
going to a new school, and that I was going to have a lot of fun and make new friends. We finally got to our house with our two bags. We had our own room and our bathroom. We met other aunties who lived there. Mommy cooks for them
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and sometimes they cook for us. It is like a family. We go to the park in the evenings with two other girls, just like me, and they like to play on the swings. There is this nice lady who goes to college, and she comes to see me once every two weeks. Mommy says she’s a ‘vol-teer.’ She takes me to watch movies sometimes or to have ice cream. She even helps me with my homework. Mommy says that soon she and I will go to our own apartment. She says it will be only me and her, and maybe I will even get to see grandma again.