Shaibya Saldanha

Co-founder

Co-founder of Enfold Proactive Health Trust

Shaibya Saldanha is the co-founder of Enfold Proactive Health Trust (2001)[1], an Indian non-profit working on women & children, human rights and education from Bengaluru.

Shaibya Saldanha is an Indian obstetrician and gynaecologist who co-founded Enfold Proactive Health Trust, a Bengaluru-based organisation working on child sexual abuse prevention, personal safety education, gender and sexuality education, and support for survivors. She established the trust in 2001 with Sangeeta Saksena, a fellow doctor with whom she taught at St John's Medical College, Bangalore.

Her work has centred on the point at which medicine and the criminal justice system meet: training doctors, police officers and social workers in the medical examination and care of child survivors, and advising on the implementation of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, 2012.

Early life and education

Saldanha completed her MD in 1993 from Bombay University. She subsequently worked at Grant Medical College in Mumbai.

Career

Saldanha spent about seven years at St John's Medical College and Hospital in Bangalore, where she was an associate professor in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology. She and Sangeeta Saksena, a colleague in the same department, left the medical college to work full time on preventive and promotive health for children and adolescents, founding Enfold Proactive Health Trust in November 2001.

Appearing as an expert witness in a child sexual abuse trial, Saldanha concluded that child victims and their carers had little support as they moved through the medico-legal system. In 2010 she took training through ISPCAN and UNICEF in the Philippines on the management of child sexual abuse and the setting up of child protection units. She went on to establish Enfold's support and rehabilitation team, to adapt the Sexual Assault Forensic Evidence (SAFE) kit for use in Indian medical facilities, and in 2011 to open a collaborative child response unit at MS Ramaiah Memorial Hospital in Bangalore.

She has continued in medical practice alongside her work at Enfold and has served as a training consultant to the government of Meghalaya on maternal and child health. In September 2023 she spoke at a workshop on the POCSO Act organised by the High Court of Meghalaya and the Meghalaya State Judicial Academy with the state law and social welfare departments and the Meghalaya Police. She is a co-author, with Shekhar Seshadri and Sangeeta Saksena, of the On Track personal safety education manuals for parents published by Macmillan Education.[2][3][4][5][6]

Enfold Proactive Health Trust

Enfold Proactive Health Trust was co-founded in 2001 in Bengaluru by gynaecologists Dr Sangeeta Saksena and Dr Shaibya Saldanha to promote gender equity, sexuality education and child safety. It trains schools, colleges and institutions in personal safety education, supports survivors of child sexual abuse through courts and hospitals, and its research on the POCSO Act informs national policy debates.

Enfold Proactive Health Trust reports the following, on its own site:

Reached 2,68,727 children and young adults
Sensitized 1,161 schools, colleges and child care institutions
Reached 1 million+ nursing students through advocacy with the Indian Nursing Council on its curriculum