Nandana Sen signs up as an ambassador for NGO RAHI

Nandana Sen is doing her bit towards charity. She has now been signed up as the Cause Ambassador for an NGO called RAHI (Recovery and Healing from Incest). She will be in charge of raising awareness of the widespread trauma of child abuse, and working with its survivors. Talking about her 'role' in this association, she said, ''Healing is often harder for men than it is for women. For males, the biggest obstacle is their reluctance to talk about it. In our society, men have been conditioned to believe by definition that they must always be aggressive rather than helpless. Since a 'real' man is expected to never accept he could be a 'victim,' men fear that acknowledging their trauma would threaten their masculinity.'' She also exhibited her stand on the dreaded issue of 'incest' by stating that the hiding the pain of the victims' abuse often leads to male survivors experiencing great confusion over their sexual identities and orientation. She added that, ''Some survivors become intolerably homophobic and some unhealthily aggressive. Disastrously, masculinity and power often get confused with abusiveness. For both men and women, the first step towards healing is breaking the silence about their abuse." For starters, she has just wrapped up a UNIFEM-sponsored short film called Chuppee, which deals with the subject of the sensitive topic of child sexual abuse. Way to go, Nandana.