“No mother should sit alone”: How one Kerala woman built a support network of 200 caregivers

Thiruvananthapuram: In 2010, Sheeja’s daughter Sandra was born with microcephaly in Thiruvananthapuram. The diagnosis meant years of hospital visits, seizures, and giving up her job to become a full-time caregiver. In hospital wards, Sheeja kept seeing other mothers alone — many abandoned by spouses, all struggling with care and costs.

In August 2021 she started Snehasandram Charitable Trust. It’s only for mothers raising children with disabilities. Instead of charity, it offers tailoring training, sewing machines, and livelihood support so they can earn and care at the same time. The trust also collects old newspapers to fund medicines, wheelchairs and diapers.

Today, more than 200 mothers across Thiruvananthapuram are part of it. Sheeja, now Sheeja Sandra, says the goal is simple: “We are mothers who have failed life’s tests again and again. But every time we help one another stand, that is a small win.”

The trust is now working to build a rehabilitation centre so mothers won’t have to choose between earning and caregiving.