Sonia Mackwani is a young award-winning Social Entrepreneur,
an Author, a Psychic Healer, a Therapist, Trainer/ Mentor, Script-writer and an
upcoming film-maker.
She is the Founder- Director
of Touching Lives, a Mumbai based NGO working for the education, empowerment
and enlightenment of children – with the vision to have every child become an
‘Independent Learner’.
A TEDx
Speaker, her books, meditation CDs, free online programs and trainings help to
raise funds for supporting education and mental health of children at Touching
Lives and also building capacity in every mentor to become a conscious leader.
Accolades and
Recognition
·
WON #100 Women Achievers
of India by Ministry of Women & Child Development 2015 in category of
‘Education’ and will be felicitated at a lunch gathering
with President of India.
·
Awarded the World Women
Leadership Award at the World Women Leadership Congress 2015
·
Emerged among the TOP 5 Mercedes
Benz A Class Achievers 2014
·
National Level Screenwriter Award by MAAC & Shamiana Short-Film Club
for her socially inclined script – ‘The Play’ 2015
·
Noble Laureate Award – Karmaveer Puraskaar by iCongo - CNBC Young Turk Transformer - Social
Entrepreneur Category 2011
·
Gaurav Puraskaar 2011
·
Aga Khan Youth Award for Excellence
in Leadership 2007
·
Aga Khan Social Role Model Award
2009
About Touching Lives
Sonia
was only 21 when she started ‘Touching Lives’ in 2003. She was then,
simultaneously pursuing her education in Psychology from Mithibai College and
then further her Masters in Clinical Psychology from University of Mumbai.
Sonia also did her Masters in Clinical Hypnotherapy.
She
started Touching Lives with the foundational value in her heart that – ‘It is
completely our need to serve than saying, we serve the needy.’ And this value
stays strong in the ethics of the organization even today.
Sonia
wrote two books then, to support Touching Lives financially and to register it
under The Bombay Public Trust Act in 2006. She conducted tuitions &
workshops on Psychology, Meditation & other spiritual concepts to raise
funds and at the same time continue her inner journey of evolution. She was
also a Trustee of Atmaviswas Vidyalaya – a residential mental rehabilitation
centre in Valsad, Gujarat training the care-takers and supporting the inmates.
Nature & Work of
Touching Lives
With
her ideology of seeing every human as a supreme potential to contribute in this
universe, she developed Meta-Quantum Learning Model that focuses on supporting
every child to become a ‘whole’ human – that is, providing them and their
families with therapeutic interventions towards learning and education and
become a successful individual socially, economically, mentally, physically,
spiritually & aesthetically.
VISION is to have every child
become an ‘INDEPENDENT L(E)ARNER”
MISSION is to set up quality
resource centres (generally termed as Learning Centre & Community Centre)
that allow children to recover, discover and do what they realize for
themselves and for the world.
EDUCATION,
EMPOWERMENT & ENLIGHTENMENT, is our GOAL.
BRIEF BACKGROUND
Touching
Lives is a non-profit organization dedicated to Education, Empowerment and
Enlightenment of children living in the slums of Mumbai. The organization runs
independent learning centres. The committed children, aged 5 - 21, gain
supplementary education through several learning programs. There is a cycle of
7 learning programs; starting from Community Beginners to Beginners Program,
Preschool, Afterschool, Transit, Dream Project, Pay-It-forward Program. This
allows the children to become independent and successful professionals in their
chosen area. They could even be the future generation of leaders at your
organization.
Touching
Lives also supports other NGOs and schools both in rural and urban areas
through teacher training and mentoring programs.
In 2015,
we supported 250 children and over a period of next 5 years, we intend to
support number of communities, children & their parents.
Her Books and
Publications
·
Sonia has written two
children’s books -Tales from Indian
Mythology - Mahabharata (4
Volumes) and Tales from Indian Mythology
- Ramayana (2 Volumes). They were published in 2006 by Magna Publications
and were selected for the Frankfurt Book Fair during that year.
·
Everyone Can Heal, her debut non-fiction
book of guided healing processes, released world-wide in 2014 digitally and
paperback in 2005 by Leadstart Publishing. The book was graciously launched and
unveiled in the presence of renowned Indian Playback Singer – Rekha Bhardwaj
ji.
She currently has couple of fiction books on her desk.
Her Edu-Media
Initiatives
Power Minutes (Five Minutes’ Guided Meditation) with
Times Music
An audio-visual album for effective meditation
– conceptualised by Sonia and recorded in her voice, released March’2015.
Social Awareness Films
Sonia’s script was selected and adapted into a
short-film amongst 450 scripts from all over India in a National Scriptwriting
Competition by MAAC & Shamiana Short-films for its socially inclined
concept. The film was termed as one of the most expensive short-films in Indian
Cinema. The short -film ABC, wins the Special Jury Award @ the 4th Delhi Shorts
International Film festival '15.
*more links attached in another word file – Media Links_Sonia Mackwani
Her Therapeutic World
(as a Psychic Healer & Trainer/Mentor)
Her
practice involves training people and facilitating their journey towards
highest consciousness through Counselling, Reiki, Master-Reconnection which is
a healing process founded by her, Family Constellation and other intuitive
ancient healing and wisdom modalities including ‘Birthing Into Being’ which is
about conscious birthing, healing birth traumas and helping an adult too, to
break-free from old limiting patterns. This helps to develop a strong
relationship and foundation for a whole, successful and conscious human being.
Press and Media
Stories
of her inspiring journey have been featured in various print and electronic
media including Times of India, Dainik Bhaskar, Afternoon Dispatch, Savvy
Magazine, Seventeen Magazine, Meri Saheli, CNBC News Channel, Etv, Chitralekha
and many more.
*attached Media Links_Sonia Mackwani
Other Project and
Collaborations
Sonia
is currently working as a screenplay, story assistant & producer in an international
film with an acclaimed Brazilian film-maker Marcos Negrao for his global film
project called Child of Nature. The film also captures stories of children of
Touching Lives representing India as a space of wisdom in the field.
Her director’s
assistantship with a Sundance Award winning Bollywood film director Sarthak
Dasgupta is in the pipeline.
She is
on the move of making her own debut short-film on social awareness, inspiration
and contribution and which will go under production in 2016.
Her Studies Now:
Besides
her writing, she is intending to pursue learning film-making, singing for more
creative expressions for contributing towards humanity and raising funds
through that.
Her Vision & Plans
To
build schools & therapeutic- learning centres where children, parents and
communities come together to develop a child who is mentally, physically,
emotionally, spiritually, aesthetically, economically, socially successful and
who becomes a conscious contribution on this planet.
