Womens change makers in science Identify two success stories
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Answer:
Swapna Mukhopadhay, Arpan Mukhopadhyay Memorial Trust
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Swapna studied economics abroad in the US, and found it unnecessarily noncontextual. So she would wander off towards learning how she could use her learnings in the real world. When she came back to India, she engaged herself in on-ground socio-economic research, her work got recognized by organizations abroad who would invite her to work with them. These experiences broadened her scope and her exploration of fields like women & poverty research opened her eyes to the World’s problems. This also dragged her into the world of NGOs. One NGO approached her with an offer to become their director. Although surprised at first, she found herself involved with this organization and realized there were lots of problems and lots of work to do. She quit her day job to pursue this, ending up “stuck” with this NGO for 13 years!
At the age of 60, she decided to start Arpan Mukhopadhyay Memorial Trust (an organization which works for the poor learning-disabled children) in memory of her son Ali who inspite of being dyslexic, was an extremely talented painter/sketcher (his work published as a book sold more copies than forecasted).
Sanghamitra Iyengar, Samraksha
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Sanghamitra was as a mental health practitioner, at a time when HIV was getting recognized as a problem. She saw people not realize the emotional changes people went through when they realized their life would be no longer the same after HIV. She witnessed entire families collapsing due to HIV! This triggered her to begin Samraksha, one of the first organizations in India for the AIDS affected.
In the beginning, it took a long time for people to realize the gravity of the issue. There was also this problem of getting unfairly abused by the police and lawmaking authorities. But soon, people understood their rights and learned how to stand their ground. The hurdles are more now though, with policy makers withdrawing their support and public conception that HIV is no more an issue. Years of work done by Samraksha is in serious danger of going in vain, but Sanghamitra keeps the team inspired to break taboos and rally against morale brigades to stay in the fight!