Vandana Praful Sonawane is 43 years old and hails from Pune district. She did her Masters in Social work and has been active in the social field for more than 14 years. She also runs an organization named Manik Ratna Multipurpose Society. By setting up Self Help groups, she is empowering women in various fields. She attained leadership training at Manuski.
She received support from Manuski by receiving information, knowledge, from the center. She is mainly focuses for development of those women who have remained in four walls of their house and never got opportunity to learn and grow. She built network of women to motivate them to work on the ideology of Phule, Shahu Maharaj, and Dr. B R Ambedkar. Before coming to Manuski, She did not received proper guidance and information on various issues relating to caste and gender violence and discrimination. Her future goal is to spread awareness about Buddhist philosophy through the self help groups. She says that Manuski center has created awareness amongst Dalit women leaders about Provision of Atrocity act and to initiate and assist public advocacy at various levels on the issues of atrocities on Dalits. The need is to support the affected communities in registering complaints in the police stations and to do rigorous follow up in these cases of human rights violations. To wants to strive for women’s participation in the education of their children and wants to create an environment for revival of human dignity. She wants to start education classes for children to develop their personality.
