Sonam Delhiwala

Sonam is a rising senior at Tufts University studying Psychology and Spanish from Long Island, NY. She is excited and honored to be interning with WITNESS this summer in the Development department, working primarily on foundation grants and corporate sponsorships. Sonam finds working at WITNESS to be an invaluable experience — she has gained the opportunity to interview formerly incarcerated business owners and hear their accounts of the ways that the plagued carceral system has policed and controlled their lives. Sonam hopes to become a forensic social worker and work with children and families impacted by the system. She is passionate about the intersections of the criminal legal system, social identity, psychology, and child development. She is also a part of Tufts’ Education Reentry Network (MyTERN), a Tufts-accredited program that employs a trauma-informed and community-based approach to reentry. She will be a member of a cohort of 10 Tufts students who will co-learn alongside 10 formerly incarcerated people to engage with the idea of justice through a multidisciplinary lens.

Quote: “There are very few, if any, experiences related to this type of work that are more meaningful than having the opportunity to speak directly to formerly incarcerated people on how the systems of policing and surveillance have impacted their lives. WITNESS’ mission to amplify the voices of formerly incarcerated people is one that I find so crucial and admirable given that their voices are frequently drowned out by politicians and organizations who believe that individual pieces of reform are sufficient to dismantle a cruel system based on punishment and control.”