Through free legal aid and support groups, Vandana aims to encourage distressed women to take on vocational training, and become a womenpreneur like she did “750 Rupees a billion-dollar dream”
At her lowest point, Vandana Shah had ₹750 in her bank account, this was a time when she chose to stand up for herself, after walking out of an abusive marriage. She chose to take up a stand against the vicious cycle of abuse, that may have never ended had she not shown the courage to take a stand.
“I said to myself—I am better off being alive, doing things I want to do, having faith in myself, having high self-esteem, and believing in life. That is the first step towards growth,’ she explains, as she persevered to live a life based on her own will, and her own assertions.
Her husband filed for divorce. She decided to study law to understand the legal process, and also ran a support group for women with similar experiences.
With time, Vandana started practicing as a divorce lawyer, taking up cases of women that had no one to look up to. Along with that, she also started India’s first non-judgmental support group for people going through divorce- ‘Three Sixty Degrees Back to Life’, to help them understand that they aren’t alone, and that help is available to you, whenever you need it.
She has been featured in the International and National media. BBC has made a documentary about her work in ‘Invisible Women of India,’ about her divorce, she has collaborated with Priyanka Chopra for her film ‘Firebrand’ and has consistently been featured in various achievers lists and has won several awards for her outstanding work.
Though Vandana has been widely featured in the media as a celebrity divorce lawyer, she has been widely known for counselling women who want an end to abuse on the hands of their husbands and in-laws.
To widen her reach pan-India, she launched DivorceKart, an app and helpline number, six to seven years ago. Through this, she provided legal aid to those women who desperately needed it.
Back then, the helpline received almost 15,000 calls a day at its peak, with many of the women calling in the dead of the night to escape scrutiny from their in-laws and husbands.
“Our key findings were that divorce was increasingly being considered an alternative to a bad marriage. Many people earlier believed divorce was irrelevant in India, but that perception changed.
Many calls came in after 11:30 at night. When we asked why, callers said they stepped out of their homes because everyone was asleep. They were in abusive marriages and were secretly trying to understand their rights—chup chup ke phone karte the,” she explains.
Though the initiative, Vandana and her team have witnessed first-hand how times have changed, but patriarchal attitudes haven’t.
“You cannot speak to women the way people did fifty years ago. The same applies to men, who are often caught between expectations of mothers and wives,” Vandana says, especially as she witnessed women undergoing years of silent abuse, both mental and emotional. The DivorceKart app is getting upgraded.
Throughout her career, Vandana has witnessed how women’s increasing assertiveness has continued to clash with the outdated mindset that refuses to go away. Though attitudes towards relationships, and aspirations have changed, women must understand that they do have choices, and women have options to carve an independent life for themselves if they need to.
“Divorce is not the end of life. It is restart. I restarted my life with seven hundred and fifty rupees and a billion-dollar dream—and that belief still drives me,” Vandana explains. There are many ways to get back into life and fly.
<p>The post Vandana Went From Being An Abused Wife To Being India’s Top Divorce Lawyer first appeared on Hello Entrepreneurs.</p>
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