Sharon Menezes

Mumbai, Maharashtra

Project: Reintegration and rehabilitation interventions for women affected by the criminal justice system.
Collaborating with women affected by the criminal justice system to create innovative models and academic programs for their social reintegration.

Sharon Menezes collaborates with marginalized communities, paraprofessionals, and field social workers to create models for the social re-entry of women who are processed by the criminal justice system as victims or offenders. These include women attempting to exit commercial sexual exploitation, female prisoners, and women in shelter homes and other custodial centres.

As an assistant professor at the Centre for Criminology and Justice (CCJ), School of Social Work (SSW), Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, Sharon has been a leader at Prayas, a field action project of CCJ, TISS, for 30 years.

At Prayas, she and her team have innovated long-term reintegration and rehabilitation interventions for more than 20,000 women affected by the criminal justice system. These range from legal counselling, family strengthening, livelihood linkages, access to education, and building community allyship to prevent the next generation from being processed by the CJ system.

Inspired by the lived experiences of women and field-based social workers and paraprofessionals, Sharon has designed India’s first academic course on Social Re-entry of Criminal Justice-Affected Populations. The course demonstrates “Indigenous pedagogical frameworks” for social work education, where the field serves as the site for curriculum development.

“The ORA Fellowship is an acknowledgment of the resilience and unheard voices of women and youth struggling to move away from crime, commercial sex, and destitution. It also recognises social workers who co-travel with affected people as they reconstruct their lives in safe and crime-free environs. The Fellowship offers impetus to these journeys – that co-construct indigenous knowledge about criminal justice social work in the Indian context.”

Follow along with Sharon:

https://www.linkedin.com/company/prayas-tiss/