Mohit Raj (36) an MBA-finance graduate from Uttar Pradesh recalls the first time he stepped into the premises of Delhi’s Tihar Jail. He was there at the behest of the then DG (Director General of Police) of Tihar, IPS Officer Sudhir Yadav. The latter was sure that his plan of transforming the prison reform systems in Tihar could benefit from Mohit’s expertise.

In hindsight, Mohit sees that fateful day as the one that set the precedent for the rest of his vocation; the day ‘Project Second Chance’ — a civil initiative in New Delhi that is reimagining the prisons of India — was born. Mohit spent the next many months conducting a needs assessment in jail quarters. When he wasn’t conversing with the inmates, he was observing their routines intently, attempting to understand what brought them to this fate, and how they planned on riding through it.

It was during those three months that a realisation dawned on Mohit — access to justice is a prerogative of the privileged. And the desire to reframe this led him to start Project Second Chance in 2017 along with Saanchi Marwaha (36) and Eleena Jeorge (30).

To date, over 11,500 prisoners have been impacted; with over 150 of them being motivated to take board exams under NIOS (National Institute of Open Schooling) and another 60 inmates employed post-release.

As for Mohit, who, once upon a time, was a young adolescent with a mind clouded with dreams of becoming a banker, the digression is intriguing. This is his story.

Care and love can transform lives

Taking us back to 2010, to one evening in particular, Mohit recalls walking back home from college in Delhi, where he was pursuing his MBA. He was accompanied by his best friend Saanchi. The duo passed by two children playing on the street, observing how a tailor, who was possibly the boys’ father, kept one eye on his children while the other gazed steadily at the machine.

“Don’t you go to school?” Mohit quizzed Ajay, the elder of the two siblings. As Ajay relayed to him, he had never been to school. His family had come to Delhi from Madhya Pradesh, where he never had the opportunity to study. “Now, no school will take me,” he shrugged. As Mohit and Saanchi discovered, schools in Delhi would only admit Ajay once his academic knowledge matched the competencies of other children his age. And so, the best friends tasked themselves with a new challenge — to prep Ajay so well, that he would be ready for school.

What........

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