By Trina Talukdar:
Music Mondays, TED Talk Tuesdays, Worldly Wednesdays, Thinking Thursdays, Field Trip Fridays – imagine if all our school timetables had looked that way growing up!
This is the timetable of Kranti – a school for daughters of sex workers from Mumbai’s infamous Red Light area, Kamatipura. Kranti is a Mumbai-based organization that transforms marginalized girls into agents of social change. It supports the girls in a safe home, with individual therapy to overcome their trauma, and an education program that not only teaches them Math, Science, Language, but teaches them how to change the world!
Kranti School is where they learn the knowledge and leadership skills to put their passion into practice.
In just over 5 years, we have already seen many social change leaders emerge from Kranti – Shweta Katti became the first girl from India’s Red Light Area to win a scholarship to a US University, and won the UN Youth Courage Award for fighting for education for young people, Sheetal became a drum circle facilitator and music therapist after benefiting from music therapy herself, the girls have delivered TEDx talks, performed theater to audiences of over 100,000 in India and in the US, spreading awareness about issues like sex trafficking, gender discrimination and child sexual abuse.
Kranti’s co-founder, Robin Chaurasiya, is on the Top 10 list of Finalists for The Global Teacher Prize – a prize considered to be the Nobel Prize for teachers.
Also watch, Robin Chaurasiya at CONVERGE 2015, talking about her experience of working with the US Air Force, and being kicked out the day they learned that she was a lesbian and later joining Kranti. With her, is Farah Shaikh, a 21-year-old teacher who as the daughter of a sex worker, survivor of attempted female foeticide, the victim of Gujarat riots, is working to redefine education for marginalized communities.
