Week 2: Meet Sujatha Baliga
Sujatha Baliga was one of our residents in 2018. She is the director of the Restorative Justice Project at Impact Justice, helping communities implement non-punitive alternatives to mass criminalization. She is dedicated to advancing restorative justice to end sexual and intra-familial violence, and was named a MacArthur Fellow in 2019. From Sujatha:
“My writing about restorative justice and forgiveness requires finding the through-line from suffering to healing to transcendence. I’m writing a book about forgiving my father for the decade of sexual abuse I endured as a child — a beautifully liberating but sometimes painful task. Chapter One begins with the words ‘Before I tell you how I forgave, I have to tell you what I forgave.’ That sentence sat alone on the page for many years, until I opened my computer at The Mesa Refuge.
In my sun-drenched cabin, watching the rise and fall of the tides over my laptop screen, I was able to not just experience, but feel, how life changes. The care expressed in the details of my living environment made me feel safe and loved enough to write the hardest parts of what that chapter demanded of me. I’m deeply grateful to The Mesa Refuge for the physical manifestation of the kindness I needed to make headway on my book.”
In the video below, produced by the MacArthur Foundation, Sujatha’s work expanding access to survivor-centered restorative justice strategies that interrupt the criminalization of people of color and break cycles of recidivism and violence is featured.
Please help us support change makers like Sujatha by donating to the Shelter Fund during this extraordinary time.
