Sophia College for Women
(Empowered Autonomous)
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Clubs and Associations


2021-2022
Students' Social Reform Initiative (SSRI)

The Students’ Social Reform Initiative (SSRI) provides a platform for students who are
committed to reaching out to the wider community. Their activities aim at bringing about
change and transformation in the lives of many others. Using the means of politics,
history and current affairs, SSRI believes in building individuals that are active agents of
social change in our society.
This year SSRI went a step ahead and tried to broaden the horizon of our students and
have them actively engage with the world of social change and what it means to be an
individual living in today’s age. We used the means of art, photography, interactions
with activists, advocates and members of our community to help our members be better
citizens or begin their journey of social reform and change.
This year SSRI worked towards creating a stronger foundation for the Sophia Queer
Collective with the hopes that it will continue to grow an an independent body in the
coming years.
The cultural year for the club began with a film screening and discussion for Peace
Fortnight on the 4th of August. The oscar-winning short film Little Terrorist directed by
Aswin Kumar led to the discussions on the themes of peace, childhood, sterotypes
based on religious differences.
One of the new online initiatives launched this year was Factually Speaking. Through
this, SSRI aimed to talk about lesser known issues in various industries, policies, etc.
Some of the topics covered were Nestle, problems in the film industry, privilege of
access to menstrual products in India, India’s reservation and meritocracy debate, and
more.
SSRI also continued it’s reccurring segment Point out out the Problem where
followers were made to guess the problematic aspects in popular media.
Our second event of the year was an interactive talk on the Politics of Mental Health in
India which was held on the 25th of September. The talk was facilitated by Afifa Kauser
and Richa Vashita.
Our next event was in collaboration with The Sports Department of Sophia College
which was a film discussion on the popular biopic of Indian boxer Mary Kom. The
event was conducted on the Zoom.
On 13th December, SSRI held a candid, student-led discussion on Body Image under
Charcha.

In December, SSRI returned with the 3rd edition on Humans of Sophia where students
got a platform to talk about their growth. Humans of Sophia was continued on
Instagram.
In the month of January, SSRI relaunched it’s recurring segment called Kranti which
brought to light various activists including Sudha Bharadwaj, Masrat Zahra, Nodeep
Kaur,
On January 15, SSRI announced a submission-based collaboration with the Art and
Design club of Sophia College called Point of View, in the hopes to provide the
students with a platform to present how they view themselves via the medium of
artwork.
For SSRI’s flagship event, we had the honour of inviting Dr. Krishna Warrier and
Mrunmayi Abroal for a workshop on Adressing Ableism on the 25th of February.
Through the event we were able to learn about the real life experiences of people with
disability, the various kinds of disability and the casual ableism that is widespread in the
society, and the important steps that one must take to create a more inclusive world.
The final event for the year was a Charcha session on Generational Trauma which
was facilitated by Maitreyi Nigwekar on the 28th of February.

CLUB INFO
Students' Social Reform Initiative (SSRI)

The Student’s Social Reforms Initiative (SSRI) works towards creating awareness about
various socio-political issues of the world. The club tries to educate the student base
and peers about the realities of discriminatory practices in our country and beyond. At
SSRI, we address the problems faced by minorities and believe that conversation holds
the power to facilitate change. SSRI provides a platform for students committed to
reaching out to a wider community and being active agents of social change through the
power of individual action. We at SSRI know that these are small steps, but the answer
is in the attempt. You can find the club at @ssrisophiacollege on instagram.
Staff Guides: Sr. Patricia D’souza and Professor Ivan John
Executives 2022-2023: Janhavi Ghai
Anshika Sinha
Tanvi Owal
Shubhaangi Trivedi
Shahana Akhtar

2019-2020
Students' Social Reform Initiative (SSRI)

Students’ Social Reform Initiative (SSRI) Club facilitates student driven events. Started
as the only LGBTQ+ supporting body in campus, the club has now evolved into a
medium for students to practice their rights, express their opinions and do their bit in the
society starting with their own campus. For the session 2019-20 the club’s theme was
“It’s all about you” with the goal of making SSRI an entity that the diverse group of
students could identify with. The values of connect, reflect and empathy were focused
upon to gain insight and to form an inclusive community in college.
The first event organised in collaboration with the Women’s Centre conducted on the
27 th of July 2019 (from 11:30 to 2pm) was titled “Education of Muslim Women’s Rights in
Islam” with the Mumbai based organisation Majlis. Attended by 43 students in the AV
hall this seminar was to educate females of the provisions given in the hadids and in the
sharia law for Muslim women, to empower them.
An LGBTQ+ Awareness Series was started online on July 30, 2019 on the basis of the
poor results of an online poll asking if people knew about the LGBTQ+ spectrum and
the different sexualities it contains. In this series, each day a new flag was uploaded
and the sexuality it represented was explained in brief on the SSRI Instagram page.
There were ten flags covered in this series which included the lesbian flag, the gay flag,
the bisexual flag, the transgender flag, the label queer, the intersex flag, the asexual
flag, the pansexual flag, the semisexual flag and the non-binary flag.
This series led to Queer Stories, an event meant to provide an intimate platform for
people of the LGBTQ+ community in college to share their stories. ‘Queer stories’ was
held on 9th of August 2019 from 11:30am-12:30 pm in room number 10. Attended by 38
students this event was meant to encourage empathy and listening amongst students.
This session provided a safe space for students to share their experiences with their
peers and connect with them.
On the 21 st of September, the Sophia Queer Collective (SQC), founded under the wing
of SSRI, held its introductory meeting in the AV Front & Back. The meeting was
attended by 40 students of both Senior and Junior College. The proceedings of the
meeting were overseen by Prof. Ivan John. The SQC was established as a safe,
confidential space for persons identifying with the Queer community, their friends, and
allies.
SSRI held an online series of posts of students called ‘Humans of Sophia’ starting 18 th
November, 2019. These submissions included art, poetry, photographs and personal
accounts of students of all grades, including Junior College. Posts put up included a
caption written by the sender, along with pictures either clicked by them, or of
themselves. The initiative is borrowed from the original creator of the series of Humans
of New York and Humans of Bombay.

On November 28 th 2019, Ms. Kazveen and Ms. Shweta from Samaritans Mumbai, were
invited by SSRI in collaboration with National Service Scheme (NSS), to conduct an
interactive workshop on the topic Suicide Prevention and Mental Wellbeing. The event
was held in AV Front at 1:30 PM, and 41 students attended the workshop. It was a two
hour interactive session that included a question and answer session and a detailed
explanation of the various parameters of mental health. The workshop threw light on
what triggers mental illnesses, sign and symptoms of depression, suicide and how to
combat it, and myths attached to mental health and mental disorders. The students who
attended the workshop also shared their experiences in combating mental health.
On 4 th December, 2019, Pearl Daruwalla, from the Humsafar Trust along with her team
was invited by SSRI, to conduct an interactive seminar on understanding the LGBTQ
community. Humsafar Trust is an NGO in Mumbai which promotes LGBT rights.
Founded by Ashok Row Kavi in 1994, it is one of the largest and most active of such
organizations in India. It provides counselling, advocacy and healthcare to LGBT
communities and has helped reduce violence, discrimination and stigma against them.
The Humsafar family was welcomed to present, celebrate and take forward the work
they have been doing since 1994.The event was conducted in the AV Hall at 1:15 pm.
57 students attended the event along with two faculty members, Dr Jenny Mendes and
Dr Ivan John.
A talk on ‘Accessible Queer Spaces’ was held on December 21, 2019 from 11:30 AM to
12:30 PM in the AV Hall by Mx. Dan Rebello, a trans rights activist. This event was held
in collaboration with Munsophical, attended by 20 students and a staff member. The
event started off with an explanation of what space is and how it needs to be inclusive
before accessible. There number of factors to making a space accessible including the
distance and language involved were also discussed. The fact that questioning authority
is one of the main things in such topics was greatly highlighted. Dan touched upon the
Trans Bill, 2019 and broke some myths about the LGBTQ+ community.
Art for Dissent was an online event conducted on 15 th and 16 th of January. The event
was conducted in light of the then occurring violence around university campuses in
India. Art for Dissent was a diverse platform for students to put forward their art in
whatever form possible and voice their opinion on topics of current affairs or the things
that do not get recognized as issues by the masses. The online series was able to
engage the students to participate and talk about a diverse range of issues. The
shortlisted six entries were featured on the SSRI Instagram page.
On 20 th January 2020, SSRI in collaboration with Art and Design club of Sophia College
for women held a wall painting event to re-paint the Peddar road walls outside college
after 6 years. The event began on the 20 th and went on till 26 th with 12 artists
volunteering to design the walls and numerous volunteers joining to help every day. The
walls were painted predominantly with the theme of woman empowerment. This event
culminated into a community event that brought the students together to redo the
college walls.

Student Social Reform Initiative (SSRI) club held its yearly pre-pride event on 1 st
February, 2020. The‘Pre-Pride solidarity gathering’ was conducted with the aim to
create a safe platform to discuss the changes in the pride venue due to the nationwide
CAA/NRC protests. This event took place in room 30 from 12:30pm-1:30pm and was
attended by 20 students. This event involved poster making and face painting to get
ready for Mumbai Pride Gathering 2020.
The club’s last event was a Guest lecture by Dr. Jagmeet Chawla on “Devlelopmental
Psychology in the Workplace” was held in Room number 30 from 10:30 am to 11:30 am
on 3 rd February 2020. Organized in collaboration with the Department of Psychology for
second year psychology students this lecture was attended by 120 students. Dr.
Chawala is a developmental pediatrician who now works in the field of developmental
psychology in her own NGO at Bhopal called the Aadhaar Centre. She talked about
autism and her experience in working with children with disabilities. This lecture was
educational and was meant to sensitise the students towards the specially abled.

2020-2021
Students' Social Reform Initiative (SSRI)

The Students’ Social Reform Initiative (SSRI) provides a platform for students who are
committed to reaching out to the wider community. Their activities aim at bringing about
change and transformation in the lives of many others. Using the means of politics,
history and current affairs, SSRI believes in building individuals that are active agents of
social change in our society.
This year SSRI went a step ahead and tried to broaden the horizon of our students and
have them actively engage with the world of social change and what it means to be an
individual living in these times. We used the means of art, photography, interactions
with activists, advocates and members of our community to help our members be better
citizens or begin their journey of social reform and change.
This year we organised as many as 12, both through the portal of Instagram as well as
interactive events on Zoom.
These Zoom events began with a Charcha (discussion) session on the 5th of
September, where we introduced our First-Year students to SSRI and had them
express what the Covid Lockdown was like for them. The event included candid
interactions between the Second-Year and First-Year Students, poetry recitations,
story-telling about how harrowing the past few months had been as well as just a
general feeling of togetherness between all the SSRI members.
This event was followed by the launch of the Sophia Queer Collectives page on
Instagram. This separate page was launched to keep all the activities of the queer
collective together and to create a thriving community of the SQC. The page put out
plenty of informative posts about topics such as, “The Significance of the ‘+’ sign in
LBTQIA+”, the breakdown of the extremely controversial film, “Laxmi”, Media
Representation of the LGBTQIA+ community, and many more such interesting topics.
September also saw the launch of the Humans of Sophia: Home Edition. This new
series of Humans of Sophia included self-portraits taken by our very own students of
Sophia College. The pictures were supposed to be taken by themselves, in the safety of
their homes and photographing these safe spaces. We got several entries, each more
beautiful and entrancing than the other. These pictures were accompanied by a short
writeup that expressed our students’ inner thoughts and experiences that they wanted
to share.
In October, we launched two more new online initiatives called Kranti: Voices of
Change and So Now We Know. Through the Kranti series, SSRI talked about social
reformers and people who have significantly contributed to change in the past and the
present.

The series was kickstarted with Savitribai Phule and Fatima Begum. Followed by Kiruba
Munusamy and Chandrashekar Azad to bring forward the issues of caste and to amplify
Dalit voices. Further, Professor Shoma Sen, Ruth Manorama, Anna Julia Cooper and
Fannie Lou Hamer have been covered as of October.
On October 6th, So Now We Know was started. SNWK was The series included
infographic posts based on current events. The posts summarised what was happening
in the country and why we must be aware of the events. The topics included, the
Hathras Rape Case of October 2020, the UAPA (Unlawful Activities Prevent Act) and
the arrests taking place under the act of activists and teachers, The Manual Scavenging
Act, The Transgender Protection Act and many more such pressing issues that are of
crucial importance to our country.
In a first, on the 27th of October, Kranti held its first interactive meeting with Anti
Caste activist Manisha Mashaal. The event was held to bring to the spotlight the vital
conversation around Dalit oppression and discrimination in Indian society. Our guest
Manisha Mashaal, touched upon several issues faced by Dalits in India and specifically
Dalit women. She began by acknowledging the lack of publication of Dalit struggle for
freedom, from the British and oppressive caste system in school textbooks which gives
rise to the widespread ignorance of Dalit oppression.
In November, two online Instagram Story Series were initiated. Point Out the
Problem (POTP) and This Month in History. Both the series took place on
Instagram’s story feature. POTP showed problematic and controversial scenes from old
films, TV shows and music videos that are beloved by people from all around the world
and asked them to guess what was the problem with the piece of pop culture. The
series was interactive and garnered a lot of attention and answers. The History series
was a quiz series that asked questions about important events in the past and then
explained in detail what the significance of these historical events was to us today.
On 21st November 2020, Sophia Queer Collective in collaboration with the
International Relations Club held a webinar/panel discussion via Zoom which pertained
to discussing the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill of 2019 and how it has
impacted the transgender community. The panellists included Anjali Siroya, Ankan
Biswas, and Rachana Mudraboyina.
December and January was a hiatus period due to examinations and their preparation.
SSRI resumed working from the 15th of January. The online series of POTP and the

history quiz continued as is. The preparation for Mizaaj, the cultural amalgamation of all
the flagship events of the clubs of Sophia College took place from January.
On 20th February, SSRI held its flagship event for the year called, Eating Your
Beliefs, a movie screening and panel discussion on the Politics of Food in India. The
panellists included renowned historian, Dr Kurush Dalal. Filmmakers, Ghania Siddique,
Talat Shakeel, Ananyaa Gaur, and Atul Anand. The event was a grand success with as
many as 150 participants from 12 colleges around India.
March was the last month for the functioning of the club. On the 13th of March, SSRI
organised the Gender Sensitization Workshop with NGO Rohaa. The workshop
informed the audience regarding the difference between gender, sex and sexuality, the
intricacies of gender bias, the significance and importance of gender empathy,
information regarding the importance of consent and actions that can be taken if
consent is violated amongst other things.
On the 20th of March, a session on Fast Fashion and Consumerism was organised
with resource persons, Apoorva Vijh and Ishi Srivastava, who were teachers from NIFT
and Pearl Academy Mumbai. They educated our students on the effects and fast
fashion and its impact on the environment.
24th March was the last event of SSRI for the year 2020-21. SSRI helped in organising
the pre-screening or Forward of the Kashish International Queer Film Festival,
along with the Department of Education.