Sohini Chakraborty

Founder

Sohini Chakraborty is the founder of Kolkata Sanved (2004)[1], an Indian non-profit working on mental health, anti-trafficking, women & children and arts & culture from Kolkata.

Sohini Chakraborty is an Indian sociologist and dance movement therapist who founded Kolkata Sanved in 2004. The organisation uses dance movement therapy in the psycho-social rehabilitation of survivors of trafficking, violence and abuse, and of people living with mental illness.

She developed Sampoornata, a dance movement therapy model that trains survivors themselves as practitioners, and has been described as introducing dance movement therapy as a rehabilitation method in South Asia.

Career

Chakraborty trained as a sociologist and as a dancer, and began working with survivors of trafficking in the 1990s after seeing an anti-trafficking poster. She spent several years experimenting with dance as a means of recovery before founding Kolkata Sanved on 29 April 2004.

Kolkata Sanved is a women-led organisation and works through the Sampoornata model, in which survivors are trained to become dance movement therapy practitioners and then work with others. The organisation runs trauma-healing programmes, a leadership development academy and community wellbeing groups.

In 2012 she established India's first academic programme in dance movement therapy, with the Centre for Lifelong Learning at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She is the author of 'Dance Movement Therapy and Psycho-social Rehabilitation: The Sampoornata Model'.

Recognition

Chakraborty was elected an Ashoka Fellow for her work using dance movement therapy with marginalised communities. She received a Diane von Furstenberg Award in 2011 and a Newsmaker award from the West Bengal news channel 24 Ghanta in 2012, and was named one of 100 global women leaders by Vital Voices. She received the True Legend Award in 2015 and was felicitated in 2016 by the Departments of Women and Child Development and of Social Welfare of the Government of West Bengal.[2][3][4]

Kolkata Sanved

Kolkata Sanved was founded on 29 April 2004 by Sohini Chakraborty together with five survivors of trafficking. It uses Dance Movement Therapy and creative arts therapy through its Sampoornata model to support healing, wellbeing and community participation for survivors of trauma and people facing social and economic disadvantage. The organisation runs a leadership development academy and a post-graduate diploma in dance movement therapy, and around 60 per cent of its employees come from grassroots communities.

Kolkata Sanved reports the following, on its own site:

In 2024-25 Kolkata Sanved reached 4,565 individuals directly through its dance movement therapy programmes, running 11 programmes pan-India in partnership with 20 organisations across West Bengal, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Jharkhand.
Over the five years 2020-2025 Kolkata Sanved recorded a direct reach of 10,335 participants regularly accessing its healing and leadership programmes, 55,302 lives touched, and an indirect reach of 14.7 lakh people through campaigns, events and awareness initiatives, working with 47 partner organisations across 9 states.
Kolkata Sanved's Dance Movement Therapy Leadership Development Academy has trained 200 grassroots graduates, and its PG Diploma run with TISS trained 319+ graduates across India between 2014 and 2024.