The Firebird comes to Loreto

As a part of its continuous effort to build awareness about women’s safety and risks of sexual harassment, among the students of the college, the Internal Complains Committee collaborated with RAHI Foundation to organize a short awareness campaign on October 9, 2021. RAHI Foundation is a Delhi-based feminist support organization that works as a support body for women survivors of Incest and Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). Conducted over Google Meet, the programme focused on RAHI Foundation’s major action areas and showcased the “Firebird” project which creates a core community of volunteers-survivors who would support and heal the women around themselves with RAHI’s distinctive training and model of healing, create awareness about CSA and operate on intervention level as well as research and capacity building among survivors. Under the supervision of Ms. Anuja Gupta, founding member of RAHI and Ms. Anasuya Roy, young member Joshita Nag took the audience through the video presentation of various survivors who shared their own experiences of Abuse and how friends and the Firebirds helped them cope with the trauma and the struggle throughout. The Firebird programme invitation to the students of Loreto College to participate as Firebird volunteers, is the first of its kind in the country. The session highlighted the various examples of CSA straight from the survivors and it left the audience of students moved and aware of this particular way the youth community support group can work for emotional healing of women with an abused past.