Padme aims to open minds and hearts by bringing together critical stakeholders on a common platform.
Padme will be a comprehensive resource platform that will bridge the gap between the current situation and adopting a new mindset on adoption. We will work towards demystifying adoption and help mitigate social conditioning that stigmatises adoption (including but not limited to children perceived as ‘difficult to place’), which sometimes hampers the decision-making process.
Our intended takeaway is to make the whole adoption experience less overwhelming, and have a more balanced approach while tackling concerns regarding adoption.
We strongly believe in the fact that a nurturing environment is pivotal to a child’s emotional and physical well-being. Nature does its part but nurturing has its own way of adapting to nature. We should approach adoption with an attitude of compassion with a thought that every child deserves an equal opportunity to have a stable nurturing environment
A child whether he or she is through adoption or the biological route without making any distinctions in our mind, will blossom in full potential when love and nurturing is unconditional.
Padme works towards changing views and attitudes on adoption and build awareness towards expanding horizons to be more inclusive and consider broader options with the end goal of popularising adoption, not as a fall back option, but as an alternate way to start a family.
Padme will also involve society at large to clear myths and misconceptions about adoption. We believe that there needs to be a significant shift in the way that people, especially those who are not directly connected with adoption, perceive adoption.
Gayatri Abraham
I have always been interested in women’s issues and have been involved in various activities alongside my work experience.
In the mid-90s, I was part of a study on Women’s Reproductive Healthcare, conducting interviews with commercial sex workers in Chennai, led by a professor from the University of Swansea.
Over the last 12 years, I have been involved with adoption as a cause, counselling prospective adoptive parents as well as adoptive parents on dealing with adoption and adoptees.
Setting up Padme as a site that will function as a go-to resource for adoptive parents, adoptees and society at large to initiate and change the tone of conversation on the topic of adoption in India is the crystallization of a dream that I have been carrying around for more than a decade.