BENGALURU: Over the past few months, 10 women inmates of Tumakuru Central Prison have immersed themselves in the history of Thanjavur (Tanjore) paintings and have learnt to paint in this style, giving them a chance to take part in holistic rehabilitation and to become financially independent. The project, titled ‘Project Fresh Start’, is the brainchild of 14-year old Nikita Nambiar. It has been approved by the Department of Prisons and will be extended to all state prisons.
Nikita, a student of The International School Bangalore (TISB), is proud of the appreciation she received from the Additional Director of General of Police (ADGP) Prisons S Megharikh. She was inspired to start the project when she watched a programme on National Geographic channel about incarcerated women. The project strives to provide holistic rehabilitation that empowers women convicts both socially and financially and helps them become productive community members.
“Starting this project was not very easy for me. I had this idea, but it was a daunting task to convince everyone around me to take it forward and I knew very well that I couldn’t do it alone,” says an excited Nikita.
From convincing her parents to allow her to work with women inmates, an unusual task for a 14-year old, she also had to get access to them. “From getting permission to finding a good teacher who could teach Tanjore paintings, to be able to understand the psyche of the prisoners and to understand that this is not in an ordinary situation, was definitely challenging,” she says. However, her father, a software engineer and her mother, a homemaker, understood their daughter’s ambition and helped her overcome these challenges.
Finally, last November, her efforts bore fruit and the project kicked off. It was completed in Tumakuru in March. Nikita created a website to share more information on the project and auctioned the paintings the inmates created.
“We have sold three paintings and we are looking forward to tying up with several e-traders like Flipkart and Amazon so that they can use these paintings and help inmates earn money,” her father Rajesh Nambiar said.