The Better India · 35 days ago

3 Friends Are Giving 11000+ Prisoners in Indian Jails the Chance They Deserve

When Mohit Raj first walked into Delhi's Tihar Jail in 2017, he saw what years of working with marginalized communities had already taught him: "access to justice is a prerogative of the privileged." Together with friends Saanchi Marwaha and Eleena Jeorge, he founded Project Second Chance on a radical premise -- that the people best equipped to transform prison systems are those who have lived inside them. The initiative now integrates former inmates as leaders who design solutions from lived experience: Avneesh runs a helpline connecting ex-convicts with mental health support and job opportunities, Karan researches climate-resilient prisons, and Rahul built a technology platform linking prisoners with pro bono lawyers. What distinguishes their work is a recognition that "only someone who had spent that amount of time in prison and lived that experience is capable of empathizing with it," turning prisons from spaces of punishment into laboratories of human dignity where over 11,500 people have been given not just a second chance, but the pen to write their own story.