Activities

Social Responsibility 

Preadoptive Counselling: 

When we adopted, some of us were lucky to have friends who had adopted.  They helped us through the process.  Others did not know much about the process or the best way to prepare for adoption.  Thus Atmaja felt that Pre-Adoptive Counselling is a way to help parents and children through the initial stages of adoption.  Atmaja has developed a Workshop for couples who are thinking about adoption.  Atmaja has also prepared a booklet in English and Bengali which contains a lot of information full of essential information.

Legal Issues:

There are many legal problems facing those who adopt or wish to adopt.  One is the fact that working parents do not get the leave and other benefits that biological parents enjoy.  We have been advocating for this benefit at all forums.

Parallel Act:

Atmaja has been developing a Parallel Act for Adoption to address certain legal problems that are currently plaguing the issue of adoption.  First, as Adoption is under the Personal Laws of the country, only Hindus are able to adopt.  Yet Adoption is growing more and more popular among all communities.  Secondly, this act is more child-centric, gender-neutral and humane.  We are lobbying for this Act at the State level.  We have already met with legal experts, politicians, social activists and members of the State Legislative Assembly of West Bengal, including the Speaker of the House.  We hope to be in a position to introduce this Act at the state Legislative Assembly soon.