Prayas

Sponser: The Tata Trusts, The Azim Premji Philanthropic Initiatives, Tata Motors, HT Parekh Foundation, Shri Balaji Foundation, Individuals and Corporates Mumbai, Thane and Latur in Maharashtra State & Bharuch in Gujarat State Explore Prayas – A field action project of Tata Institute of Social Sciences Prayas is a pioneering social work demonstration project of the Centre for Criminology and Justice, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, established as a Field Action Project in 1990. Placement of social work students doing their M.A. in Social Work from the Department of Criminology and Correctional Administration (now the Centre for Criminology and Justice) at TISS in prisons, police stations, and courts from 1985 onwards by Dr Sanober Sahni, a faculty in the Department and now Project Advisor, Prayas, led to conceiving the idea of starting a full-time project focusing on social work intervention in the Criminal Justice System. Her partner in this venture was Prof. Vijay Raghavan, who had graduated from TISS in 1989, and the work of Prayas was initiated in Mumbai Central Prison in 1990. With the evolution of newer programmes, the leadership in Prayas has been consciously developed to foster participative decision-making processes, group accountability mechanisms and has led to a second rung of leadership holding key positions, including the Joint Project Director, Dr. Sharon Menezes.