This story is about Soniya Chowdhary who survived an acid attack and now wishes to set up her own salon. A decade ago, Soniya had purchased a mobile phone from a man and later found that the unit was stolen. The man was arrested and blamed Soniya for sending him to jail. He sought revenge by attacking Soniya with acid.
It’s been a year now, and Soniya wants to make a change. She believes that nothing should deter one from achieving their goals. So she decided to open a beauty salon of her own. Soniya completed her training from the Shehnaz Hussain Institute and wants to help people to look and feel their best.
To help Soniya in setting up her salon, a group of students from a Delhi-based college, Miranda House are raising funds. Dindi Padi, one of the students who is helping raise funds told a daily, “We conducted a survey to know if people will like to go to a salon, which is run by acid attack survivors, and received (sic) a positive feedback because all they were interested in was quality services. This gave us the courage to go ahead with our plan.”
The group is interested in raising money to build a sustainable business that will help Soniya achieve her goal. The parlor will be named “Astitva” which means “existence.” Soniya has set an example by thinking out of the box, encouraging acid attack survivors like her. Soniya is also keen on working with domestic violence survivors. Soniya is truly a fighter!
