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Adoption Podcasts

Adoption Podcasts

by Trushali Kotecha

Season 2

13. Shefali Naidu

Shefali Naidu is an author/screenwriter by profession. She has published two books, a love anthology - Love Unplugged. And a Crime thriller - Roses are Red Crimes are Blue. She is also have been a choreographer for over a decade, teaching western form of dancing like Jazz, Jive, hip-hop, Salsa and Bollywood, until the writing bug bit her!! Shefali has been married to Karthik for 13 years now. They have a biological daughter Shaina who is 10 and a heart baby Kiara who is 3.5 years old.

12. Mom Story by Sahana

Few years back a moment changed the purpose of Sahana's life forever. She got a call from a distant friend and they expressed the desire to adopt a child. Their ignorance around the subject made them look more like buyers than prospective parents. This made her think – adoption as a concept is not normal in our society. She wanted to do something to bring awareness and took the initiative to start educating and creating awareness about adoption in India through her YouTube channel, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb7FcaJ9w5bPs9rgHVy7txQ. She is an adoptive mother, entrepreneur and a passionate author. Adoption is still a taboo in our society and a lot of myths are associated with it. People are ignorant about the process, emotional connection and the reality of it. Till now she has made more than 100 adoption related videos in English and Hindi. She has also conducted many interviews with adoptive parents, counselors, social workers and organised closed group sessions for a more dedicated exposure for prospective parents. Her aim is not just to educate people about the technical process but also voice the nitti-gritties around adoption. In the last 3 years she has touched more than 150 lives and helped them directly & indirectly in their adoption journey. She has also penned down a book “Beyond Womb” available on Amazon and Flipkart that addresses adoption in a story format connecting dots of the adoptive parents with the adoptees in reality. She actively communicates with her audience through comments, mails, messages and also counsel through calls at times. Many adoptive parents and prospective parents have appreciated the simple videos which help them to relate and clear their doubts. She has interviewed and presented stories of other adoptive parents, eminent people associated with adoption for the public to watch and learn about their journey. Couples, Singles, special needs, older children and many more such topics are covered in her videos. This is a journey which is still going on for her through the discussion with prospective parents, adoptive parents and adoptees too. Most of the children coming in the adoption pool are malnourished and hence to add value to their health she has also posted videos of baby food, parenting and other challenges that goes around parenting along with her grandmother. Her vision is very simple “Adoption is as beautiful as a biological family, we must accept and cherish it without any tags associated with it. This will be possible only when we talk about it openly and normalise it.”

11. Domestic Adoption Within India

Priya was born and bought up in Mumbai, India. She is a nutritionist by profession, She is currently parenting an 8 year old son and 17 month old daughter along with her partner.

10. Where Are India's Children?

"Smriti Gupta is an adoptive mother of two daughters and is the co-founder of Where Are India's Children (waic.in) - an organisation working to bring abandoned and orphaned children in India into the legal adoption pool. Smriti has a background in technology, marketing, and partnerships. She has previously worked with Wikimedia Foundation, PayPal (eBay), and Synopsys. She is an alum of the Indian School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University, and The Cooper Union."

9. Adoption Stories

Leena Mhatre is an MBA in human resource having work experience in companies like Nokia, HDFC Life and DCB Bank. Currently she is working as a freelance professional fine artist. She is also passionate about singing. Pankaj Mhatre is an electronics engineer and is currently working with Chubbs Systems at Manager position. He is a pet lover and does a lot of social activities related to street dog health and care. They are adoptive parents to their beautiful daughter and she is one of the reasons that they are here to inspire people about adoption Procedures and trying to get rid of the stigma adoption still existent in their country, India.

8. Adopt India

Vidyadhar Prabhudesai is an entrepreneur and behaviour change advocate. He is the co-founder of LeadCap Ventures with presence in 40 countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. Over the past one and half decade, LeadCap is working with international institutions like the United Nations, World Bank, World Economic Forum, fourtune 100 companies like Google, Unilever, Microsoft, and SMEs and startups like Uber, Cred, Swiggy, Dunzo etc. He was nominated as Executive Director and Board Member of International Foundation for Sustainable, Peace and Development, a pre-eminent international institution based in Europe, where he conceptualized and spearheaded The Presidential Fellows Program. He is also co-founder of the Adopt India movement which plans to improve the plight of children who are orphaned or abandoned by bringing them into mainstream adoption channel and encourage child adoption as family planning alternative. He received the World Bank's Prize on Youth Employability for impacting more than 10 million youth. He was awarded "Thane Gaurav," second highest civilian status by Thane Municipal Corporation. He received global fellowship from the United Nations, World Economic Forum, Ford Foundation, Royal Society of Arts, and Commonwealth. He is an alumni of Thunderbird School of Global Management (USA).

Season 1

7. Post Adoption Depression

I had the privilege of interviewing Dr Charu Thanvi (General practitioner) about Post Adoption Deression. Dr Charu qualified as a medical doctor in 2015 and has had the wonderful opportunity to work in a variety of hospital specialties. After taking a year out travelling across New Zealand, Hong Kong and Spain, she decided to specialize in general practice and completed her training in 2021 from Birmingham/ Solihull. She has practiced as a locum GP across different practices covering different demographic groups of patients allowing here to gain a wider knowledge of the issues currently prevalent in the communities. Outside of work, she enjoys travelling, playing tennis & netball, Bollywood dancing and recently trying to venture into the world of cooking different cuisines, though she thinks that there is a long way to go!

6. Telling the child their story...Should we?

Adoption today means openness rather than secrecy which was what surrounded adoption in the past. Children are placed for adoption with an expectation that they will be brought up by their adoptive parents in the full knowledge of their adoption. So does that mean we should tell the child their story?

5. Friends Support Both Positive and Negative Opinions

I am interviewing my amazing friends Reemal and Sapna Rabheru. During our adoption journey we found some of our closest friends to be our biggest supporters. They took the place of close family who were not sure of our decision to adopt. In this podcast we are ultimately talking about support from friends within the adoption journey, both positive and negative opinions.

4. Inappropriate Questions

When you become an adoptive parent, there seem to be an endless amount of curious people. Most of them are harmless, just nosy and a little invasive but on the other hand some of the questions asked are extremely sensitive. In this podcast we are ultimately talking about inappropriate questions faced within the adoption journey. Vidya has lived most of her life in Mumbai, India and moved to the UK in 2017 to be with her partner. She is a banking professional. Adoption was a conscious choice for both of them. They are currently registered with CARA for siblings and waiting for a match. The Facebook group for all UK residents PAPs (irrespective of country of adoption) - https://www.facebook.com/groups/568807484993718/?ref=share. The groups is only for registered PAPs.

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