Gender Equality India Project #5490

Empower Future Leaders from Mumbai Red-Light Areas

by Kranti

Project Report | Jul 11, 2014
I'm going to America!! :)

By Rani | Revolutionary

Sumaiya with her passport! :)

Hi Kranti Supporters,

I am Rani, 13, one of the youngest Revolutionaries. This is my first time to write a Global Giving report, and my English is not so great, so please read with patience. :) I want to tell you about the amazing, amazing summer we had at Kranti! I know for some countries, summer is just starting but in Asia our summer is over…because now the monsoon starts and school starts with the rain. Anyway, summer is gone, and we did just one thing alllll summer – go to summer camps!

The Kranti didis like to keep us busy. (Didi means big sister in Hindi – we call Kranti staff didis but they old enough to be aunty, not sister!) :) The didis think we will sit at home and annoy them all day, so they are always sending us to new places. In May, me and Sumaiya, the other 13-year-old Revolutionary, went to Bangalore for a water conservation camp. In this camp, we visit many slums, learn about city’s water problems and think of new ideas to save more water. Me and Sumaiya were the only kids not from Bangalore and everyone was soooo impress by us because we travel alone from Mumbai to Bangalore and then home. I was very happy too it was my first time to travel alone.

The older Revolutionaries went to other camps and trainings: two girls went to women’s rights training, two went to a Religion in India program with all international students and the oldest Revolutionary got to fly to a one week program about education for poor kids in India. I think our didis are right – we are learning just because we are traveling, meeting so many different people and going to these programs. All my school friends are having boring summer watching TV!

When we finish all these camps, we alllll went together for a camp that was run by Kranti! It was one week and it was in a very beautiful place, just under the Himalayas! (Photos below.) The camp was have 30 girls, all daughters of sex workers or from red-light areas. So for one week we learned much from each other, shared our stories, and had really fun classes. We even had secret angels or somebody secret who did nice things for us all week then on last day we find out who is our secret angel. We also had boring classes, like yoga and meditation! But it was very fun to meet so many girls with life stories and problems like mine. I hope we can see each other again.

And most exciting news I saved for last….me and Sumaiya are both going to international camps for one month!! I leave in two days and go for music and dance program in the US, and Sumaiya goes to UK for one month of English programs. Just like our water conservation camp, we were the only kids not from Bangalore, in both camps we will be the only Indians. I am soooo soooo soooo excited! But we are having many passport problems, and someone even wrote about our problems in the newspaper. So me and Sumaiya are excited that we are famous even before camp started. :)

Now you know all about Kranti’s summer! I hope your summer was good if it is done, and if it is starting I hope you have great summer. And if you have kids, please send them to fun camps and spend good time with them. I feel so lucky to have didis who do so much for us and spend so much time with us…I hope everyone is lucky to have such wonderful family. (We fight a lot too because Sumaiya steals my clothes and returns them without washing. It is a BIG problem at Kranti.) But we still have wonderful time together, laughing, traveling and fighting.

So thank you, every one of you who donates to Kranti, for making all these camps and everything else possible. I hope you will keep supporting us for many years!

Love,
Rani

Our workshop site in Himalayas

Me and with my aunty in Himachal Pradesh

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Mar 24, 2014
Newsletter March 2014

By Kavita Hosmani | Revolutionary

Kavita at Sambhaavna Institute, Himachal Pradesh.

Dear Kranti supporters,

I would like to introduce myself- I am Kavita. Hosmani, the newest revolutionary of Kranti. I am 19 years old and have just finished my 12^th grade. I am hoping that being part of Kranti, I will be able to study further. At the moment, I take many classes to improve my English, as well as attend Dance Movement Therapy and Theatre classes with the rest of the revolutionaries. I am going to share with you the many things that we have done in the last few months.

To begin with, we have been having a series of classes on social justice topics such as poverty, gender, sexuality, human rights, capitalism, colonialism, religion and many more. This has given me the chance to understand the society that I live in again and also, to learn from the other revolutionaries about the issues they have faced in their lives such as discrimination and marginalization.

In January, one of our revolutionaries, Asmita Katti attended the Indian Youth Jam Training 2014 in Bangalore, where she learnt had the chance to meet with participants from all over India. She, also, listened to many change-makers about their stories, and how they are making the world a better place slowly. Even I attended a training in Himachal Pradesh to learn about community media. I am particularly fascinated by how local communities are setting up local radio stations to communicate and discuss local issues.

As part of Kranti’s work is to support LGBT rights, we took part in the pride march to protest the Supreme Court’s judgement to recriminalize homosexuality. During the march, we met with people from different NGOs and it was nice to see the LGBT community working together.

Since LGBT rights is so important to us, we discussed it in our play ‘Humans of Kamathipura’. This play was performed in many places since January such as the Goa Project 2014, Ink Women and FICCI Frames 2014. The audience loved our work and we kept having people coming and talk to us about our performance. It felt so good when people came and told us nice things about our work- it gave us confidence to continue with our theatre project.

Also, Shweta Katti, the first girl from Mumbai’s redlight area to go and study at a US university, came down to India. She gave a talk on her experiences and her life at TEDxNMIMS- we are waiting for the TEDx video to come out on Youtube so that we can share it with you.

So many things are happening in our lives and we are extremely excited. Thank you from all of us for your generosity, and we hope you will continue to support us.

Thank you,

Kavita.H

Krantikaries at INK Women 2014

Krantikaries at The Goa Project 2014

When Shweta Katti came to Mumbai...

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Dec 30, 2013
A Happy, Revolutionary New Year!!

By Pinky Sheikh | Revolutionary

Me at the Tiger's Nest in Bhutan!

Dear Kranti Supporters,

My name is Pinky, I am 17 and I was the first Revolutionary to come to Kranti when Kranti opened. It is 3 years this month. I can't believe it!! I also can’t believe that 2013 is gone! It has been a crazy, exciting and sometimes difficult year for all of us at Kranti, but we have done many big things we are very proud and happy about. I hope it is the same for you! For 2014, all the Revolutionaries will take turns writing Global Giving reports, so I am writing for November/December. There is just one word to explain these two months. BUSY!! The three big reasons why we were busy: 1.) Bhutan 2.) Play 3.) Exams.

Most of November, we were in Bhutan. Bhutan was beautiful and it was cold. This is all I remember. We spent many days in Thimphu, the capital of Bhutan. Because we are from Mumbai, the city looked like a small village to us, there are such few people! We visited some NGOs in Thimpu, one working for women who run away from home because their husbands beat them, one for saving tigers in India and Bhutan and one for people who have problems with drinking. Then we went trekking in the mountains for five days – it was -25C!!! We slept in tents at night. It was beautiful. But too cold. The most amazing thing we did in Bhutan was climb the Tiger’s Nest – it is a Buddhist monastery on a stone cliff, 3,000 feet high! It took us almost 3 hours to climb. Photos below!

When we came home from Bhutan, we have been sooooo busy because we are doing a play and we performed all over Mumbai. In this play, every girl tells a story connected to her life – Sumaiya plays a girl being trafficked because her mom was trafficked at nine, Sheetal plays a bar dancer because her mother danced in bars for ten years, Rani plays a girl whose principal won’t take her in school because everyone treats girls like us as if we are too “dirty” to go to normal schools, etc. We performed this play in many places, like in front of sex workers, at Mumbai’s most famous theater, and at a conference. When we were getting ready, we worked almost four hours a day for rehearsal! But we are glad we worked hard – allllll the audiences loved us! :)

And last, we are busy because we have many exams in late December. In India, final exams are in March. So in January, February and March, all children do nothing but study! At Kranti we are trying to cut some activities so we are not busy and can spend time on studying. We girls are excited that 2014 that will start slowly.

Thank you from alllll of us at Kranti for making 2013 such a wonderful year for all of us. I hope you will keep supporting us and all of our dreams in 2014. Happy New Year!!

Thank you,
Pinky

Sightseeing in Bhutan

Camping in tents

Tired from trekking!

Theater rehearsal

Final rehearsal on stage!

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