What Joyce Jayaseelan has come to learn in her 30- odd years as a family counsellor is that tenderness will take you far, for, those who are hardest to love are the ones who need it the most.

It is Joyce’s benevolent nature that helps her win hearts; to her, counselling is a means to help people forgive themselves.

Working in St John’s as a medical counsellor, Joyce also gives personality development classes and value education lessons in reputed colleges across the city.

In 2005, she was asked to visit the Central Jail and take some personality classes there. “I really didn’t want to go, it seemed so frightening,” she admits, laughing.

Joyce sits at the Family Welfare Centre in Museum Road, where she conducts a course on marriage once a month. “It was on my fourth or fifth visit to the prison that I began to understand the convicts better. Criminals are not born, they are always made,” she says.

As Joyce slowly became accustomed to the ways of the prisoners, she began to appreciate some of them. “Most of the people in a prison are not professional murderers or burglars,” she points out. “About 60% of them have been dragged into this by some emotional trauma.”

The shock of being brought to prison brings with it an epiphany, which is usually very hard to deal with. “That’s when we need to be there for them,” she says.

For Joyce, counselling has no rules, there is no theory. “Every person is different and needs a special method. Then he will bloom. There is a reason for everything. My job is to help these people see it too.” Love and affection, she realised, was what they needed above all else.

This is so even after they are released. There is often no room for them in society and the social stigma can be severe. “That’s why I counsel them even after they are released,” says Joyce.

She recalls an ex con who, after spending 12 years in jail, came out only to realise nobody wanted to accept him. “He managed to get a job and has met a woman he wants to marry. There are problems because her family knows about his past, but it looks like things will fall into place for them,” she says. These happy endings choke her up every time.

Her prison work doesn't end there. For years now, Joyce has been a regular at Premodaya and Suryodaya, shelters for girls and boys whose parents are serving life sentences.

Then there is Jeevodaya, a shelter for sex workers. To bring them back into the mainstream of society is no mean task. Easy money and a certain kind of glamour that goes with the job are strong attractions, more so when the alternative is working in a garment factory, earning a pittance.

The women need a spiritual turnaround that will help them come to terms with their lives. “Many of these women do pick themselves up, find jobs and get married. They have my phone number and call me in the middle of the night sometimes, if they need to.”

Finally, there are the children. Unhappy with their lot in life, angered by the unfairness of it all and embittered by the harsh struggle for survival, these kids are fierce rebels. For a ragpicker boy who manages to make a living with about Rs 80 a day, life is good. Drugs are easily available, as are prostitutes.

“Even children will visit prostitutes,” says Joyce. “Changing them is not easy at all. The Suryodaya brothers take them in, offer them good food and teach them some principles. We give them responsibility and slowly bring them out of their nefarious pasts.”

Persistence, patience and a belief in the innate goodness of every human being is what drives Joyce. The risks of her profession are obvious, but years of experience have helped Joyce hone her instincts beautifully. Her work transcends giving people food and shelter; she brings them the only thing that makes them want to carry on each morning with hope in their hearts - love.