About Us
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About us
TJI was established in 2020 by a community of people who believe strongly in innate human dignity, respect and grace. Through our programmes inside and outside the Central Prison walls in Bengaluru, Mysuru and Shivamogga, we create spaces where people can be, belong, feel at home and form and become part of communities that will model the reality of lives rebuilt, restored and reconciled.
While the TJI’s work is not gender-specific, currently we work with women life convicts as this group is highly vulnerable to in-prison as well as post-release stigmatisation and rejection by the family and community as a whole. Women life convicts carry with them unique psychological traumas that are gender-specific and require tailored and focussed rehabilitative programmes.
Though these women have been sentenced to life imprisonment for an act of crime, when learning about their life’s journey one realises that in many cases, they have also survived domestic violence, sexual and marital abuse and rape and child marriage. Many have been denied access to their fundamental rights to food, education and physical and mental health.
Having being engaged with the criminal justice system in India and our close engagement with those in conflict with the law, it our collective desire to support the efforts of the Indian justice system – by making accessible programmes that foster holistic well-being and reintegration into society.
TJI receives permissions from the Department of Prisons and Correctional Services, Government of Karnataka, to hold Mental Health Workshops and Creative Expression Trainings within the women’s sections in Central Prisons at Bengaluru and Mysuru and the Central Prison for Women, Shivamogga.
Once released, these women are integrated into the Collective, a peer group formed and facilitated by TJI to help them navigate the challenges of life after prison. Our Echoes programme offers in-prison and released life convicts a platform for them to tell their stories as they have lived it, experienced it and continue to see it unveil every day.
