Vijayatai Lawate

Lawate worked for more than thirty-five years on the rehabilitation of women in prostitution and their children. She began this work with Sarvesham Seva Sangh, which focused on rehabilitating women in the trade and on the education of their children, and later worked with the Nihar project, which worked with the children of women in prostitution.

After leaving Nihar in 1997 she concluded that HIV was spreading rapidly in these communities and that children were the worst affected, and founded Manavya. She chose the name, from a word meaning humanity, because she believed that humanity alone could protect children and women living with HIV.

Manavya began in rented accommodation at Indira Nagar with about twenty-five children and moved ten times before Lawate was able to buy land at Bhugaon, about ten kilometres from Pune. The children moved into the permanent home on 25 November 2000 after a struggle of more than four years.

Lawate died on 11 February 2005. The trustees, volunteers and staff who had worked with her continued the organisation's work.

Manavya records a long list of awards conferred on Lawate. They include the Bhatia Memorial Charitable Trust Award, Delhi, and the Smt. Minatai Thakare Award in 1995; the Bharatiya Stree Shakti Award, the FIE Foundation Award, a Pune Municipal Corporation award, the Hingane Stree Shikshan Sanstha Award and the Smt. Tarabai Raste Award in 1996; the Savitribai Phule Award and the Jane Harris Award of the Rotary Foundation in 1997; the Mauli Anandi Award in 1998; the Kesari Award, the Ugandhar Award and the Smt. Kusumtai Chaudhari Award in 2000; the Jan Sewa Award in 2001; the Margaret Golding Award of International Inner Wheel in 2003; and the Baya Karve Award in 2004. She was felicitated posthumously by Bharati Vidyapeeth Social Work College, Pune, in 2005 and by Anandvan Trust in 2008.[2][3][4]