Ramya: The other side of the same coin

LAst ,pnth we told you the story of Smita, a story of overcoming. This month we want to tell you about her sister’s story, Ramya, who also participates in the Life Skills Empowerment program and receives our support to continue her studies.

Ramya is 16 years old, she is the second of four siblings, three girls and one boy, the youngest. As we told you, the situation in her house is very complicated, her mother is a prostitute, her stepfather is an alcoholic and the environment in her house, where there is very little income, is very hard.

As we know, each child lives reality in his own way and as he can. In Ramya’s case, her feeling of oppression and overwhelm led her to run away from home to go with her boyfriend. She was very much in love with him, she is a good student and very very creative, but the burden led her to think that above all, what she had to do was leave home: it was was her only solution. Since her mother and her stepfather learned of the relationship, last January, they were totally opposed. So Ramya left home, one day in January. It was not until the night when, in collaboration with the police, our rescue team found her at the Grant Road station. It was then that she told her plans and the policeman explained that at her age, getting married was illegal. As a consequence, her boyfriend denied the relationship. What happened plunged Ramya into a deep sadness, she stopped talking and went to the house of her relative. She did not even want to talk to the Mumbai Smiles team, which is very strange, since she has always trusted our colleague Prafullata a lot. Finally, she managed to talk to her and Ramya agreed to go home and study.

On the return trip she ran away again, and called her teacher who she told her that she wanted to kill herself. Our rescue team and the police activated an emergency operation: they found her again, but this time she was taken to a shelter home, where she stayed for more than a month. But her mental and physical state were getting worse.

We got her to come home and in April she started therapy with Karuna, our psychologist. In all this time she has had many ups and downs. She finds it difficult to continue with her studies and activities. Ramya has a major anxiety problem and managing it is very difficult for her. We are working closely with her mother and her school to create a circle in which she feels safe. Ramya loves her mother very much and strengthening this bond seems to be improving the situation.

The truth is that in her case there is a long way to go before she recovers. We hope to have your support. At Mumbai Smiles, we will continue being with her.