Shelter for Women Escaping Trafficking & Abuse

MissingLink began its journey with the idea and intention to meet the gaps of development planning. It envisioned a healthy environment for women to grow and work towards violence free future.

In West Bengal, one in every two children is still anemic, as per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) report in 2016. It also states, “Mothers do not fare any better than children in this regard either, as more than 60% of all women and 53.2% of pregnant women were found anemic in the state”. Needless to mention women from poverty-stricken districts like Murshidabad are affected by the outcomes of malnutrition for generations in their families. Hence, the team worked very hard and prepared the shelter premise to grow nutritious vegetables and greens in the last year. It started with fencing the area to protect it from grazing goats and bovines. It took many months of mulching before the first seeds were sowed. Our residents and team members made sure to nurture the growing vegetable garden until it started providing garden fresh greens to the residents in their meals. Thanks to IBA Molecular for their partnership for supporting MissingLink to work on the garden project and taking care of nutrition for the young women and their children residing in the shelter.

In the mean time MissingLink team kept on providing their services to the victims of domestic violence and reached out to 29 more cases through the shelter services like health check up, legal support, counseling and livelihood training programs. Other than working with the victims and volunteers in the villages, the team also reached out to the local law college to sensitize law students on the rights of the survivors. We believe it is very important to engage with the next generation of service providers while they acquire their academic knowledge.

If you are still not our Facebook Page please LIKE the page for more regular update and help us to grow our community of MissingLinks. Join us to spread the word among your friends in Delhi, India to participate in the ‘Change is Delisious’ event to enjoy the local delicacies of Murshidabad and help us to reach more young women in need. Let us know if you are interested to host similar event in your city at your home to enjoy the histories of Murshidabad and support the young women in their jounrey towards promosing and empowered future. 

MissingLink focused on strengthening its program, empowering grassroots workers and keeping check on its activities along with providing shelter, legal guidance and counseling services to young women in need in the last quarter.

Nayana Chowdhury, one of the core team members of MissingLink and an expert gender rights trainer voluntarily conducted a three-day workshop for field staff. The purpose of the training was to strengthen their knowledge on human rights and make them better equipped while they deal with cases in their locality on daily basis. Two interns from Azim Premji University, one of Indian’s premiere institute assisted Nayana to conduct the workshop.

We were delighted to host Tiasha Banerjee and Nidhi Manchanda as part of Global Giving monitoring team at Suprava (SPMUS). We learnt a lot from their visit about using the Global Giving platform for the benefit of the projects and organization at large. It was very motivating for all of us to receive their encouraging feedback. Tiasha wrote in her email, “I would like to thank you and your team for taking out time for us during the visit and giving us an experience of our lifetime. It was pleasure meeting you and seeing the kind of commendable work that your organization is doing.”

In the mean time MissingLink support staff succeeded to get the maintenance order passed for three MissingLink beneficiaries from the local court. Now on these three young women will receive child support and maintenance from their spouses, which is a rare phenomenon in the region. Hence, a great step for MissingLink and positive example for the community. This has also boosted the moral of the current residents of MissingLink and the staff involved in the process. Our outreach volunteers sourced seven new cases of domestic violence victims who are currently receiving the legal guidance, counseling support and information on other resources at the MissingLink shelter. Another 37 victims of domestic violence received casework support and counseling through the shelter’s outreach program.

In the upcoming days we are planning to come up with livelihood plans and try various locally usable enterprise ideas to make our beneficiaries financially independent. We already initiated a partnership with Rudsetti institute and District Industrial Center for vocational training of the survivors.

We are just $500 away from our target for the current year. We are very thankful to all MissingLink supporters, volunteers and partners for making it possible. Stay tune to the Global Giving page, as we come up with more exciting plans and updated budget requirements for 2019.