“We Must Take Care of Ourselves Because We Know How to Survive”: Inside Empower People’s Salah Sakhi Workshop
- Admin Blog
- 2 days ago
- 8 min read
Updated: 21 hours ago
On the first day of the workshop, the room was quiet.
Women sat carefully beside one another, many unsure of how much they should speak, what they should reveal, or whether they could trust the space around them. Conversations were hesitant. Eye contact was brief. Some participants remained silent for hours.
But something powerful happened during introductions.
Participants were asked not only to share their present names, but also the names they were called during childhood. Soon, everyone agreed that throughout the four-day workshop they would address each other by their childhood names.
As women began recalling names that had not been spoken affectionately in years, their faces changed.
Some smiled quietly. Others laughed with embarrassment. For many survivors trafficked across states and separated from their families, childhood itself had become emotionally distant. Hearing those names again seemed to reconnect them, even briefly, to forgotten parts of themselves.
From 11–14 May 2026, Empower People conducted a 4-day Peer Counseling Workshop at Clifftop Retreat, Yamunanagar, under the Activating Survivors Assistance Program supported by the United Nations Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery (UNVTF).
The workshop brought together 15 women survivors of trafficking who were trained as community-based peer counselors, referred to as Salah Sakhis, under Empower People’s S3N framework — Solidarity, Sisterhood, Survivor Network.
But the workshop was not simply about counseling skills.
It was about rebuilding trust among women whose lives had been shaped by isolation.
When Trafficking Does Not End After Trafficking
Many survivors of bride trafficking continue living inside the very environments where exploitation occurred.
Some are trafficked across states into forced marriages. Many are separated from their languages, identities, families, and communities for years. Several women within the workshop had survived forced marriages after being trafficked from states like Assam and West Bengal into Haryana.
One participant shared how she was trafficked at a young age. Years later, after immense effort by her father to locate her, she finally returned to meet her native family. But when she arrived, her own brother and sister-in-law refused to identify her publicly. Her father later died carrying the grief of separation and social humiliation.
Another participant spoke about her sister, who had eloped with a man she trusted, only to be sold into a forced marriage in Uttar Pradesh. The family lost contact with her for nearly two years before she managed to reconnect.
These were not stories narrated for sympathy.
They emerged slowly, often after hours of collective exercises, shared meals, and quiet conversations between women who recognized pieces of themselves in each other’s experiences.
Four Days, Four Emotional Landscapes
The emotional journey of the workshop unfolded almost collectively.
The first day was marked by hesitation.
Women observed one another carefully. Many survivors had spent years learning silence as a survival mechanism. Speaking openly about emotional pain, violence, or trafficking does not come easily in communities where women are often blamed for their own suffering.
The second day became emotional.
Stories surfaced. Some participants spoke publicly about trafficking, abandonment, violence, panic attacks, and years of isolation for the first time in group settings. Several role-play sessions became emotionally intense as survivors reenacted situations involving coercion, fear, and helplessness.
Participants also began reflecting deeply on what it actually means to become a Salah Sakhi.
Many women admitted that they often interrupted others quickly or immediately started giving advice without fully listening. Through discussions and exercises, they realized that real support sometimes begins with listening carefully, understanding the situation properly, and responding thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively.
One of the most transformative activities involved participants working in pairs.
In one exercise, women intentionally interrupted each other repeatedly during conversations. In the second round, they were asked to listen completely without interruption and only respond after the other person had fully finished speaking.
The difference affected participants deeply.
Women who had spoken very little during earlier sessions suddenly became attentive listeners, asked thoughtful questions, and gave sensitive responses. Participants later reflected that they had never realized how much emotional burden can become lighter simply when someone listens patiently without judgment.
The third day brought laughter.
Women began speaking more freely in Hindi, Bengali, Urdu, Haryanvi, and Punjabi. Inside the retreat, linguistic barriers slowly dissolved into familiarity. Participants laughed during role plays, teased one another during group exercises, and stayed awake late into the night continuing conversations long after formal sessions had ended.
The workshop space no longer felt formal.
It began feeling like community.
Several activities unexpectedly awakened childhood memories.
Participants were given chart papers and colors and asked to draw freely while another participant guided them verbally. Many women shared that it had been years since they had last sat in front of paper and colors simply to create something.
One participant, Munna Ji, initially could not draw anything at all. She repeatedly said that she had never done activities like this before. For nearly ten minutes she remained hesitant, holding the colors quietly in her hands. Then slowly, with visible nervousness, she began sketching small shapes on the chart paper while repeatedly looking at the colors in her hands almost with disbelief.
Many participants later said the activity reminded them of childhood in ways they had not expected.
The fourth day brought tears.
Not only because the workshop was ending, but because many participants expressed that for the first time in a long time, they felt deeply heard without judgment.
Women who had barely spoken on the first day were comforting others by the fourth.
“Community Listening is First Response”
Empower People’s peer counseling approach is built around a simple but powerful understanding:
Women usually speak to another woman before they ever approach institutions.
Before police stations.Before courts.Before formal systems.Before psychologists.
They first search for someone who will listen safely.
The Salah Sakhi initiative is built around this reality.
Salah Sakhis are not positioned as professional therapists. They are trained peer counselors equipped with skills in active listening, emotional support, crisis response, psychological first aid, confidentiality, and referral support.
Under the S3N framework, peer counseling is part of a larger survivor-led support ecosystem that includes healing circles, legal support, cultural solidarity, and digital peer-support systems.
The workshop focused heavily on:
listening without interruption
responding without judgment
maintaining confidentiality
identifying emotional distress and crisis situations
supporting women experiencing violence or trauma
creating emotionally safe spaces
rebuilding solidarity among survivors
Participants also discussed the practical responsibilities of a Salah Sakhi.
Women asked questions about how they could help someone needing police support, documentation assistance, or access to welfare services. Discussions included how peer counselors can guide women toward emergency services like 112, Common Service Centres (CSC), BDO offices, legal aid systems, and other support structures rather than attempting to solve every situation alone.
One participant reflected:
“We must take care of ourselves not because we are victims, but because we know how to survive hostile environments and still keep ourselves inspired during difficult times.”
That sentence stayed in the room long after she finished speaking.
Rebuilding Sisterhood After Isolation
Bride trafficking isolates women not only physically, but psychologically.
Many survivors are separated from their natal families by 1,500–2,500 kilometers, while also facing language barriers, social stigma, and emotional exclusion within their marital communities.
S3N — Solidarity, Sisterhood, Survivor Network — was developed by Empower People as a response to this isolation. The framework reimagines peer support, healing circles, survivor leadership, cultural solidarity, and community listening as forms of “virtual maternal family” for trafficked women.
Inside the workshop, this philosophy became visible in small moments:
women translating for one another across languages,
survivors comforting participants during emotional breakdowns,
shared late-night conversations,
collective reflection circles,
and meals that reminded women of home.
One evening, participants gathered to eat machh-bhat — rice and fish — alongside vegetarian food prepared collectively at the retreat. For some Bengali-speaking survivors, the meal carried emotional significance beyond food itself. It became a reminder of memory, belonging, language, and identity.
In trafficking contexts where women are often forced to erase parts of themselves to survive, even food can become an act of emotional reclamation.
The workshop also became a space where women spoke about their aspirations, skills, and unfinished ambitions.
One participant shared that she wanted to restart slipper-making work she had done earlier. Another spoke proudly about making chips and wanting to expand that work. Some discussed dreams of opening small shops from their homes to support their children and families.
These conversations carried an important reminder:
Survivors are not defined only by trauma.
They also carry aspirations, creativity, labour, survival knowledge, and the desire to rebuild their futures.
More Than a Workshop
The workshop also served as a process of identifying future survivor leaders and community peer counselors.
Participants were observed not on educational qualifications, but on empathy, emotional steadiness, listening ability, trustworthiness, ethical behaviour, and the capacity to support others during distress.
Several women who initially remained silent emerged as strong listeners, emotionally grounded participants, and natural support figures for others in the group.
One participant, Sharmila Ji, reflected that she had already spent years informally listening to and supporting women in her community, but had never realized that this work itself carried value or even a name.
Another participant, Noor Ayesha Ji, shared that before the workshop she often gave advice impulsively without considering how harmful incorrect guidance could become in someone’s life. The training made her realize the responsibility involved in offering emotional support and information to vulnerable women.
Salima Ji shared how during some of the hardest periods of her life, her mother-in-law had supported her emotionally and financially when no one else stood beside her.
As founder of Empower People, one of the most striking observations throughout the workshop was not simply the trauma survivors carried — but the extraordinary emotional intelligence they demonstrated despite it.
Women who had survived trafficking, abandonment, violence, and social rejection still showed the ability to comfort others, create safety for strangers, and hold space for collective healing.
That reality challenges the way society often sees survivors.
S3N does not view survivors as passive recipients of charity.
It views them as women capable of becoming leaders, peer counselors, community protectors, and architects of support systems for others.
Building a Different Future
The workshop concluded with participant reflections, certifications, tears, and promises to remain connected beyond the retreat.
On the final day, many participants kept asking:“Kal bhi aana hai kya?”(Do we have to come again tomorrow too?)
The question carried something deeper than curiosity.
It reflected a growing desire to continue listening, learning, sharing, and staying connected with one another.
As participants prepared to leave on the final evening, women exchanged phone numbers in Bengali, Hindi, Urdu, and broken Haryanvi — small acts of connection that only days earlier would have felt impossible.
But the significance of the workshop goes far beyond four days in Yamunanagar.
In communities where women are often taught to remain silent about violence, grief, and emotional pain, the emergence of Salah Sakhis represents something deeply powerful:
Women becoming safe spaces for other women.
The workshop was facilitated by Workshop Lead Psychologist Runjhun Sharma, Rajbala (Project Coordinator), Urmila Badal (President, Sakhi Mandal), and Shafiq R Khan, Founder of Empower People, with support from volunteer Arsh Khan and active coordination by Anjule Shyam Maurya, Rajendra Prasad (Haryana State Coordinator), Dildar Hussain (Convenor, Empower People Yamunanagar), Anjum Bano (Press Secretary, Sakhi Mandal), and Shilpa Kumari.
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