Kranti empowers girls from Mumbai's red-light areas to become agents of social change. This project will be the first theater created by and for the red-light area, directly addressing the community's biggest issues: sexual abuse, gender-based violence, police brutality, and other human rights issues. The community theater program, in addition to being empowering and therapeutic, will also be one of the most innovative tools for changing mindsets about sex work and red-light area communities.
Kranti (Revolution) empowers girls from Mumbai's red-light areas (Revolutionaries) to become agents of social change. We provide therapy, education, leadership training, and the skills necessary to tackle problems within their communities and also the world. The Revolutionaries (girls ages 13-19) plan to tackle their community's biggest problems through theater - by empowering their mothers and dozens of other sex workers to confront customers, institutions, policies and other injustices.
Community theater is leadership training through music, dance, movement and storytelling. This training will enable the girls to create their own theater projects and partner with various stakeholders in their community such as schools, businesses and community leaders. By engaging with these partners, Kranti hopes to sensitize the local community on gender equality and social justice issues while simultaneously empowering women from the red-light area to tackle their own challenges.
In 2013, the accomplishments of 10 Revolutionaries were covered by NYT, CNN and BBC. In just 3 short years, one Revolutionary has become India's first girl from a red-light area to study abroad, one is the first Indian selected for a prestigious performing arts program in the US, and all of the Revolutionaries have given public speeches in front of audiences ranging from 500 to 5,000. Within 5 years, Kranti will be known for developing India's most marginalized girls into its best leaders.