Naturally Inspired: Mugda Dandekar, Social Worker

It is 4pm into a sweltering dog day in Mumbai and young social worker Mugda Vikas Dandekar looks like she has already gone through a day and a half. She has just returned from a field trip where she accompanied a busload of spirited children on a visit to the museum.

Her skin is burnt orange. Her throat has ‘taken a seat’. Her voice is down and out. In between drinking sips of water and sucking on lozenges, she’s seized by a flurry of coughs. She shrugs away any obvious discomfort and offers what can only be described as a bateesi (all 32 teeth) grin where one giggle collapses onto the next in the series to form a smile continuum. She assures me that it is all in a day’s work and that she’s feeling perfectly fine.

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Mugda works with the Mumbai NGO Prerana which works with children and mothers in the red lights areas of Mumbai. It is the institution where she began her career as a social worker. Twelve years later, it is where her passion for the work has kept her at.

Prerana helps prevent second generation prostitution, protects the vulnerable from the threat of trafficking, and provides a safe environment for survivors. It supports the health, education and all-round development of the children in their care. It also takes up and leads advocacy on various related issues. Its work has been recognised and lauded at national and international spheres.

For the communities on the ground, Mugda-tai (sister), working tirelessly as she smiles continuously, is one of the faces of Prerana that they know and relate to.

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“For the community to accept you, you must first learn to accept them,” says Mugda. “Empathy is a must. And judgement must never cross your mind.”

Red light areas are mostly off the grid when it comes to municipal mechanism and essential services. Running water, sewage, electricity, ventilation – all work on the principle of basic survival jugaad (bending rules and resources to suit the needs).The basic environment is far from agreeable.

“Some of the communities we work with live in conditions which can be described in lay terms as ‘pathetic’,” she says. “The hygiene is terrible. It is overcrowded and claustrophobic. The experience can be overpowering for your senses.”

“But you must never, ever walk into the community with your or handkerchief covering your nose. It is a mark of disrespect that will immediately alienate you from the very people you work with.”

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Mugda’s first assignment when she joined Prerana right after completing her graduate degree in social work from Nirmala Niketan College, Mumbai was at the brand-new Night Care Centre at Vashi-Thurbe in the Navi Mumbai region.  It provides a safe place for women in prostitution to protect their children from the dangers of the red light district and around-the-clock facilities including protected shelter, nutrition, health care, education, recreation, etc.

Getting the new NCC together and functioning would turn out to be a grassroots experience that would define Mugda as a social worker.

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“Every day, my other sisters at Prerana and me walked from brothel to brothel, door to door, trying to convince the mothers to let their children come to us,” remembers Mugda.

“Unlike the Falkland Road and Kamathipura centres, where Prerna had put in over fifteen years of work in the communities, Vashi was entirely new to us. We had to work from the bare foundation upwards to win the communities’ confidence and get the centre running.”

“We would negotiate, inform, coerce, speak softly, sternly, lovingly, passionately and finally be able to gather the kids and escort them to the centre. Once that was achieved, our activities for the day would only just begin.”

She remembers an entire year of tough grassroots work before the centre was embraced by a supportive community, found a suitable doctor, evolved a working system and gradually, gathered a momentum of its own.

With the Vashi centre on its feet, Mugda had got the first real feel of the challenges of social work and the efforts that she would be expected to put in.

“In this line of work I feel naturally inspired,” says Mugda. “In fact, even if I’m dead tired, I don’t get a ‘down feeling’. Instead, I get a sense of satisfaction. That is probably the reason I stuck around.”

Few years later, when marriage proposals began to arrive, she remembers that she was mostly adamant on one point and one point only – “Do not ask me to change or leave my line of work. I am doing what makes me most happy.”

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A typical day for Mugda begins at 5.30am in the morning. Her own child needs to catch his bus at 7 and she needs to get his tiffin ready before then.

“No tiffin for my husband and me. No time.”

She has a two hour commute from home to work at the Kamathipura NCC where her team works with a community of over 500 brothels. Over 1700 kids are beneficiaries of the NCC she manages.

“If I have any complaint, it is that a day has only 24 hours,” she says. “Our jobs are numerous and time always runs short. We check up on the kids on a daily basis. Hold classes and activities in the centre. We have to update and prepare their files and documents. We have cases in the community to follow and intervene in. And a lot more…”

Mugda admits that she can manage it all only because of the support and efficiency of her team members. Another factor that helps smooth administration and operation is the ‘Prerana’ name.

“The reason we do not face too many challenges that we can’t overcome, it is because Prerana has the support of the community, the police and the administration. Even in the occasional flare up involving a drunk or disgruntled parent, we hold our ground because we know that we have a support system. “

“The mothers of the children have full faith in Prerana with their children and with good reason- we are systematic, do everything according to procedure and we have produced results that they have witnessed.”

“Earlier this year, 6 kids who have had a bad experience in a child placement centre were brought to us by their mothers. We took them in under our placement program. Just a few days ago, the mothers and their children came to visit with smiles on their faces. Moments like those make me really proud of my work and organization.”

 “It gives me great joy to see the kids do well and graduate. And it is a greater pleasure to see them to go past that and be independent and well placed in life. Nothing can beat those moments.”