My name is Pradhan Thandra, and I am a graduate student in Clinical Mental Health Counseling at Wheaton College. I am raising support to complete my master’s degree and clinical training so I can become a licensed professional counselor serving people shaped by grief, trauma, migration, caste-based wounds, and spiritual pain.

I come from a Dalit Christian background in India, from a marginalized community within India’s caste hierarchy. My faith gave me dignity and helped me believe that I was created in the image of God. That conviction now shapes my calling: to help others recover dignity, healing, and hope.

Before pursuing counseling, I spent over a decade working as a trainer, coach, designer, researcher, and creative strategist in public health, advertising, and social innovation. My work exposed me to people and communities carrying deep emotional burdens. Over time, my own experiences of grief, loss, migration, and trauma helped me see that I wanted to move from designing systems and stories to sitting with people’s stories directly.

I came to the United States to pursue graduate training in counseling and began my studies at Trinity International University with significant scholarship support. But when Trinity announced its closure, counseling students had to transfer. This unexpected disruption created a major financial gap after I had already invested my savings, relocated internationally, and begun rebuilding my life around this calling.

I was able to continue at Wheaton College. Despite grief, cultural transition, financial uncertainty, and the pressure of being a first-generation international graduate student, I have maintained a 4.0 GPA. I am now training in trauma-informed care, grief counseling, family systems, play therapy, multicultural counseling, ethics, research, and clinical practice.

I am doing everything I can to support myself responsibly. I work multiple campus jobs. But even with work, scholarships, and careful planning, the remaining tuition burden is more than I can carry alone.

My remaining tuition need for Summer 2026, Fall 2026, and Spring 2027 is approximately $30,000, about $10,000 per semester.

Your support would help me stay in school, complete my practicum and internship, and move toward becoming a licensed counselor. My long-term hope is to serve Christians, immigrants, Dalit communities, and others carrying hidden wounds of grief, intergenerational trauma, displacement, shame, and systemic injustice.

I am not seeking support simply to earn another degree. I am seeking support to continue a calling that has already required me to cross countries, careers, and seasons of grief. Any gift, large or small, will help me continue this journey with stability and hope.

Thank you for believing in this calling and helping equip me to serve others through counseling, faith, justice, and compassion.